It is important that you know how to shop for quality foods. This article explains how to maximize your trips to the grocery store by revealing exactly how to read labels and find healthy foods. It is not very complicated, but a little knowledge can go a long ways when it comes to healthy shopping.

Here are a few general guidelines for looking at food labels:

• It is the ingredients and the nutrition facts that are important - one without the other doesn't tell the full tale.
• Ingredients list are listing in descending order of predominance. This means that the first ingredient is the most prevalent in the product, while the last ingredient has the least amount in the product.
• In general, you'll want sugars and salts to be listed last in the ingredients list.
• If you are looking for a whole fat food, remember that the labels list fats in grams. The percentage listed next to the fats is percentage of daily intake, not percentage of fat calories in the product. You need to look at the top of the label, "calories of fat", and divide that by total calories to figure out the percentage. You can estimate this - if the fat calories are around half of the total calories, then the fat calories are about 50%.

When looking for carbohydrate products, try to choose products that are the least amount processed. Here are a few tips:

• Breads should have the words "whole" or "stone ground" first on the ingredients list. Often, you might see "unbleached enriched flour, whole wheat..." which is not the bread you are looking for - this is processed bread with some whole grains added for color. The first ingredient should be whole grains.
• A quality carbohydrate should have fiber and sugar. Try to avoid carbohydrates with zero fiber. Carbohydrates that are nothing but fiber will also not provide optimal nourishment- a combination of both is good. I typically look for at least 1/6 of the total carbohydrate count as fiber - so something with 20 grams of carbohydrate would have around 3 - 4 grams of fiber.
• It is your decision whether or not you wish to consume highly processed foods. I choose to look for whole, natural foods. If there is too much Latin on the label - i.e. Ingredients I can't pronounce or don't recognize, I leave it on the shelf!

Special Statements

"Not a significant source of sugars" means that the sugar count on the label is less than one gram. Don't take this statement for granted. Some ingredients, such as maltodextrin, are not technically considered to be sugars, but have the same effect as sugars. This is why the ingredients list and the nutrition facts are important when taken together.

Other special statements:

• No Fat Or Fat Free  Contains less than a 1/2 gram of fat per serving. 
• Lower Or Reduced Fat  Contains less the fat or calories of the original version or a similar product. 
• Low Fat  Contains less than 3 grams of fat per serving. 
• Lite  Contains 1/3 the calories or 1/2 the fat per serving of the original version or a similar product. 
• Low Calories  Contains 1/3 the calories of the original version or a similar product.
• No Calorie Or Calorie Free  Contains less than 5 calories per serving. 
• Sugar Free  Contains less than 1/2 gram of sugar per serving. 
• No Preservatives  Contains no preservatives (chemical or natural).
• No Preservatives Added  Contains no added chemicals to preserve the product. Some of these products may contain natural preservatives. 
• Low Sodium  Contains less than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving. 
• No Salt Or Salt Free  Contains less than 5 milligrams of sodium per serving. 
• Baked Not Fried  Used mostly for potato chips, crackers or corn chips, this label means the product is usually sprayed with a light oil then baked in an over instead of fried in the oil.

Red Flags:

There are certain red flags to look for in an ingredients list. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a recommendation based on my own experience with purchasing quality foods. When looking at an ingredients list, examine the beginning (initial ingredients), the middle, and the end of the list.

Here Is My List Of Red Flags:

• Sugar anywhere but the end. Middle is fine if there is also substantial fiber. Of course, these rules may change for a post-workout shake.
• Any ingredient that I can't pronounce or must understand Latin in order to decipher - again, these aren't necessarily bad I just ask myself do they do something good for me? 
• Enriched anything. This has to be the biggest joke in the food industry. Enriched means the food was stripped of vital nutrients, and then a half-baked attempt at stuffing some more back in was made
• Fortified. Fortified with what? Control your vitamin and mineral intake through engineered supplements and whole foods - not through additives to existing foods where you do not have control over the quality or quantity
• Any food where the serving size provides over 20 grams of carbohydrate but less than 2 grams of fiber
• A protein where the fat calories are half of or more than the total calories (unless, of course, you are looking at a bottle of olive oil)
• The existence of partially hydrogenated oils anywhere in the ingredients list (also known as trans-fatty acids). I also tend to avoid hydrogenated oils as well (as opposed to partially hydrogenated) but don't mind them if they are at the end of the ingredients list. Also, if a product declares that it is free of trans fatty acids, then it should be fine despite the presence of hydrogenated oils in the ingredients list.

One final piece of advice is called "shopping at the periphery."

If you notice, most stores put the processed, packaged, and canned goods in the middle of the store. The fresh produce, eggs, dairy, meats, and other whole items are around the perimeter of the store. As long as you focus the majority of your shopping on this perimeter, you will be doing very well at picking up healthy, wholesome foods.