What To Look For When You’re Reading Food Labels
Nutri-Scores, protein claims, reduced sugar and climate promises can make supermarket shelves look reassuringly simple. The reality is more complicated. Here is what the labels actually tell you — and what they leave out.
A supermarket shelf can contain an extraordinary number of messages for something as ordinary as a yoghurt, cereal bar or carton of oat milk. High protein. No added sugar. Rich in vitamin C. Climate neutral. Reduced fat. Nutri-Score A.
Some of those claims are useful. Others tell only part of the story. Shoppers rarely have the time, or inclination to analyse a nutrition panel in the middle of a weekly shop. Packaging therefore does much of the work, and one positive claim can change how we perceive the entire product.
Knowing what the most common labels actually mean makes it easier to separate useful information from clever positioning.
Nutri-Score Works Best For Comparisons
The Nutri-Score is the familiar coloured scale running from dark green A to red E. It considers several aspects of a product’s nutritional composition and turns them into one simple rating.
Rather than treating an A as proof that something is inherently healthy, use the score to compare similar products. Two breakfast cereals may look almost identical from the front of the pack but receive different scores because one contains more sugar, salt or saturated fat.
The system is less helpful when shoppers compare completely different foods. Olive oil, cheese and breakfast cereal perform very different nutritional roles, so reducing all three to one letter can obscure what each contributes to a diet. Nutri-Score works better as a shortcut within a category than as a verdict on the food itself.
Check The Portion Size Before The Percentages
Nutrition labels often show how much energy, fat, sugar, protein and salt a portion contributes towards an average adult’s daily intake.
The catch is the word portion. A manufacturer may define a portion very differently from the amount someone normally eats. A cereal serving of 30g can look reassuring on paper, while the bowl on the breakfast table may contain considerably more.
The same happens with biscuits, snacks, drinks and desserts. A small stated serving can make the percentages look modest. For a clearer comparison between products, look at the values per 100g or 100ml rather than relying only on the recommended serving. This amount gives you the same measuring stick for both products.
The question of what exactly should count as the food even reached the High Court in England. Kellogg challenged rules that assessed breakfast cereals on their nutritional composition as sold rather than with the milk people often add to them. The company argued that including milk would improve the nutritional profile of some cereals. In 2022, the High Court rejected the challenge. The judge noted that adding another food does not change the fact that a cereal itself may contain high levels of sugar, fat or salt.
That makes the per-100g figure rather more useful than it first appears: it tells you about the product in the packet, without allowing whatever you might eat alongside it to improve the score.
“30% Less Sugar” Does Not Mean Low Sugar
Few phrases on food packaging sound as reassuring as reduced sugar. But reduced compared with what? A product containing 30 percent less sugar than its original version can still contain a considerable amount. If the starting point was very sweet, reducing the sugar does not automatically turn it into a low-sugar food.
The nutritional table tells you more than the headline on the front of the pack. Look at the actual amount of sugar per 100g and compare it with similar products. A reduction claim describes the difference between two recipes; it does not tell you whether the final product contains little sugar.
Added Vitamins Do Not Cancel Out The Rest
Vitamin-enriched drinks, sweets and snacks create another familiar health halo. A product can genuinely contain vitamin C, B vitamins or minerals and advertise them while still containing large amounts of sugar or offering little else nutritionally.
French courts have dealt with what happens when that vitamin message becomes too generous. In a case involving the Pediakid range of children’s supplements, labels highlighted vitamins and minerals and carried claims including benefits for children’s development and wellbeing. Tests found that some of the highlighted nutrients were present at levels far below the threshold required for the claims. The French Court of Cassation upheld convictions for misleading commercial practices in 2018; the companies and their president received fines ranging from €10,000 to €25,000.
The labels did contain nutritional information. The problem was what the marketing encouraged parents to infer from it. An energy drink does not become equivalent to a nutritious meal because vitamins have been added to it. Neither do vitamin-enriched sweets suddenly become health food. Treat added nutrients as one part of the product rather than permission to ignore everything around them.
“High Protein” Needs Context
Protein has become one of the most marketable words in food. It now appears on everything from yoghurts and puddings to bread, cereal, chocolate bars and ice cream.
A high-protein product may be useful, particularly if it makes it easier to reach your protein needs, but the claim alone says little about the rest of the formulation. A protein bar can still contain substantial amounts of sugar, saturated fat or sweeteners. A naturally protein-rich yoghurt may have a much simpler ingredient list. If protein is the reason you are buying something, compare grams of protein per serving, then check the sugar, saturated fat and ingredients rather than stopping at the word on the front.
“Sugar-Free” Has A Specific Meaning — But Read The Ingredients
Regulated nutrition claims carry more weight than vague wellness language. Terms such as sugar-free, low fat or high protein have to meet defined criteria before manufacturers can use them. That still does not tell you whether the whole product suits what you want from it.
A sugar-free food may use sweeteners. A low-fat product may contain more of another ingredient. A high-protein snack may come with a long list of flavourings, stabilisers and sweeteners. The claim can be perfectly accurate while describing only one characteristic of the food.
Be Wary Of The Health Halo
Packaging can signal health before you read a single nutrition claim. Muted colours, leaves, handwritten fonts and words such as natural, balance or wellness create an impression around a product. Individual nutrients can do the same.
Swiss judges recently had to decide whether even two apparently ordinary English words crossed that line. A Swiss company sold green tea, maté and hibiscus under the name “Energy Boost.” The Vaud consumer authority treated the phrase as a general health claim and ordered the company either to remove it or meet the conditions required for health claims. The company appealed. In September 2024, Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court upheld the decision: “Energy Boost” implied a health benefit and could not simply sit on the packet unsupported by an authorised specific health claim. The case shows how little wording it can take to change what a packet appears to promise.
Nutritionist recommend separate the claim from the food. If the packet says source of vitamin C, look at what the product would be without that sentence. If it says 30 percent less sugar, check how much sugar remains. If it says high protein, look at what else comes with the protein. One attractive attribute should not make the decision for you.
Climate Claims Need Scrutiny Too
Food companies now put environmental claims beside nutritional ones. Terms such as climate neutral, carbon neutral and better for the planet sound definitive, but the route behind them can vary enormously. A German beer provides a useful example. Its bottles described the product as “CO2-positive” and referred to “climate-neutral production.” In December 2023, Munich Regional Court I prohibited both claims because the label did not explain the criteria behind them clearly enough. The court did not accept a large climate promise with the workings hidden elsewhere. A producer might cut emissions directly through manufacturing and transport. Another may depend partly on carbon offsets. The same two words on the front of a packet can therefore describe very different strategies.
British regulators have reached a similar conclusion. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority now tells advertisers to explain the basis of carbon-neutral or net-zero claims and to make clear how much depends on emissions reductions and how much on offsetting. A green statement should make you ask what exactly it covers rather than assume the whole product has a negligible environmental footprint.
Some Words Have Ended Up In Court
The disputes become particularly revealing when a manufacturer and a regulator disagree about what an ordinary shopper will understand from a few words. France’s Pediakid case turned on vitamins, minerals and children’s health. Switzerland’s Energy Boost case turned on a phrase that might easily look like branding. Germany’s beer case concerned the missing explanation behind climate neutral. In Britain, Kellogg argued that regulators should assess cereal with the milk consumers typically add rather than judge the cereal alone.
Different countries, products and legal questions produced the same underlying conflict: the manufacturer wants shoppers to see the product in its most favourable context, while food law increasingly asks what the product itself can substantiate.
That is also why terms such as detox, fat burner and similar wellness expressions deserve caution. Food businesses cannot simply attribute the prevention, treatment or cure of disease to an ordinary food, while regulated health claims need the required evidence and authorisation. UK guidance, for example, explicitly prohibits food claims that imply a product can treat, prevent or cure a disease or medical condition.
Start With The Back Of The Pack
You do not need to scrutinise every number on every product. The first few ingredients already tell you a great deal because manufacturers list them in descending order by weight. Then compare sugar, saturated fat, salt and protein per 100g with similar products, and check whether the suggested serving bears much resemblance to the amount you actually eat. Use Nutri-Score as another comparison rather than the final answer. Treat reduced, enriched, natural, Energy Boost or climate neutral as prompts to investigate rather than reasons to stop. The front of the packet tells you what the manufacturer most wants you to notice. The back tells you what else came with it.
