Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs)
Nutrition labels can also provide information on how a particular food or drink product fits into your daily diet.
Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) are guidelines about the approximate amount of particular nutrients and calories required for a healthy diet.
Because individual requirements for calories and nutrients are different for all people, GDAs are not intended as targets. Instead they are intended to give a useful indication of how a particular nutrient or amount of calories fits into your daily diet.
Information on the GDA, and the contribution a nutrient makes towards a GDA (expressed as a percentage) can usually be found on the back or side of packaging. The % GDA can also sometimes be repeated on the front of the pack.
For example, the label above shows that this pack will provide you with 1.5 grams of salt which represents 25% of your Guideline Daily Amount for salt. In other words, this pack contains about a quarter of an adult's Guideline Daily Amount of salt.
Unless otherwise specified on the packaging, the %GDA values are based on an average size woman doing an average amount of physical activity. For more information on what GDA values are based on, visit the Institute of Grocery Distribution website.
Traffic light colour coding
Some front of pack nutrition labels use red, amber and green (traffic light) colour coding.
Traffic light colour coding, as shown in the image above, tells you at a glance if the food has high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.
- red means high
- amber means medium
- green means low
In short, the more green lights, the healthier the choice.
If you buy a food that has all or mostly green lights, you know straight away that it's a healthier choice. An amber light means neither high nor low, so you can eat foods with all or mostly amber lights most of the time. But a red light means the food is high in fat, saturated fat, salt or sugars and these are the foods we should cut down on. Try to eat these foods less often and in small amounts.
Ingredients list
Most pre-packed food products also have a list of ingredients on the packaging or on an attached label. The ingredients list can also help you work out how healthy the product is.
Ingredients are listed in order of weight, so the main ingredients in the packaged food always come first. That means that if the first few ingredients are high-fat ingredients, such as cream, butter or oil, then the food in question is a high-fat food.
Shopping tips
You're standing in the supermarket aisle looking at two similar products, trying to decide which to choose. You want to make the healthier choice but you're in a hurry.
If you're buying ready meals, check to see if there's a nutrition label on the front of the pack, and then see how your choices stack up when it comes to the number of calories and the amount of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.
If the nutrition labels use traffic light colours, you will often find a mixture of red, amber and greens. So, when you're choosing between similar products, try to go for more greens and ambers, and fewer reds, if you want to make the healthier choice.
But remember that even healthier ready meals may be higher in fat and calories than the home-made equivalent. If you make the meal yourself, you could save money, too.
Labelling terms and food safety
To find out more about food labels, including what terms such as 'light/lite' and 'low fat' mean, and the difference between 'use by' and 'best before', read Food labelling terms.