ReZoom

This is the first in ReZoom's series about turning your kitchen into a veritable cornucopia of possibility for cooking vibrant, healthy meals.

Does this sound familiar? You're trying to lose a few pounds. As you wander through the grocery-store aisles, you have no idea whether to buy the "low," "light" or "reduced" version of the food you're eyeing or even if it will fit into your diet. You're not the only one who's confused. "I wish these nutrient terms [on food labels] came with an explanation and how to apply them but they don't," says Cynthia Sass, M.P.H., M.A., R.D., a registered dietician in New York City and author of "Your Diet Is Driving Me Crazy" (Marlowe & Company, 2004). To help enlighten bewildered aisle browsers, we've put together a short glossary of common food-label terms. But heed this caveat as you food shop: "Just remember that if you eat more of a food because it's reduced-fat or low-cal, and you ignore your total calorie intake, it's likely you won't lose any weight at all," cautions Sass.

"Free" means the product contains no or only trivial amounts of fat, cholesterol, sodium, sugars or calories. "Calorie-free" has fewer than five calories per serving, while "sugar-free" and "fat-free" have less than 0.5 g per serving. But just because those oatmeal-raisin cookies say "fat-free," it doesn't mean they're calorie-free too: One serving has 108 calories.

"Low" is defined differently for each nutrient:
• low-fat is 3 g or less per serving
• low-saturated fat is 1 g or less per serving
• low-sodium is 140 mg or less per serving
• very low sodium is 35 mg or less per serving
• low-calorie is 40 calories or less per serving.

"Lean" and "extra lean" are used to describe the fat content of meat, poultry, seafood and game meats. "Lean" means the meat contains less than 10 g fat, 4.5 g or less saturated fat, and less than 95 mg cholesterol per serving. Extra lean has less than 5 g fat, less than 2 g saturated fat, and less than 95 mg cholesterol per serving.

"Reduced" appears on foods that have at least 25 percent less calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol or sodium than a comparable food. But don't be fooled by this term: "One Klondike reduced fat bar has 10 grams of fat," explains Sass, "but an original Klondike bar has 19 grams of fat, so really, the reduced fat version is more than 25% reduced, yet it could still have 14 grams of fat and be called reduced fat."

"Light" can mean either that the food contains one-third fewer calories or 50 percent less fat than the traditional version of the food. Example: Yoplait Light yogurt has 100 calories and 0 g fat while the original version has 170 calories and 2 g of fat.

"Less" refers to a food, whether it's altered or not, that contains 25 percent less of a nutrient (like fat) or calories than the food it's being compared to. For example, pretzels that have 25 percent less fat than potato chips could have a "less" claim.

"Good source" means that one serving of a food contains 10 to 19 percent of the recommended daily amount for a particular nutrient. "Milk is a good source of calcium because it has 25 percent of the recommended daily amount for calcium per serving," explains Sass.

"High" indicates that the food offers 20 percent or more of the recommended daily amount for a given nutrient. For instance, the recommended daily amount for fiber is about 25 grams, so any cereal with at least five grams can be called a "high fiber" cereal.

"Healthy" is used on foods that are low in saturated and unsaturated fats and contain limited levels of sodium -- 360 mg per serving for individual foods and 480 mg per serving for meal-type products. "All Healthy Choice products are a good example of this," says Sass.

Next up in our series: Give Your Pantry a Checkup