The Fat Issue
It’s true that our diet should include a little fat. It helps us absorb certain vitamins, it provides energy and some essential fatty acids. But it can be hard not to eat too much fatty food, with the inevitable flabby results. The nutrition labels on food packages can tell you a lot about the fat content of foods – as long as you know how to interpret them. Basically, we should be eating less saturated or trans fats, and replacing them with unsaturated fats. We should also be eating omega 3 fatty acids. If you remain confused, read on for an interpretation!

Saturated fats can increase a substance called cholesterol in the blood, and this can lead to heart disease. Foods high in saturated fats include meat products such as sausages and pies, hard cheese, butter, pastry, cakes, biscuits, cream (including crème fraiche) and coconut oil.

Trans fats also increase cholesterol, and may be worse than saturated fats. They can be formed during hydrogenation, so check on the ingredients label whether the food contains hydrogenated vegetable oil. (Hydrogenation converts liquid vegetable oil into solid fat, to make spreads, for instance.) Trans fats can appear in biscuits, cakes, pastry and margarine.

Unsaturated fats, including polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, are the healthier option because they don’t have the same effect on cholesterol levels but can provide your bodily fat needs. Foods high in unsaturated fat include oily fish, avocados, nuts and seeds; sunflower, rapeseed, olive and other vegetable oils.

Omega 3 fatty acids can help to protect you against heart disease. The best source is oily fish such as salmon, trout, mackerel, herring, sardines, pilchards, kippers, eel, whitebait, fresh tuna and anchovies. Aim for a portion of oily fish every week.

Look at the nutrition label to find out how much fat the food contains per 100g. Many labels also helpfully tell you how much of that fat is saturated. High-fat foods may contain 20g or more per 100g, and 5g of saturated fat per 100g. Low-fat food might contain 3g of total fat or 1g of saturated fat per 100g.

Foods labelled “Light” or “Lite” or even “Low Fat” contain less fat – but less than what? The nutrition label alone will tell you exactly how much fat per 100g this really means.

Food freshness labelling
Food packaging regulations mean that food must be labelled so that the consumer can tell when it needs to be eaten by. You will come across four different labels: Display Until, Sell By, Use By and Best Before.

Display Until… and Sell By… labels are messages to shopworkers to help them with stock control. They aren’t as relevant to you, the consumer, as the Best Before and Use By labels below, which should also appear on the packaging.

Best Before… means that after the date stated, the food will begin to deteriorate in quality, for instance in terms of flavour and texture. This label usually appears on food that has been preserved by drying, freezing or canning. It may still be safe to eat after its Best Before date (provided it has been stored according to instructions) but it won’t be as good. Take care, though, not to eat eggs after their Best Before date: if the eggs contain salmonella, the bacteria might multiply to dangerous levels after this date and give you food poisoning.

Use By… means just that. After the date stated, the food may not be safe to eat so don’t risk it. It normally appears on food such as fish and meat products or ready-prepared food that goes off quickly. For the Use By date to be reliable, you must store the product as instructed on the packaging, or it will go off even more rapidly. Once you have opened the food package, check for information about how long it will last. Note that if the label states “Use within three days of opening” but you open the food one day before its Use By date, you still only have one day to finish it!

If the food is freezable, the Use By date becomes irrelevant and you need to look at other instructions on the packaging telling you how quickly you need to freeze the food after purchase, and how to prepare it when you do want to eat it.

New ideas

Tired of boring food, predictable tastes and routine recipes? For a change, take some advice from top chefs and TV food programmes. You don't even need to follow the recipes verbatim - you can just take cues from them to embellish your own dishes and add variety to your table.
BBC food programmes >

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