How to Read Food Labels

You cannot measure every morsel that passes your lips, but it is a good idea to measure most foods and beverages until you get a feel for portion sizes. It is a supersized world out there, and most people are surprised to find that their idea of a single serving is actually two or three. If you are into bells and whistles, there are food scales that are preprogrammed with nutritional information, as well as scales that will keep a running total of your daily food and nutrient intake for you. The only tools you really need, however, are a simple and inexpensive gram scale, dry and liquid measuring cups, and idea on reading food labels. Among all of the mentioned tools, reading food labels seem to be the most effective way of determining the right kind of food to be bought in the supermarket. It lets you make sensible food selections. Through the Nutrition Facts section in a particular item in the grocery, you can identify the amount of serving sizes provided in that product. With food labels, you can clearly understand the amount and kinds of nutrients that are provided in the item. Usually, it contains the information on saturated fat, sodium, total fat, fiber, and cholesterol amount per serving. However, understanding and reading these food labels can be very perplexing. A typical consumer would definitely ask what those numbers mean and how it will affect her diet intake if ever she will religiously follow the serving guide as stipulated on the food label. To further have a clear and more comprehensive understanding of the items stated in the food label, here is a list of things that you need to know: 1. Serving size This is the primary item you will see in a food label. The amount of servings stated in the food label refers to the quantity of food people usually consume. However, this does not necessarily mean that it reflects your very own amount of food intake. Moreover, serving size determines the amount of nutrients that enters the body. This means that if you will follow strictly what the serving size is, you will obtain the same amount of nutrients according to the serving size that was given in the label. For instance, if the serving size says one serving size is equal to 54 grams, that would mean you have to measure 54 grams and eat that and you have just eaten one serving. So to speak, the amount of nutrients stated in the food label is the same amount that has entered your body considering the fact that you have just eaten 54 grams. However, if you have eaten everything, and the food label says that each pack is equivalent to 4 servings, you have to calculate the amount of nutrients that have entered your body. This means that if the food label says 250 calories per serving that means you have to multiply it to four to get the total amount of calories you have taken. 2. Nutrients This refers to the list of available nutrients in a particular item. It is also where the nutritional claims of the product based on the recommended daily dietary allowance are stated. Usually, the nutritional amounts are based on both the 2,500-calorie diets and the 2,000 recommended dietary allowances. In order to understand the numeric value of each item, you should know that the % daily value that the food label indicates is actually based on how a particular food corresponds to the recommended daily dietary allowance for a 2,000 calorie. If in the event that you have purchased an item that has a dietary allowance different from the 2,000-calorie diet, you just have to divide the stipulated amount by 2,000 and you will be able to identify the %daily value for the nutrients. 3. Ingredients This refers to the list of the ingredients that were used to manufacture the product. The listing is usually arranged from the main ingredients that have the greater amount by weight up to the smallest quantity. This simply means that the actual quantity of the food includes the biggest quantity of the main ingredient or the first item and the minimum amount of the very last ingredient. 4. Label claim This refers to the kinds of nutritional claims of a particular food item. For instance, if an item says it is sodium-free, it has less than 5 milligrams per serving or a low fat item actually contains 3 grams of fat or less. Indeed, reading food labels can be very tedious and confusing. Nevertheless, once you get the hang of it, it would be easier for you to watch your diet because you can already control the amount of food that you take.

How to Seek Grants for Alternative Energy R & D

How to Seek Grants for Alternative Energy R & D If you are someone who wishes to begin researching and developing alternative energy technologies and you would want to be set up as a not-for-profit organization or entity, you will want to look into getting government grants, on both the state and the federal levels. Government grants for alternative energy research and development have been highly touted by politicians on local, state, and federal levels in recent years, all the way up to the President himself. This is due to the fact that we now recognize as a society that we need to seek out and develop alternative energy sources to those of the fossil fuels that we presently depend upon, as these fuels are not only slowly but surely running out (at least cheap access to digging them up is running out), but also damaging to the environment and air quality. There is a fairly vast array of government grant programs available for you to check into. The great and most important thing to keep in mind about a government grant is that it's essentially free money. It is not a loan, you don't pay any interest, and you don't ever have to give the money back. However, qualifying for these grants, as you might imagine with something involving the government and free money, has quite a lot of restrictions attached to it. Not only is qualification based on purpose and need in the eyes and opinions of government bureaucrats, but just because you qualify does not mean that you necessarily get the grant. As Marshall McLuen put it, the medium is the message. The fact of the matter is that it is typically easier to apply for and qualify to receive a business loanbut then, that would not be free money, that would be something you owed to someone, and with interest on top. There are professional grant writers who know how to write proposals in such a way that they get around the heavy load of restrictions set up by the government, and you might need to resort to one of these. Even governments employ professional grant writers to seek money from other branches of the government, such as a country government needing funding from the state or the federal government. These people also keep abreast of what government grants are still or newly available and what ones have been removed from the table. It's an intricate web, so one must not get tangled up in when seeking needed financial backing for alternative energy research and development. In fact, it is so complex that in the last decade or so the ranks of profession writers, as both individuals and as entire companies, have swelled. It is a profitable businessand this can make it fraught with illegal actions and controversial claims. Nevertheless, each year there are many thousands of grants awarded throughout the United States for the purpose of helping the public. And again, with the government endorsement of grant money to be given to alternative energy researchers, you could very well get what you seek.