Decoding food labels: understanding gluten-free, all-natural, organic, kosher and more
Written By Martin Ebner
Last updated October 2026
Pick up two yogurts and the labels can make them look like completely different foods. One gives the figures per serving, the other per 100 grams. One has HIGH PROTEIN written across the front, while the other contains more protein in the portion you’d eat. You only wanted breakfast. Somehow, you’re now doing maths in the dairy aisle.
Food labels shouldn’t require this much effort. The useful information is there, but it’s mixed in with serving sizes, percentages, coloured ratings and claims designed to catch your eye. You aren’t expected to understand every additive or find the nutritionally perfect product. You need to know how much you’ll eat, what you get from that amount and whether the food does the job you’re buying it for.
Once you can answer those three questions, most of the noise disappears. If the food fits, put it in the trolley and move on.
START WITH THE AMOUNT YOU’LL EAT
The figures only mean something when you know what quantity they describe. In the United States, the Nutrition Facts panel usually leads with a serving size. In the European Union, most prepacked foods show the values per 100 grams or 100 millilitres, and many also provide them per portion.
A serving size isn’t an instruction. It’s a reference amount, and it may have very little to do with what you normally eat. A packet can look fairly modest until you notice that it contains three servings and you’ve been treating the whole thing as one. Eat twice the listed amount and you get twice the calories, protein, sugar, fat and everything else on the panel. The FDA’s guide to the Nutrition Facts label explains how serving sizes and Daily Values work.
There’s no reason to weigh every meal forever. If you have no idea what your usual bowl of cereal, handful of nuts or spoonful of peanut butter weighs, measure it once or twice. That gives the label some meaning, then you can get on with eating.
COMPARE LIKE WITH LIKE
Serving sizes can vary between brands, so they’re often a rotten way to compare two products. The per 100 gram column puts them on equal ground. If you’re choosing between two yogurts, cereals, breads or ready meals, start there.
Keep the comparison sensible. Olive oil will always look spectacularly high in calories beside yogurt because they’re completely different foods eaten in completely different amounts. Compare products that could realistically replace one another. Once you’ve chosen one, use your likely portion to work out what will end up on your plate.
CALORIES MATTER, BUT THEY DON’T TELL THE WHOLE STORY
Calories tell you how much energy a food provides. They matter if you’re trying to lose fat, maintain your weight or eat enough to support hard training. They don’t tell you whether the food is nutritious, filling or a good choice for that particular meal.
A lower-calorie option isn’t automatically better. It may contain less protein and fibre, leave you hungry and make little sense for the meal you’re building. Nuts, olive oil and nut butter sit at the other end. They’re energy dense and easy to underestimate, but that doesn’t make them poor foods. Read the number in the context of your goal and the amount you’ll eat. I’ve covered why this distinction matters in fat loss vs weight loss.
FOCUS ON THE NUTRIENTS THAT MATTER FOR THAT FOOD
Not every line deserves the same attention. What matters depends on what you’re buying and why.
PROTEIN
If you’re buying something as a protein source, look at the grams in the amount you’ll eat. HIGH PROTEIN across the front can be technically correct without making the product particularly impressive. Ten grams may be handy in a snack and underwhelming in a main meal.
Your total across the day matters more than one badge on one packet. If you’d like a realistic daily target, read how much protein do you need?
FIBRE
Fibre supports digestion and helps meals feel more satisfying. It’s often one of the meaningful differences between wholegrain and more refined versions of bread, cereal and pasta.
Compare similar foods and favour the one with more fibre when the rest of the label still suits you. The highest number doesn’t always win. Manufacturers can add isolated fibre to a product, so it still makes sense to look at the food as a whole.
SATURATED FAT AND SALT
These are worth watching across your overall diet, particularly if you eat plenty of packaged food, takeaways or processed meat. They aren’t reasons to panic over one meal. Use the numbers to spot patterns and compare similar products.
On a US label, 5% of the Daily Value is considered low and 20% is high. European labels use reference intakes differently, so don’t try to make the two systems match perfectly.
TOTAL SUGAR AND ADDED SUGAR AREN’T THE SAME THING
Fruit, milk and plain yogurt contain naturally occurring sugar. That doesn’t make them nutritionally interchangeable with sweets or fizzy drinks. The rest of the food matters, including its protein, fibre, water, vitamins and minerals.
US labels separate total sugars from added sugars. Most European nutrition panels show total sugars, so you’ll need the ingredients list to see whether sugar, syrup, honey or fruit concentrate has been added. “No added sugar” doesn’t mean sugar-free, and it certainly doesn’t mean calorie-free.
I wouldn’t waste time memorising fifty-six different names for sugar. If several forms appear near the top of the ingredient list, you have your answer. A small amount in an otherwise decent food isn’t a crisis either. Look at how much is present, what else the product gives you and how often you eat it.
READ THE INGREDIENTS WITHOUT FEARING THEM
Ingredients are generally listed from the greatest amount to the smallest by weight. If sugar is first in a packet of biscuits, sugar is the largest ingredient. That’s worth knowing if the front has spent most of its space talking about oats and wholesome mornings.
The old rule about avoiding anything with more than five ingredients can go in the bin. A vegetable soup with beans, herbs and spices can have a long list. A product with four ingredients can still be mostly sugar and fat. The length tells you how many ingredients are present, not whether the food deserves a place in your kitchen.
Chemical-sounding names aren’t proof of danger either. Ascorbic acid is vitamin C. Citric acid occurs naturally in citrus fruit and is also used to control acidity. Read the list for information you can use, particularly the main ingredients, allergens and anything you know doesn’t agree with you. You aren’t required to conduct a laboratory investigation beside the trolley.
The European Commission’s food-labelling guidance confirms that EU ingredients appear in descending order by weight and that major allergens must be clearly highlighted.
THE FRONT SELLS THE FOOD, THE BACK EXPLAINS IT
Claims such as high protein, low fat, high fibre and no added sugar have legal conditions in many countries. That gives them meaning, but only within a narrow lane. “Low fat” tells you about the fat. It doesn’t tell you whether the food is filling, high in sugar or worth buying. “High protein” doesn’t tell you whether you’ll enjoy it or eat enough of it to make the protein matter.
Treat a front-of-pack claim as the answer to one question, then turn the packet around and ask the rest. The manufacturer will naturally make its strongest number the easiest one to see. Your job is simply to check whether the quieter numbers tell the same story.
WHY ALDI’S A TO E SCORES CAN LOOK STRANGE
If you shop at Aldi in Spain, you’ve probably seen the coloured A to E rating on the front of some products. That’s Nutri-Score, a voluntary system used across several European countries. It combines parts of a food’s nutritional profile into one letter and colour, using the values per 100 grams or 100 millilitres.
The calculation considers energy, sugars, saturated fat and salt, alongside fibre, protein and the proportion of fruit, vegetables and certain other ingredients. Its algorithm has been updated in participating countries to better reflect current nutrition guidance.
Nutri-Score works best when you compare similar products. Use it to compare one cereal with another, or two versions of the same ready meal. It isn’t a school report for food. An A doesn’t mean you should eat as much as you like, and a D or E doesn’t mean the food should be forbidden.
The score also can’t tell you everything you might care about. It doesn’t know your portion, allergies or goals, and it isn’t a complete measure of processing, sustainability or how the food fits the rest of your diet. Santé publique France’s Nutri-Score guidance presents it as a quick way to compare nutritional quality. That’s how I’d use it.
When a score surprises you, turn the product around. It may contain more salt, sugar or saturated fat than you expected, or it may be receiving credit for fibre and protein. The letter gives you a reason to look. The numbers explain why it’s there.
WHAT THE COMMON FOOD CLAIMS MEAN
GLUTEN-FREE
Gluten-free is essential information for someone with coeliac disease and useful to anyone else who needs to avoid gluten. In the US, foods carrying the claim must contain less than 20 parts per million of gluten, with similar limits used in Europe. The FDA’s gluten-free labelling guidance explains the standard.
It doesn’t mean healthier, lower in calories or better for fat loss. Plenty of nutritious foods naturally contain no gluten, but putting the words on a packet doesn’t improve whatever is inside it. If gluten isn’t something you need to avoid, the claim alone gives you no reason to pay more.
NATURAL OR ALL NATURAL
This claim deserves a closer look. The FDA has never established a formal definition of “natural”. Its longstanding policy is broadly about avoiding artificial or synthetic additions that wouldn’t normally be expected in the food. It doesn’t cover whether the product is nutritious, minimally processed, sustainably produced or better for you. You can read the exact position in the FDA’s guidance on the term natural.
“Clean” has even less authority. It isn’t a nutritional standard. It divides food into good and bad without telling you much about what you’re about to eat. I’d rather look at the ingredients and nutrition panel than ask a marketing word to make the decision for me.
ORGANIC
Organic refers to how agricultural ingredients are produced and handled under a certification system. It can matter for environmental, farming or personal reasons, but it doesn’t guarantee that the finished food contains more nutrients or fewer calories.
In the US, “100 percent organic” means all eligible ingredients are organic. A product labelled “organic” must contain at least 95% organic ingredients, while “made with organic” requires at least 70%. The USDA’s organic-labelling guide explains the difference. Other countries use their own certification rules, so look for the recognised local seal rather than relying on a green packet and a picture of a field.
NON-GMO OR BIOENGINEERED
These claims concern genetic engineering, not the food’s complete nutritional value. A non-GMO product isn’t automatically organic, pesticide-free, minimally processed or healthier. In the US, “bioengineered” is the term used in the mandatory federal disclosure standard.
Use the claim if the production method matters to you. Use the nutrition panel to decide what the food contributes to your diet. They’re answering different questions.
KOSHER OR HALAL
Kosher and halal labels indicate compliance with particular religious dietary requirements. They’re important to people buying on that basis, but they aren’t nutrition ratings. A food can be kosher or halal and still contain plenty of sugar, salt or saturated fat. Read the certification for what it is, then use the nutrition panel for nutrition.
VEGAN OR PLANT-BASED
Vegan tells you that a product avoids animal-derived ingredients according to the standard or certifier being used. “Plant-based” can be looser. Neither claim guarantees plenty of protein, fibre or vegetables.
A vegan sweet is still a sweet, and a meat substitute deserves the same glance at protein, salt and ingredients as everything else. If you’re using plant-based foods to support your training, my guide to plant-based protein sources will help with the part that matters after you’ve read the label.
FREE-RANGE OR GRASS-FED
These describe aspects of how an animal was raised or fed. The precise standards vary by country and certification, and the words don’t provide a complete report on welfare, nutrition or environmental impact.
If the production method matters to you, look for a recognised certification and read what it requires. The claim may still be valuable. It simply isn’t trying to answer every question about the food.
THE CHECK I USE IN THE SHOP
Check the serving size and decide how much you’ll eat.
Use the per 100 gram figures to compare similar products.
Look at calories, protein, fibre, added sugar, saturated fat and salt according to what the food is meant to do.
Scan the ingredients for the main components, allergens and anything you personally need to avoid.
Treat the claims and coloured ratings as extra information, not the entire decision.
That takes less than a minute once you know where to look. There’s no nutritionally perfect shopping trolley. Some foods are there for fuel, some for convenience and some because they taste brilliant. Plenty can do all three.
THE LABEL DOESN’T CHOOSE FOR YOU
A label can tell you what’s in a food. It can’t know your appetite, budget, training, medical needs or what else you’ve eaten that week. Those things are part of the decision too.
I care far more about the pattern of someone’s diet than whether one product has the neatest set of numbers. Use the label to understand what you’re buying, make the choice that suits you and move on with your day. Food is supposed to support your life, not become a second job.
If you’ve ever stood in Aldi trying to work out why the food you expected to score well got a C, Check It Oot is where I unpack questions like that properly. Training, nutrition and health without the usual panic or perfection. One email once or twice a month, written by me, straight to your inbox.
