Traffic Light and Nutrient Guides Fat, Sugar and Salt

Making healthy choices when shopping for food isn’t always that easy, especially if you’re buying food that’s been processed in any way. Although nutritional labels can be helpful by informing you how many calories a product contains, or how much fat it has per portion, sometimes you need to read the small print just to find out whether something is really high in fat, sugar or calories.

For example, some products might be promoted as being reduced in fat, but it could still be a high fat product. And of course, manufacturers aren’t going to advertise this aspect. Instead, you can get a clearer idea of whether a product is high or low in fat, sugar or calories, by inspecting the nutritional label and looking for the amounts per 100g.

The table below can give you an idea of what amounts are considered, high, medium or low per 100g for sugar, fat and salt.

Nutrient per 100g	High	Medium	Low
Sugars	Over 15g	5g - 15g	5g and below
Fat	Over 20g	3g – 20g	3g and below
Saturated Fat	Over 5g	1g – 5g	1.5g and below
Salt	Over 1.5g	0.3g – 1.5g	0.3g and below

 Source: Food and Drink Federation

The table below shows how many grams per day the average healthy, normal weight person needs of the various different nutrients commonly found on nutrition labels.

Daily Guidelines for Different Nutrients
Typical Values	Women	Men	Children (5-10 years)
Calories	2,000 kcal	2,500 kcal	1,800 kcal
Protein	45g	55g	24g
Carbohydrate	230g	300g	220g
Sugars	90g	120g	85g
Fat	70g	95g	70g
Saturates	20g	30g	20g
Fibre	24g	24g	15g
Salt	6g	6g	4g

Source: Food and Drink Federation

So next time you're unsure whether something has too much salt, fat or sugar to be considered healthy, just look at the amounts per 100g and make an informed judgement for yourself.

© Diets and Calories 2011