How to Use Food Labels to Prevent Heart Disease

Browsing the aisles of the grocery store? There are simple steps you can take to look out for your heart's health.

Fruits and vegetables, olive oil, fish, lean meats, beans, and nuts are easy picks. You already know they’re great for you.

But when you’re buying packaged foods, you’ll want to check the nutrition label to know what you’re getting. Pay special attention to these things:

Serving size. It may be smaller than you think. If your serving is bigger, you’ll get more calories, fat, salt, and anything else that’s in the food.

You’ll also see percentages on the label. Those show you what percentage you get of your daily recommended amount, called your “Daily Value” or “DV,” from a serving. For example, it might say one serving will give you 40% of the salt you can get in an entire day, so you can limit salt for the rest of the day.

Keep in mind that the Daily Value is based on you getting 2,000 calories a day. That’s more than many people need, especially women or those trying to lose weight. So you may need to adjust for the number of calories you actually eat.

Fat. All fat is not the same. Some types, like the omega-3s in salmon, tuna, mackerel, walnuts, and flaxseeds, are good for you. Others will clog up your arteries, which can make a heart attack more likely. So when you check the label, you need to know what you’re looking at when it comes to fat.

Nutrition labels break out saturated, unsaturated, and trans fat. If a food is high in fat but it is mostly unsaturated fat, it can still be good for you.

Still, you need to limit fats, even the ones that are good for you:

• All fat you eat should account for no more 35% of your daily calories.
• Saturated fat (found in animal products) should make up less than 10%.
• Avoid trans fat. Some items that say they are “trans fat free” can still have up to 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. So check the ingredients list for hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, which are trans fats.

Sodium. Too much will raise your blood pressure, which puts wear and tear on your blood vessels. What’s too much varies based on things including your age, race, and whether you have high blood pressure. At most, you would get 2,300 milligrams a day, which is about 1 teaspoon of salt. It’s even less, 1,500 milligrams per day, for people who are:

• Over 50
• African-American
• Have high blood pressure, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease (Keep in mind that a lot of people have these conditions and don’t know it. So if you’re not sure, ask your doctor.)

Nutrition labels tell you how much sodium is in a food, and check the ingredients list, too. Many types of sodium may be hiding there, including sodium nitrate, sodium citrate, monosodium glutamate, and sodium benzoate.

Sugar. When you eat too much, your body stores it as a type of fat in your blood called triglycerides, says Kacie Vavrek, a cardiovascular nutritionist at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. High triglycerides can put you at a higher risk for heart disease.

Food labels now show how much sugar is added. You can also check the ingredients list for things like corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, corn sweetener, and nearly any word ending in “ose,” such as dextrose, fructose, maltose, and sucrose.

Sugar is in many products, including some you might not expect, like salad dressing and ketchup. So check, even on items you don’t think of as being sweet. Compare different products and limit how much you get.

Fiber. It cuts down on “bad” cholesterol levels and lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Vavrek recommends that you look for at least 2 or 3 grams per serving of fiber in cereal and bread products. Again, check the ingredients list. You should see the word “whole” in front of wheat, barley, oats, rye, and corn. Sometimes even brown bread is not packed with whole grains and instead is just processed white bread.