Fat Grams, Calories or Percentages?

When assessing the fat content of foods, which should I focus on — fat grams, calories or percentages?

In an effort to lose weight or simply be more healthy, you may be keeping on eye on your daily fat intake. For most people, that means paying close attention to the nutrition facts label on the foods you buy. But most labels list the number of fat grams along with total calories and percentages—what information should you be considering?

While all of the information on a food label can be useful, the most reliable way to keep track of how much fat you’re getting in your daily diet is to pay attention to how many grams of fat are in the foods you eat. This way, you can keep a running total of how many grams of fat you’re getting from all of the food you eat during the day.

How many grams of fat should you eat during a day? That depends on how many calories you’re consuming. Most healthy adults should get no more than 20 to 35% of their total calories from fat. If you’re on a 1,500 calorie diet, that means you should only have 300 to 525 calories a day from fat. Each gram of fat contains 9 calories. If you’re only eating 300 calories from fat, you should have a little less than 34 grams of fat each day.

To figure out how many grams of fat you should eat, take the number of calories eaten times .2 (for 20%) or .35 (for 35%), then divide that product by 9.