The two numbers at the top of the panel
Every US Nutrition Facts panel opens with two lines that look similar and mean completely different things. Servings per container says how many portions the manufacturer considers to be in the package. Serving size says how big one of those portions is. Every nutrient number underneath refers to one serving, not to the package.
This is the single most misread thing on the label. A bag of chips declaring 150 calories is declaring 150 calories per serving, and if it holds three and a half servings then eating the bag is roughly 525. Nothing about that is hidden or deceptive; it is printed clearly at the top. It is just that the eye goes to the large number in the middle and the two small lines above it do not register. That is why the results here include a "if you finish the container" table, and why it is worth looking at that table before the one in the middle.
Why serving sizes are not comparable across products
Serving sizes on US labels are based on reference amounts customarily consumed, set by category, so two products in the same category are usually close. Across categories they are not, and even inside a category the number can differ once package sizes and rounding are applied. Compare a 30 g cracker serving against a 55 g bar serving directly and you are comparing two different amounts of food.
Rescaling to a common amount fixes exactly that and nothing else. A per-100-gram row tells you which product is denser in a given nutrient. It does not tell you which one you will end up eating more of, and for something like a drink, per 100 mL can be actively misleading when the bottle is 500 mL and people drink the bottle. Setting the comparison basis to the actual package size is often the more useful reading.
What %DV is measuring
The percentages printed on the panel are against Daily Values fixed for labelling purposes, benchmarked to a 2,000 calorie reference intake. The reference is a common yardstick that lets any two packages be scored the same way. It is not a recommendation directed at the person holding the package, and 2,000 calories is not a target the label is setting for you. Someone eating 1,500 calories a day and someone eating 3,200 both read the same percentage off the same box, and it means something different in each case.
| Row | Daily Value used | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 2,000 reference | No %DV is printed for calories; the reference underpins the other percentages |
| Sodium | 2,300 mg | Revised in the current label format |
| Total sugars | None | No Daily Value exists, so no percentage is printed |
| Added sugars | 50 g | A separate line from total sugars |
| Saturated fat | 20 g | Trans fat is listed but has no Daily Value |
| Dietary fiber | 28 g |
These figures and the layout of the panel itself are set by regulation. They have changed before and can change again, so a table like this one describes the label as it stands rather than a permanent fact.
Total sugars and added sugars are different lines
Total sugars counts everything: the sugar naturally present in fruit, milk and grains, plus anything put in during processing. Added sugars is the second figure, indented beneath it, counting only what was added. A plain yogurt can show a substantial total sugars figure with zero added sugars, because milk contains lactose. A flavoured one shows both. Reading only the total tells you nothing about which of those two situations you are looking at, and reading only the added sugars line misses how sweet the product actually is. They are printed separately because they answer different questions.
What the panel does not say
The panel covers a fixed set of nutrients and stops. It does not list every ingredient, and the ingredient list beside it — in descending order by weight, with allergens declared — often tells you more about what a product is. It says nothing about how a food was produced, how processed it is, portion satiety, or how any of it interacts with anything else you eat that day. Nutrient figures on labels are also permitted rounding, so small numbers on the panel are approximations rather than measurements of the package in your hand.
And this tool takes a further step back than the panel does. It rescales numbers you typed and sets them beside each other. It does not score products, rank them, or tell you which to buy, because that would require knowing what you are trying to achieve and what else you eat, and it knows neither. If you have a condition that makes a specific nutrient matter — sodium, potassium, carbohydrate, anything — the numbers to work from are the ones your clinician or a registered dietitian gives you, not a percentage calculated against a 2,000 calorie reference.
Questions people ask
The panel lists numbers per serving and per container in two columns. Which do I enter?
The per-serving column, because that is what the rest of the tool assumes. Dual-column panels appear on packages that could reasonably be eaten in one sitting or in several, and the second column is the whole-container total, which this tool works out for you from servings per container. Entering the container column into the nutrient fields would double-count and produce a wildly inflated total. If you would rather work the other way and only have container figures, put 1 in servings per container and the container weight in serving size, and read the per-100 row.
Why is there no percentage next to total sugars?
Because no Daily Value has been established for total sugars, so the panel does not print one and neither does this. Added sugars does have one, currently 50 g, and that row shows a percentage. It is a genuine gap rather than an oversight: total sugars mixes sugar occurring naturally in fruit, dairy and grains with sugar added during processing, and no single reference figure has been set for the combination. Read the total sugars figure as a plain quantity and use the added sugars line beneath it when you want the processed portion.
Can I compare a drink and a snack in the same table?
The arithmetic will run, and the result will be close to meaningless. Per 100 g of a solid and per 100 mL of a liquid are not the same basis, and a mostly-water product will look low in everything simply because it is mostly water. Where the comparison does work is between two similar products, which is what the tool is for: two cereals, two yogurts, two sodas. If you do want to look at a drink usefully, set the comparison amount to the size of the bottle rather than 100, because that is the amount people actually finish.
Does it tell me which product is the better choice?
No, and it is built not to. It rescales the figures so they sit on the same basis and then stops. Whether lower sodium outweighs higher added sugars, whether the fiber matters more than the saturated fat, and how much of any of it is appropriate all depend on the rest of what you eat, what you are trying to do and your own health, none of which a label comparison can see. The bars in the side-by-side section are scaled to the largest value in each row purely so the rows are readable, and longer is not a verdict.