By:   Julie Upton, MS, RD, CSSD

There’s a battle between the food industry and government over something that could have a major impact on your diet: the food label. I call it “shock and awe” versus “flattery will get you everywhere.”

Here’s what’s up. One of the best things you can do to improve your diet is to buy healthier foods, and the food label (if you use it) is the one tool that can make that happen, whether you’re at the grocery store or restaurant.

Unfortunately, most Americans read Nutrition Facts about as often as they read user’s manuals or the fine-print on their credit card bills. But some experts believe (me included) that the reason we don’t read labels is because they’re too confusing and not easily translated into anything practical…like what this all means for my meals and feeding a family.

To make the labels more user-friendly and encourage healthier shopping and eating, the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration and Institute of Medicine are working together to devise a new food label. At the same time, the food industry is creating its own strategies for marketing nutrition on packages.

The problem: the food industry wants to accentuate the positive, while the government health administrations want to 'shock and awe', scare us silly over the ginormous calories, heart-clogging saturated fats and stroke-inducing sodium levels in what we're about to buy.

I’m a label skimmer and thankfully have the skills to put the numbers on food labels into perspective. But I get lazy and am often gob-smacked and embarrassed when I more closely inspect some of the cereals and crackers in my pantry and find that they’re loaded with sugar and saturated fat, respectively.

Most people, like those who aren’t dietitians or nutritionists, don’t know a DV from the DMV, so how can we really use the nutrition jargon on labels to make healthier choices?

In order to help simplify the Nutrition Facts panel and food labels in general, I asked several dietitians, "What is the one most important thing you recommend someone look for on a food label before purchasing?"