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don’t make it easy for you, so listen up. There are two parts to a label, both of which contain vital information:

    â€¢Â  The Nutrition Facts panel lists the serving size, number of calories in a serving—a 12-ounce bottle of soda or another beverage may actually be two or more servings—and the amounts of macronutrients, including carbs, fat, and protein, both in grams and as a percentage of the recommended Daily Value. Ditto for certain micronutrients, including fiber and some vitamins. Remember to subtract grams of fiber (and sugar alcohols, in the case of low-carb foods) from total grams of carbs to get the Net Carbs. Our example, for a major brand of creamy peanut butter, lists 0 trans fats per serving and 3 grams of sugar.
    â€¢Â  The ingredient list includes everything in the product, in order of volume. Here’s where you might find one of the umpteen aliases for sugar (see page 70 )—in this case, both sugar and molasses appear—or other unacceptable ingredients. Although the Nutrition Facts panel lists 0 grams of trans fats per serving—a loophole allows this as long as there is less than 0.5 grams per serving—the ingredient list includes another unacceptable ingredient, hydrogenated vegetable oil, aka trans fats.
HOW TO ID ADDED SUGAR
    Packaged food labels don’t make it easy for you to judge whether the sugar in a product is added or naturally occurring. You can distinguish whether a product has naturally occurring sugar, added sugar, or both. But when it contains both kinds, there’s no way to know how much of each, as this example shows.
    1. The Nutrition Facts panel lists the number of grams of sugar in a serving. In the case of a 6-ounce container of Dannon Fruit on the Bottom Mixed Berry Yogurt, which is made with low-fat milk, the label lists 27 grams of sugar.
    2. When you look at the list of ingredients, you’ll see that the first ingredient is low-fat milk, which contains naturally occurring sugars. But, tellingly, fructose syrup and sugar are listed before blueberries, which is followed by high-fructose corn syrup. Ingredients are listed in order of highest content, meaning there are more of these two added sugars than a key fruit.
    3. So we’ve learned that there are lots of added sugars in this supposedly nutritious food, but we have no way to quantify the added sugar as opposed to the naturally occurring sugar.
    This single example makes a strong case for having the Nutrition Facts panel distinguish between the two kinds of sugar.
    THE SCOOP ON SUGAR: A GLOSSARY OF SWEETS
    The terminology used to describe the absence or presence of sugar can be confusing, especially when you’re new to low-carb eating and trying to make smart buying decisions. A few definitions should cut through the doublespeak.
    â€¢Â  Added sugar is not integral to the product. An apple comes by sugar naturally in the form of fructose, but when that fructose is used in a cookie, for example, it constitutes added sugar. You want to avoid all added sugars, sometimes referred to as “hidden sugars.”
    â€¢Â  Low (or reduced) sugar suggests that there is less added sugar than is typical in a product, but it still contains added sugar. Avoid such products.
    â€¢Â  Natural sugar is a term likely to appear on the labels of health food store products. Whether honey, molasses, or agave syrup, natural sugar is still sugar.
    â€¢Â  No added sugar means that a food contains only integral sugars. Examples would be any raw or cooked vegetable, fruit, whole grains, or unflavored dairy products.
    â€¢Â  No table sugar merely means that a food contains no sucrose, but very likely it contains other natural or processed sugars. Again, sugar is sugar.
    â€¢Â  Sugar free asserts that a food contains no natural sugars, whether integral or added. Only oils, fats, and a few types of meat and other protein sources are naturally sugar free.

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