With this country's obsession with calorie counting and fat burning, more and more people are paying attention to food labels. The thing is, they're practically in another language. I'll help you translate the language on labels and shop a little smarter. Check out a sample label, and learn what all those numbers and letters stamped on food boxes mean.

Read Those Labels!
As more "nutritional" products and supplements hit our shelves, it seems that many products are touting everything from mind-enhancing properties to increasing longevity. On-pack claims seem to have moved far away from the basics like fat, ...

FDA's Authorized Health Claims
Health claims authorized by the FDA are one of several ways food labels can win the attention of health-conscious consumers. Under the Nutrition Labeling and Education act of 1990, the FDA has approved 10 health claims for use in food labeling ...

How to Spot "Irradiated" Foods

Translating Label Claims
Who can make sense of today's food labels? Everything says "more free," "low fat," "fewer calories," "won't cause tooth decay," etc. How many of these claims are for real? And, how can you tell? One of the most confusing labeling laws surrounds ...

Top 10 Misleading Labels
#1 "High energy" or "high calorie"; #2 "Low sugar"; #3 "Good source" or "high" claims without a Daily Value (for example, "high in omega-3 fatty acids"); #4 "Sugar free"; #5 "Low"; #6 Low cholesterol claims; #7 "___% fat free" on products that ...

Package Colors and What They Mean
The average package on the supermarket shelf has only about one-seventeenth of a second to attract your attention. After that, the design, the color, the words and -- oh, yeah -- the product have to interest you enough to put it in your cart.

Deciphering the Clues to Freshness
How fresh is the food you buy? It's hard to tell these days, what with the jumble of freshness codes, open dating, sell-by dates and packed-by dates appearing on different products. But because shoppers are increasingly concerned with this issue ...

What "Organic" Really Means

Other Package Codes
What do all those package codes and numbers mean? Can they help us choose a product, or are they just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo? These codes can be one of the most valuable tools in deciphering the freshness of a product.

Know your Fridge!
Take a look inside your fridge. And I do mean a really good look. This time I don't want you to look for out of date products, or for improperly sealed foods. Just look around -- as if you were seeing the inside for the first time.