Food Nutrition Label in 30 Seconds: Per 100 g, Sugar and Salt

Ignore the front. Flip the pack, find the “per 100 g” column and read three lines: sugar, sodium and fibre. Then check the serving size, because “only 90 calories” often means a third of the packet. That’s the nutrition label in 30 seconds; below are the steps, the sodium-to-salt maths, the many names of sugar, and what “no added sugar” and “sugar-free” really promise.

The 30-second nutrition label check, in order

1. Find the per 100 g column (per 100 ml for drinks). It’s the only number that lets you compare a biscuit with a cereal with a namkeen.
2. Read the serving size, then count the pack. A 150 g chips packet with a 30 g serving is five servings. Finish the packet and every number gets multiplied by five.
3. Sugar: divide grams by 4 for teaspoons. A 250 ml carton of juice drink at 11 g per 100 ml carries about 27 g, close to 7 teaspoons. The WHO’s comfortable ceiling for free sugars is about 25 g a day for an adult.
4. Sodium: multiply milligrams by 2.5, divide by 1,000 for grams of salt. The adult daily ceiling is about 5 g salt (2,000 mg sodium) from everything you eat.
5. Fibre and protein. “High fibre” needs 6 g per 100 g. A “digestive” biscuit with 2 g is using the word, not the fibre.
6. First three ingredients. Listed by weight. Sugar, under any of its names, in the top three means you’re holding a sweet.

Per 100 g vs per serving: the serving-size trick

Nobody forces a realistic serving. It’s picked to flatter. A chocolate spread declares 15 g, which is one thin teaspoon, a cola declares 250 ml from a 500 ml bottle, and a sweet cereal declares 30 g when most bowls hold about twice that.

The per 100 g column has no such freedom, which is why two namkeens at 1.2 g and 2.4 g salt per 100 g are easy to rank even if the saltier brand’s smaller serving makes its per-serving figure look almost identical. If only per-serving figures are printed, divide by the serving grams and multiply by 100.

“Calories per biscuit” is the same trick with a serving of one. Count. Biscuits, namkeen and chips are ranked in how to read snack labels, so this guide stays on the panel itself.

The 40-plus names sugar hides under

Because the list runs by weight, a maker can split sugar into three or four kinds, each small enough to sit lower down, even though added together they’d come first on the list. Learn the families. The trick dies.

• Ends in “-ose”: sucrose, glucose, fructose, dextrose, maltose. (Lactose is milk’s own sugar, expected in dairy.)
• Any “syrup”: corn, high-fructose corn, glucose, glucose-fructose, rice, malt, golden, invert, maple, date, agave.
• The wholesome-sounding ones: honey, gur (jaggery), shakkar, khand, cane juice, brown sugar, demerara, coconut sugar, palm sugar, fruit juice concentrate, molasses, barley malt, malt extract.
• The quiet ones: maltodextrin (barely sweet, but it behaves like glucose in the body), dextrin, caramel, invert sugar, icing sugar.

Gur and honey are still sugar, gram for gram; the jaggery vs sugar vs honey comparison does it by the teaspoon. Three sugar names scattered through a list? Add them back together in your head and move the total to the top.

Sodium to salt: the ×2.5 rule and what “high” means

Salt is sodium chloride, and sodium is about 40% of its weight. Hence 2.5.

Packet soups, instant noodles, namkeen, papad, sauces and masala mixes sit in the high band, and the mix-specific maths is in the packet masala label guide. Sodium also arrives without the word “salt”: MSG (flavour enhancer 621), sodium bicarbonate, sodium citrate, disodium phosphate.

Fibre, fat and protein: what actually counts

Fibre. A brown “multigrain” biscuit at 2 g per 100 g is a plain biscuit in a brown wrapper, and added inulin may lift the fibre line on the panel without turning a sweet biscuit into anything like a wholegrain food. Wrapper, not fibre.

Fat. Over 17.5 g total fat or 5 g saturated fat per 100 g is high. Hunt for trans fat and its source, “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” or “vegetable shortening”, common in cream wafers, rusks and packet parathas. “Trans fat 0 g” per tiny serving can round a small amount down to zero; the ingredients list tells you more.

Protein. Read it beside the calories, always. 8 g protein with 500 kcal per 100 g is a fat-and-sugar snack with a protein mention; 20 g with 350 kcal is genuinely protein-heavy. Daal, chana, eggs and dahi still beat most “protein” packets for the money.

“No added sugar”, “sugar-free”, “light”: what each phrase promises

• No added sugar: none was put in, but fruit, concentrate or milk can still make it very sweet. Juice with no added sugar still carries roughly 10 g per 100 ml from the fruit.
• Sugar-free: under about 0.5 g per 100 g, usually sweetened with sucralose, aspartame, stevia or sugar alcohols (sorbitol, maltitol). Sugar alcohols loosen the bowels past a few pieces, and sugar-free biscuits can carry as many calories as ordinary ones.
• Unsweetened: no sugar and no sweetener. The most honest of the lot.
• Low sugar vs reduced sugar: “low” is under 5 g per 100 g; “reduced” only means less than the maker’s own regular version.
• Light, lite, diabetic-friendly: not fixed terms. Check the panel, and read total carbohydrate, because maida and starch raise blood sugar too.

Myth: “fat-free” means it’s a diet food

Fat carries flavour and texture, so when a maker takes it out, sugar, starch or salt usually goes in to fill the gap, which is how a fat-free fruit yoghurt ends up holding more sugar than a plain full-fat one. People believe the myth because “fat-free” is printed large and the sugar line is printed small. Put the two versions side by side per 100 g; if the calories are close, the claim bought you nothing.

Halal marks, dates and registration numbers

Halal. A meaningful mark names the certifying body, often with a number you can look up, and the word “halal” in a green circle with no certifier is a font choice. In sweets and dairy, the questions are gelatine of unnamed source, E471 (plant or animal), rennet and alcohol-based flavourings; packs that name their sources are being open with you.

Dates. “Use by” on milk, dahi, paneer and chilled meat is a safety line you don’t cross, while “best before” on dry and canned food is about quality, and in both cases the packed-on date is worth a look too: a biscuit with a 12-month life packed 11 months ago is legal and stale. A date on a sticker, or printed over another date, is a reason to pick a different pack.

Registration. In India, the 14-digit FSSAI licence with its logo, plus the green (veg) or brown (non-veg) dot. In Pakistan, the full manufacturer address and a PSQCA or provincial food authority reference where it applies. A batch number makes a recall possible. Once you can read the panel, the Desi Weight Loss hub turns the numbers into a plate.

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