Question

With your grocery list in hand, you reach for crackers and notice a reduced fat variety of your favorite brand. Using the two product labels for “Buttery Crackers” and “Reduced Fat Buttery Crackers” compare the Nutrition Facts Panel and ingredients lists to address these questions:

	Calories	Total Fat (g)	Total Fat %DV	Saturated fat (g)	Saturated Fat %DV	Sodium (mg)	Sodium %DV	Carbo-hydrate (g)	Dietary Fiber (g)	Total Sugars (g)
Buttery Crackers	80	4.5g	6%	1g	5%	105mg	5%	10g	0g	1g
Reduced Fat Buttery Crackers	70	2g	3%	0g	0%	150mg	7%	11g	0g	2g
Differences (+/–)	10	2.5g	3%	1g	5%	-45mg	-2%	-1%	0g	-1g

Question: Would you consider either of these crackers a food product that should be a regular choice or just an occasional part of one’s diet? Explain.

Answer 1

Buttery crackers surely cannot be taken as a regular dietary supplement due to the high content of saturated fats which will harm the body especially the cardiac health in the long run, but can occasionally be part of one's diet as the rest of nutritional values are better compared to that of reduced fat crackers.

I would definitely avoid reduced fat crackers as it has very high amounts of sodium -150mg, when the permitted intake is 1500mg per individual for a whole day. Hence this is an unhealthy choice and should be avoided for good cardiac health. Besides this the sugar content is also high which results in carbohydrate accumulation. Hence these reduced fat crackers cannot be had as a regular choice or as an occasional part of one's diet.