Hey gang. This section is to give you and the adults around you a better idea of how to make good food choices by reading the nutrition facts label.

Nutrition facts are on the packaging of nearly any food item in the grocery store. You can also find them in fast food restaurants, posted on brochures or posters on the wall. If you can’t find the nutrition facts, ask at the counter.

Before we take a look at a nutrition fact label, let’s talk a little about how the body works with food. Your body is like an engine. To keep an engine running, you need fuel. For us, food is the fuel and it’s measured in units of energy called calories. Everyone, kids and adults, needs a different amount of energy for one day. How much energy you need depends on your age, your size and how much you do. For me, I need 2000 calories a dayto help me grow and help my body work at its best. Find out how many calories you need by checking the energy chart on the Sweety Foods web site.

When your body’s being used more, it burns through more calories, just like an engine burns through fuel. If your body’s not being used as much, it takes longer to burn through the calories. In an engine, the fuel just sits there when it’s not used. In our body -- it’s stored away as fat.

There’s one more thing you need to remember about food. You can’t just watch how much you’re eating – you also have to watch what’s in it. Like an engine, if you’re filling up with lousy fuel, you’re not going to run at your best and you might have big problems in the future. Nutrition fact labels help you find the best fuel for your body.

Let’s take a look at one.

Let’s start with the serving size. That’s to tell you how much product there is in a container and how much of it you should be eating. All the nutrition numbers you read on the label are based on the serving size at the top.

Next up is the calorie amount. When you look at the calories for one portion, remember to take that out of the day’s total number of calories.

Next up are the nutrients – those are all the little parts that make up the food. Some nutrients you may not be getting enough of, some you may need to cut back on. You want to keep fats, cholesterol and sodium as low as possible. What’s low? Five percent or less of the total calories is considered low. Forty to fifty percent? – that’s high. Too much of this group over time can raise your risk for problems like heart disease, high blood pressure and some cancers.

Try to pick foods with 15 grams or less of sugar. To help you read the food label better, keep in mind that four grams of sugar make up a teaspoon. The less sugar you have in a day, the better.

Also, look for foods with 5 total grams of fat or less.

Most Americans don’t get enough dietary fiber, vitamins A, C, calcium and iron in their diet. Look for a food label with plenty of these listed.

Let’s compare some food labels to give you a better idea.

Here’s the Nutrition Facts from two different cereals. The one on the left is an unsweetened corn flakes cereal. The one on the right is a sweetened multi-grain cereal with marshmallows. To look at them together, there’s a lot that looks the same. Calories are almost the same, along with fat levels, cholesterol, vitamins and minerals. Total carbohydrate amounts are almost the same, but if you look at what the carbohydrates are in each cereal, you’re going to see some differences. The corn flakes have a little fiber, none in the sweetened cereal. Take a look at the sugar amounts, though – there’s the big difference between them. The unsweetened corn flakes have 2 grams – that’s just half a teaspoon. The sweetened multi-grain with marshmallows – it has 16 grams of sugar in a portion – that’s four teaspoons full! That’s sweet! Let’s look at another set of labels...

These are from two different frozen meals. The one on the left is a barbecued chicken meal, while the one on the right is a chicken nugget meal for kids. The numbers might surprise you on this one. The kid’s nugget meal has two hundred more calories than the barbecued chicken meal. It’s also got five times as much fat, twice as much sodium and half as much fiber. The kid’s meal is the winner in calcium and iron, but not much else. I don’t know about you, but to me, it sounds like the kid’s meal has too much of what you don’t need and not enough of what you do need.

It’s not always easy to find the right balance between nutrition and eating what tastes good. Sometimes it means trying new things that are better for you, like fruits and vegetables, and eating less of the things that you know aren’t good for you.

That takes me back to sugars. They can hide everywhere and show up when you least expect them. You can hunt them down, though, with another part of the food label -- the ingredient list.

MINUTE MAID LIGHT ORANGE JUICE BEVERAGE FROM CONCENTRATE CONTAINS PURE FILTERED WATER, ORANGE JUICE FROM CONCENTRATE, ORANGE PULP, LESS THAN 1% OF: TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE AND CALCIUM LACTATE (CALCIUM SOURCES), VITAMIN D3, VITAMIN C (ASCORBIC ACID), POTASSIUM CITRATE, NIACINAMIDE, VITAMIN B6 (PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE), VITAMIN B1 (THIAMINE MONONITRATE), MAGNESIUM PHOSPHATE, NATURAL FLAVORS, CITRIC ACID (PROVIDES TARTNESS), SUCROSE, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, BETA CAROTENE (FOR COLOR).

CHIPS AHOY CHOCOLATE CHEWY Ingredients: ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE CHIPS (SUGAR, CHOCOLATE, COCOA BUTTER, DEXTROSE, SOY LECITHIN-AN EMULSIFIER, MILK), PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED AND/OR SOYBEAN AND/OR CANOLA OIL, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, DEXTROSE, COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), CORNSTARCH, SALT, BAKING SODA, MOLASSES, CARAMEL COLOR, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR.

Added sugars go by a lot of names on food labels. If you see high fructose corn syrup on a label, fruit juice concentrate, dextrose, fructose, sucrose or maple syrup, you’re getting sugar. Another thing to check is where sugar is in the ingredient list. The ingredient listed first is the one there’s the most of. Next biggest is after that, and so on. That means if sugar is toward the top of the ingredient list, there’s more of it than the other stuff.

Sure, it’s a little extra work at first, but by spending just a few seconds choosing more nutritious food, you can improve your health, your energy and set a good example for the people around you. And remember that fruits and vegetables have little, if any, fat and no added sugar. That makes them better than most snacks that come in a wrapper.