Percent Composition

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), has provided some guidelines regarding healthy and dietary intake with ChooseMyPlate.gov. There are guidelines regarding the food groups, such as:

• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables
• Half of the grains you eat should be whole grains
• Vary your protein choices
• Switch to skim or 1% milk when possible

Many foods have fat, and some fats are healthy, while others are not. The nutrition food labels provided on food items allows consumers to calculate the percentage of fat consumed based on a daily caloric intake. Take a few moments to look at the Nutrition Facts Label document from the ChooseMyPlate.gov website. The way in which the federal government calculates the % Daily Value of different nutrition quantities is similar to the way in which chemists calculate the percent composition of an element in a compound.