Before the new labeling regulations happened in 1994, nutrition labels were optional; they didn’t have to be as uniform as they are now. Ingredients then were listed by weight (in descending order), and for fake flavors and colors, only Yellow Dye #5 had to be disclosed due to allergic potential. Now. all additives have to be listed.

They made some really good changes in label information, and one is about sugar. Now, manufacturers can’t get away with just naming "white sugar" as such and then listing others by their often unfamiliar names. Now, they’re shown prominently; all "sugars" are collected into one lump sum. A real improvement. Even milk has an "all sugars" listing because lactose (the naturally occurring sugar type in milk that a lot of people are allergic to) has to be disclosed. Also fruit and vegetable items have to state their sugars, even though from natural sources. This is handy because we should watch out for all kinds of sugar in our food, especially if Candida is a problem.

Now, serving size must also be stated and it has to be reasonable. I remember one commercial bakery whose bread counted a serving size at 3/4 of a slice -- just to get the "calories-per-serving" to a lower number. (That really happened, and I have the old label to prove it.) Also, a lot of this type of thing was in smaller print, because they knew that lots of people would stop at small.

Back then, soup servers pulled the same sort of trickery. Before the new regulations, Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup listed 2-2/3 "servings" per small can. That brought the sodium-per-serving down to under 1000 grams (~975g) to make it seem less salty to label readers who do read small. So, if you dined on 3/4 slice of bread with your 4 ounce (1/2 cup) serving of soup, you might have felt a bit deprived indeed!

To bring themselves up to current standards, many manufacturers have improved the quality of their products to meet consumer expectations. Or, some have opted to just change their label information to report logical serving sizes.

Another feature of old labels was the unregulated composition; they didn’t have to tell us too much that was negative, and the pictures on packages didn’t always match their true content. Fiber, for instance, was often a real gotcha. Fiber is one of the things that most Americans don’t eat enough of; the average consumption is at around 11 grams/day where recommendations skyrocket to 40 grams/day. For HIV-specifics on fiber, the Diarrhea Consideration may change things; watch for fiber type -- read on.

In order to meet Average America’s fiber hopes and dreams, pictures of the food on the front of cracker boxes, for example, often looked like a fiber bonus was happening inside, but the amount of fiber may not have been included at all. Now they have to tell us what’s there -- and big enough to read easily.

For HIV-specifics, the fiber info is really good to know when the diarrhea connection is operational. If you see a high number on the fiber amount, look at the ingredient statement -- if the fiber comes from wheat, the fiber type is insoluble and can make diarrhea worse. If the fiber comes from oats, rice or barley, the fiber type is soluble and will gum up the intestines enough to begin a pretty good treatment on the bathroom part of your lifestyle. (The "stick-to-your-ribs" kind of thing -- like oatmeal.)

Somewhere in our great bureaucratic insanity, Daily Values have been issued and they don’t really make much sense at all, in my humble opinion. These are based on calorie levels, and only two groups are included: The 2000 group and the 2500 group. Since most women must stay below 1800 daily calories (to keep our girlish figures), and most men need to exceed 2000, or even 2500 calories, there may be a feeling of being left out. e person may need 2000 calories and another, even at the same height and weight, may require 3000 per day. And this can change radically!

The Daily Value system really gets us when it comes to those percentages. Often, DV Percentages are mistaken for the content in that food item. For example, if the fat DV is listed at 25%, often the customer thinks that the food itself gets just 25% of its calories from fat. But in DV reality, the 25% is for the whole day! The innocent eater is downing 1/4 of their whole day’s fat allowance in that one serving when they thought they were eating a low-fat food!

What, then, should we do with all the percentage information? This mathematically-impaired nutritionist says "ignore them!" They’re too confusing and cumbersome to tally up.

So, how to handle the good information while ignoring the percentages? First, throw extreme precision out the door! Just use two diet components -- proteins and fats -- and count calories and grams.

For calories, the goal is sort of iffy, but if your weight is OK, multiply it by 13 and that’s roughly your daily calorie goal. If you need to gain weight, use a number between 14 and 18, depending on how satisfied you are with your weight. If you’re on the thin side, edge up; if you’re overweight, slide down.

For your protein needs, eat one gram for each pound you weigh. Since the number of grams is given on the label, just use it for your dietary budget -- and be sure to get all you need every day. This is very important for the well-balanced HIV-specific diet lifestyle. The one place where HIV is really different than Average America is that protein number. As for unpackaged items like meats, use the palm-of-the-hand method. For this, estimate the meat size relative to the size of your palm -- that’s about 4-6 ounces and at roughly 9 grams of protein per ounce, gives 36-54 grams of protein. Simple. Just use lean cuts. For other protein information, just look: even egg information is on the label, as is the case with most other grocery items. Growths from the produce garden are usually considered to be protein-free.

For a daily fat allowance, use 20-30 % of your calorie goal and, again, count your grams. This one’s easy; just add a zero to the number of fat grams, and that’s roughly your fat calories. Past this, I need a calculator; that might be too neurotic for the casual eater.

Also, since for HIV, we don’t usually have cholesterol or saturated fat goals, we really can ignore this (now mandatory) information. As for the vitamins, take supplements and ditch the list.

As for what to expect on future labels -- be calm; next year, we’ll have a whole new system which gives us the very handy and understandable DRIs, RDAs and MULs!* Stay with my simple strategy and if you get confused, get out of the kitchen -- and order in Chinese or Pizza.

First do no harm. If this is, or seems to be connected to adverse consequences, contact your doctor, nutritionist, or math major.

* DRI = Dietary Reference Intake

RDA= Recommended Dietary Allowance

MUL= Maximum Upper Level

____________________________

Nutrition Power is a Registered Trademark of Health and Nutrition Awareness. Copyright 1997 Jennifer Jensen, MS, MBA, RD. All Rights Reserved.

Other versions of this article have appeared with permission in Being Alive Newsletter, Arts & Understanding Magazine,and other newsletters.