The Difference Between Low, Light, And Reduced Labels At The Grocery Store

Reading food labels is no easy feat. They do, after all, provide you with a lot of information that can be quite difficult to understand. This is especially true when it comes to specific terms. For example, when you see the term dairy-free or non-dairy, you expect that food to contain zero traces of dairy. However, that's not always the case. There's a chance that food might contain very minute traces of dairy in it. The same idea applies to calorie labels. In fact, according to FDA guidelines, calorie labels can be at least 20% inaccurate. So, you might be consuming more or less calories than you think. And that's not where the confusion ends. Even the terms sell by, used by, and best by, don't mean what you think they mean. Each phrase has its own unique meaning and none of them refer to expiration.

Unfortunately, food labels are even harder to decipher when they feature terms that have very similar meanings. Three words people often get confused are low, light, and reduced. In your mind, these words might refer to a lower quantity of ingredients like sodium, sugar, cholesterol, and fat. You're not completely wrong. Low is usually used to describe the amount of sodium, fat, calories, or cholesterol within a food item, while light refers to the overall calorie count or fat content of a product compared to similar items. Sometimes light can be used to reference the amount of sodium in food. Reduced, on the other hand, refers to when the amount of fat, calories, sodium, and sugar in a food product has been lowered. Each term has specific parameters it needs to follow.

The term low is usually used in relation to serving size. It describes how much fat, sodium, calories, and cholesterol can be present in that food item. There are specific numbers that manufacturers have to stay within in order to label a product low in something. These numbers should be used for food labels that feature key words like little, few, low in, low source of, and contains small amounts of. As long as you know what those numbers are, it should be easy to know if the food you're buying is truly low in those things.

If a food is labeled low-fat, it must contain 3 grams of fat or less per serving. Foods labeled low-sodium should only have 140 milligrams of sodium or less per serving. For reference, the FDA recommends adults consume less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. That's equivalent to one teaspoon of salt. There are even foods labeled very low sodium. According to the American Cancer Society, very low-sodium foods should have 35 milligrams of sodium or less per serving.

When it comes to calories, the low-calorie label means there should be no more than 40 calories per serving. Meanwhile, low-cholesterol foods should have 20 milligrams of cholesterol or less per serving. The term low can even be used in reference to saturated fat. For a food to be labeled low-saturated fat, it needs a gram or less of saturated fat per serving. In fact, the American Cancer Society explains that foods with this label can't have "more than 15% of the calories coming from saturated fat."

Light, also interchangeable with lite, can be used in two ways. It can describe the texture or color of food. Great examples of this include light brown sugar. It can also emphasize that a food has a lower amount of fat, sodium, or calories compared to other products. When it's used this way, there are very strict guidelines that have to be met.

For an item to be deemed light, at least one of these two things needs to be true. First, if more than half of the calories come from the fat content, then the lighter version should have at least half the amount of fat of the original item. Second, if less than 50% of the calories come from fat, the food has been changed to have no more than half the amount of fat or one-third the calories as the original item. The term light or lite can even be placed on meal products. This is any food that contributes to a meal and meets specific criteria like weighing at least 10 ounces per serving and containing a minimum of three 40-gram servings of food. These types of products can only be labeled light if they are low in fat or low in calories.

Light can also dictate how much sodium is in a product. In fact, there are three ways this term can be used in reference to sodium. First, any item that is both low-fat and low-calorie can put the term on its labels as long as the sodium has been reduced by half. Even products that aren't low-calorie and low-fat can use it as long as the sodium content has been reduced by at least 50%. Foods can also be labeled lightly salted. According to the American Cancer Society, lightly salted items, like potato chips, should have half the amount of salt compared to their original counterpart.

Of all the terms you see on food labels, you're probably the most familiar with reduced. It is, after all, plastered on various dairy products like milk, cream cheese, and yogurt. The term reduced is typically used to tell consumers the amount of fat, sodium, and calories in a specific food has been lowered.

You'll usually see this term when a food has been changed to remove at least 25% of the salt, calories, or fat. Manufacturers also commonly utilize this term to show that a food has less fat or sodium than it typically does. For example, you often see this with popular cheese brands. Sargento could label its shredded sharp cheddar cheese as not only reduced fat but as having 33% less fat than its regular shredded sharp cheese.

It's important to know that while some companies might say a product is reduced fat, others might not despite it being true. That usually only happens when the original food product is already labeled low in that specific component. So, a bottle of low-calorie wine might not say reduced calories if it's already considered a low-calorie product. Although food labels can be confusing to understand at first glance, once you understand key terms, you'll be able to gauge how much fat, sodium, and cholesterol you want to consume daily. It can also help you make more informed decisions about the food you eat and buy. That's why food labels were created in the first place.