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Every ingredient in a dish plays a role in its final outcome, affecting its taste, texture, aroma, and mouthfeel. An overly-salty box of breadcrumbs or a frozen puff pastry that uses margarine instead of butter, for example, will absolutely impact the final dish.
As if food labels weren’t complicated enough, modern culinarians must also navigate tricky marketing tactics—like healthwashing, hidden ingredients, and unregulated terminology—that eat at the bottom line while only sometimes offering substantial benefits.
Beyond the quality and profit margin of a dish, knowing your way around a food label is an essential component of adapting to dietary restrictions. Even if you don’t have a shellfish allergy, some consumers do, and they count on culinarians to keep them safe.
Reading food labels is associated with better dietary choices, but the majority of people only sometimes or rarely read this information. Food industry professionals can help make up some of that deficit; understanding food labels is essential for culinarians who wish to prepare safe, inclusive, and delicious food.
The Anatomy of a Food Label
Decoding food labels is essential for culinarians who need quick access to key information.
Find the nutrition food label on the side or back of any food packaging that requires labeling. Note that fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh meat cuts, bulk container items, food with insignificant nutritional value (like coffee), alcohol, and foods for immediate consumption may not require labeling.
Where nutrition labeling is required, it will contain:
- Serving Size: The serving size is determined by the FDA based on typical consumption.
- Calories Per Serving: Calories are calculated based on the serving size.
- Nutrients: Nutrients include information such as total fat, saturated fat, sodium, total and added sugar, and protein per serving.
- Vitamins and Minerals: Vitamin D, calcium, potassium, and iron are required, but many manufacturers list more than these mandatory nutrients.
- Percent of Daily Value: The percent of daily value per serving is based on a standard serving size and 2,000 calorie diet.
- Ingredients: Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight.
- Allergen Advisory Statement: By law, food labels must identify the food source of major food allergens. This information can be found within and under the ingredients list.
A Brief History of Food Labels
Regulated nutrition labels are relatively new to packaged foods. Prior to World War II, most foods were prepared in homes using simple ingredients. However, by the 1970s, the increasing mass-production of shelf-stable goods drove consumers to demand greater access to information. The result of this push was unregulated, voluntary labeling, which was often ambiguous and misleading, leading the National Library of Medicine to note they were “at best confusing and at worst deceptive economically and potentially harmful”(Nutrition Labeling: Issues and Directions, 1990, p. 2). For example, a manufacturer may have used a product label to claim their product was “extremely low in saturated fat.”
In response to this fast and loose approach to food labeling, the United States passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) in 1990, granting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explicit authority to require and regulate food labeling.
Nutrition labels are packed with valuable information for chefs, if they know where to look.
The Ingredient List: Spend The Bulk of Your Time Here
Ingredients are listed from largest quantity to the smallest, with the first few ingredients usually (read on to learn about “ingredient splitting”) making up the bulk of the food product.
Nutrient-rich products generally contain mostly minimally-processed foods (like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, etc.) with limited inclusion of added refined grains, sugars, oils, or preservatives.
For culinarians, the ingredient list requires hawk-eyed focus. Ingredients impact the taste, texture, flavor, nutrition, and appearance of the final product dramatically. Every ingredient, whether added by you or a manufacturer, impacts the final product. For example, pre-shredded cheese is convenient, but the inclusion of anti-caking agents (like microcrystalline cellulose) can impede even melting, leading to a gritty dish.
When you see ingredients like sodium diacetate (a preservative, pH adjuster, and flavor enhancer), or butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) (a synthetic petrochemical used as a preservative in food and cosmetics) you’ve moved pretty far from the stovetop into bunsen burner territory. Foods that undergo extensive industrial processing–often called ultra-processed foods–can make food more palatable and shelf-stable, but they can also increase the risk of obesity.
Importantly, they also significantly affect the taste, texture, and mouthfeel of the final product.
As American chef and author J. Kenji López-Alt puts it in his James Beard Award winning cookbook, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, “Good ingredients + good equipment + good technique = good food.”
The FDA has released an updated list of additives and preservatives that manufacturing companies utilize to extend the shelf life of their products. Understanding these components can empower consumers to make informed choices and ensure the longevity of the products they use.
Put Yourself in the Shoes of Someone With a Life-Threatening Allergy
Reading allergen information is critical to preventing cross contamination and ensuring consumer safety. If nothing else, carefully scanning the food label for major allergens could be lifesaving. Find this information:
In the ingredient list: Parentheses following an ingredient indicate the food sources of major allergens. For example, you might see “whey (milk)” or “flour (wheat).” If the common name identifies the allergen’s food source (such as “sour cream”), the manufacturer is not required to include parentheses.
In the advisory statement: Find advisory statements by looking for the words “contains” and “may contain” at the bottom of the ingredient list. In many cases, this information is bolded. “May contain” advisory statements are not required by law, but manufacturers may use them to declare unavoidable cross-contamination.
Items that are safe for people with major food allergen are often labeled with graphics depicting that they’re “dairy free,” “egg free,” “peanut free,” etc.
Nutrients: Glance at Key Areas
To minimize your time in the store so you can maximize your time in the kitchen, focus on two key areas: added sugar and sodium.
Salt and sugar profoundly impact the flavor of a dish. In some cases, simply reducing the amount of salt or sugar in other parts of the recipe may be enough, but most chefs prefer to have precise control over the sodium and sugar they incorporate into their dishes. For example, just about every Chef Instructor at Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts advocates for the use of unsalted butter over salted butter for cooking and baking. This recommendation encourages students to develop their palate and become expert at the art of flavor balance, allowing them to create exceptional dishes without relying on pre-seasoned products.
Serving Size: A Sneaky Detail
With a title like “serving size,” you’d be wise to assume that it’s the recommended serving. But, that assumption isn’t quite right. A serving size is set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and refers to the amount that’s typically consumed. It is not a recommendation.
The FDA updated its labeling in 2020 in an attempt to better reflect consumer’s eating and drinking habits—for example, labeling a bottle of soda as one serving instead of two or a muffin as one serving instead of two or three—and it put the serving size in large, bold font on the nutrition label. Still, serving size, or what is customarily consumed, often differs from portion size, which is what was actually consumed.
Different food products come with varying serving sizes, measured in units like cups, ounces, grams, pieces, or even specific counts, such as three crackers. It’s important to realize that portion size may differ from the recommended serving size based on personal choice. For example, if a frozen lasagna indicates a serving size of one cup, but the container holds four servings, if you opt for two cups—half the package—you are actually consuming two servings.
When calculating the cost of a menu item, culinarians should be aware of the portion sizes they serve and how this might differ from the serving size on the food label. For example, if a culinarian were to calculate the cost of a menu item based on a standard 1/2-cup serving size, they would miscalculate their margins if they actually served 2/3-cup portions to their patrons.
Third-Party Certifications
Many items have third-party certifications, such as USDA Organic, Carbon Neutral, Certified Vegan, Marine Stewardship Council, American Grassfed, Non-GRM Project, Fairtrade International, Certified Gluten Free, or OU Kosher Certification.
Certification often requires rigorous testing—carbon neutral certification is a prime example of this—but many are willing to do it in response to the demands of modern consumers.
Accredited Third-Party Certification is a voluntary program through which the FDA recognizes “accreditation bodies” tasked with empowering third-party “certification bodies.” These certification entities conduct audits and issue certifications for foreign food facilities. This approach enhances the integrity of the food supply chain but also establishes a robust standard for safety and quality in the marketplace.
Data suggests that most consumers take food certifications into account when purchasing, driving anticipated growth in the organic food market from $228.84 billion in 2024 to $593.98 billion by 2033 (a compound annual growth rate of 11.18%).
Culinarians wishing to reflect consumer preferences and inclusivity may choose to buy these products too, though higher food costs may necessitate a different menu-pricing strategy.
Don’t Let Food Labeling Fool You
When selecting food, it’s essential to identify and cut through marketing buzzwords to uncover real value.
Misleading marketing takes advantage with ambiguous language like “all natural,” “non-GMO,” “low-fat,” or “cage-free” to guide buyers toward premium-price items that—sorry to break it to you—aren’t always worth the hype.
The Ingredient Splitting Trick You Should Know
Pick up some packaged granola or energy bars and you might notice a laundry-list of ingredients like brown rice syrup, date syrup, brown sugar, cane sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, dextrose, and honey. Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight, and to avoid listing sugar as a primary ingredient, many manufacturers add a range of sweeteners so each individual one is listed further down the ingredient list.
Healthier ingredients, like rolled oats, then appear higher up the list, suggesting to consumers that the product may be healthier than it actually is.
Being able to identify how sweet a product might be will affect how it’s used. For example, a home chef using store-bought granola for a parfait may wish to use unsweetened yogurt or tart berries to offset the sweetness.
Ingredient splitting can lead to excess sweetness. Combining it with another flavor profile–like salty, sour, bitter, or umami–can bring much-needed balance.
Are You a Victim of Healthwashing?
Accurately discerning between “free-range,” “cage-free,” and “pasture-raised,” can help you make informed purchasing choices, which might save you money. In this case:
- Cage-free: Hens are not kept in cages, but they are housed in barns that usually do not have outdoor access.
- Free-range: Hens must have outdoor access, but there’s no minimum requirement for time spent outdoors or outdoor square footage–for example, it doesn’t require full-body access.
- Pasture-raised: Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) Certified Humane® pasture-raised egg certification standards require that each hen has at least 108 square feet of outdoor space, and weather permitting they must spend six hours outdoors per day on rotated fields. Some say that HFAC-certified pasture-raised eggs are more flavorful than cage-free or free-range eggs, because their diet includes more grass and bugs. These dietary benefits also promote a richer, darker-colored egg yolk. However, they’re often the most expensive.
Egg terminology, living conditions, and prices vary considerably. For egg-based restaurants and bakeries, it might be worth comparing the cost of eggs against animal welfare–especially during a nationwide egg shortage where one diner owner noted her weekly egg prices jumped from $300 to nearly $1,000. Tools like the Organic Egg Scorecard are designed to help consumers make more humane choices at the budget that’s right for their business.
Frequent price fluctuations for essential ingredients, influenced by economic factors, bacterial outbreaks, or production issues, regularly affect prices—particularly in the case of eggs. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps a chart of the average price of various items, like eggs, milk, bread, and some fruits and vegetables, that you can regularly refer to.
Other terms that demand higher prices or suggest healthfulness, like “all natural,” are often ambiguously defined and unregulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In these cases, products marketed as “natural” may cost more without providing any real additional benefit.
Organic Costs More—Is It Worth It?
USDA Organic certified items often demand a significantly higher price than conventional items, and most consumers are willing to pay it because they believe organic items are healthier. But they don’t always know what the label means.
The USDA Organic seal doesn’t mean that the product has been grown without the use of pesticides. Instead, it certifies, among other things, that prohibited substances, including most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, have not been used in the three years prior to harvest.
Whether organic foods are actually better for human health is a topic of much debate, though they still demand 10% to 40% higher prices than conventionally-produced foods.
For chefs, incorporating organic products can significantly enhance the perceived value of their menus, making the higher costs worthwhile and justifying premium pricing to discerning customers.
Remember: a product is not healthier just because a manufacturer suggests it is with careful marketing. Side-stepping misleading healthwashing that eats a hole in your wallet can be key during the era of food inflation.
Hitting target food costs can challenge any culinarian.
Hidden Ingredients and Obscure Labels
The FDA mandates that food manufacturers include an “ingredient declaration,” a comprehensive list detailing every ingredient in the product. However, vague ingredients, like “natural flavors,” “artificial flavors,” “artificial colors,” and “spices,” are subject to exemption, and they may contain controversial additives.
An amendment to the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, a provision referred to as GRAS, or “Generally Recognized as Safe,” allows manufacturers to use certain additives so long as they’re GRAS and within certain volume limits.
Through GRAS, a food additive does not require F.D.A. review if it’s been deemed safe by a panel of qualified experts. Originally, this provision was established so foods that are widely considered safe don’t have to go through F.D.A. review. Proponents argue this can promote safety and streamline regulation while encouraging food industry innovation. However, the panels deciding whether an additive is safe might have conflicts of interest that could undermine food safety confidence in the United States.
Once approved under GRAS, an additive can bypass F.D.A. review. And while the F.D.A. can re-evaluate additives if they identify safety concerns–this famously happened with brominated vegetable oil–GRAS revocation may occur many years after it’s been introduced to the market. People like Scott Faber, Senior VP of Government Affairs at the Environmental Working Group, call GRAS a “loophole,” saying, “it shouldn’t be up to consumers to keep us safe.”
Some of these obscured food additives may pose allergy risks and unknown safety risks to consumers. Avoiding these items in your kitchen, or declaring when menu items contain unknown additives, can help protect customers.
Knowledge is Power: 3 Food Label Tips That Cooks Should Know
Everyone should be armed with the information to make informed ingredient choices. When it comes to culinarians, who are navigating consumer demands and razor-thin profit margins, this knowledge can be the difference between success and failure.
Keep these tips in your back pocket:
1. Ignore the Packaging
Marketing claims only have as much power as you give them. Ignore the health claims and aesthetics on the front of the box and head straight for the food label.
2. Know Your Audience
If you’re cooking for others, pay attention to additives, preservatives, dietary certifications, and allergens. According to the F.D.A, by law, food labels must identify the food source of all major food allergens used to make food, and to do so in one of two ways—either listing it in parentheses following the name of the ingredient, as in, “”flour (wheat)”; or in a “contains” statement after or next to the list of ingredients, as in, “this product is made in a facility that also processes tree nuts and dairy,” are usually listed at the bottom of the nutrition label.
Conscientious and inclusive practices can widen your consumer market and lead to unexpected opportunities.
Food labels must identify the food source of all major food allergens used to make food.
3. Build Technical Skills
While getting a degree or diploma isn’t strictly necessary to create great dishes, it can help build an understanding of the science behind ingredient choices. For example, the field of molecular gastronomy relies on the technical knowledge of how ingredients interact on the molecular level.
Further Your Ingredient (and Business) Knowledge
Consumer preferences and serious allergies demand that dishes are not just prepared well, but prepared safely with nutritious and sustainable ingredients. Culinarians can use food label literacy to make purchasing choices based on factual information, rather than persuasive marketing. In the cheffing world, where profit margins may be tight enough to require creative side hustles, smart product choices can be the thing keeping businesses in the green.
Food enthusiasts wanting to further their culinary expertise may want to consider the degree and diploma programs available at Escoffier where they can gain a deeper understanding of food science, business operations, and food safety. Contact us to find out more about Escoffier’s programs in Culinary Arts, Baking & Pastry Arts, Plant-Based, Holistic Nutrition & Wellness Programs, and Food Entrepreneurship Programs.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CULINARY HEALTH AND NUTRITION, TRY THESE ARTICLES NEXT:
- Plant-Based vs. Vegan: Why Chefs Need to Know the Difference
- Why Chefs Should Care About Culinary Nutrition
- How to Become a Holistic Nutritionist
*Information may not reflect every student’s experience. Results and outcomes may be based on several factors, such as geographical region or previous experience.
