Daily Value strategy guide

How to read a Nutrition Facts label and use calorie density, serving size, protein, fat and sodium to name the food in fewer guesses.

Daily Value rewards the habits of someone who reads labels: how many calories sit in how many grams, where the protein is, whether there is any fat or carbohydrate at all, and how much sodium the serving holds. You don’t need to memorize the nutrients of 442 foods. You need to read the label the game hands you before you guess, open from the middle of the list, and read each row of clues in the order that narrows things fastest. This guide walks through that plan, and the figures in it are computed from the same data the game uses. They are USDA’s values for generic foods and describe what is on a label, nothing more. Not dietary advice.

1. Work out the density first

The Density clue compares calories per 100 grams, and the label doesn’t print it, so it is the clue you can get ahead of. Divide the calories by the serving’s weight in grams and multiply by 100. It separates foods that look alike on the label: one tablespoon of olive oil (14g) and one medium apple (200g) print almost the same calories, 130 and 120, but the oil packs 900 kcal into 100 g and the apple 61, nearly fifteen times fewer. Whenever the serving weight looks small next to the calories, think of oil, nuts, butter or sweets. When it looks large, think of fruit, vegetables or a drink.

The middle of Daily Value’s 442 foods is about 196 kcal per 100 g. At the top, 68 foods are at 400 or more: 31 are Snacks and sweets, 20 are Protein foods (the nuts, seeds and nut butters, plus Bacon, Beef jerky, Pepperoni and Pork rinds), 11 are Fats and condiments, 3 are Grains, 2 are Dairy and 1 is a Mixed dish. Olive oil has the highest density of the 442, followed by Pecans (750), Butter (743), Walnuts (730) and Macadamia nuts (716). At the bottom, all 25 beverages sit between 0 and 66, Water and Sparkling water being at 0. Fruit has a median of 60 and Vegetables 41, with dried fruit the exception: Dried cranberries, at 308, are the densest of the 34 fruits.

Then look at what the other lines say about the food. Protein with no carbohydrate points to meat, fish, eggs or cheese: 46 of the 442 foods print at least 5g of protein with 0g or less than 1g of carbohydrate, and 37 of them are Protein foods, the chicken, beef, pork, fish, eggs and cured meats, with 8 cheeses and Meatballs making up the rest. Beans and breaded meats carry carbohydrate: Black beans print 22g and Fish sticks 17g. Potassium and sugars with no fat point to fruit: 23 foods print 0g of fat, at least 10g of sugars and at least 150mg of potassium, and 20 of them are Fruit. The three that are not are Cranberry juice, Plantain and Skim milk. And a lot of sodium points to a prepared food: 77 foods print 500mg or more, and 50 of them are Mixed dishes. Another 17 are Protein foods, cured meats and sausages such as Bologna, Pastrami, Prosciutto, Kielbasa and Bratwurst among them. All seven soups are on the list, from Minestrone at 590mg to French onion soup at 930mg. The other ten are a mixed bag: Soy sauce, Teriyaki sauce, Marinara sauce, Buffalo sauce, Tomato juice, Soft pretzel, Pancakes, Mozzarella sticks, Red velvet cake and Strawberry shortcake. At the other extreme, 54 of the 442 foods print 0mg of sodium and 119 print 0g of fat.

Read the label first, do the division, and let the arrows do the triangulating.

2. Use the serving line

The serving line is a free clue. Its unit already narrows the group, and its grams are the Serving clue before you have made a guess. Daily Value uses 13 units, and some are very telling. A tablespoon is almost always something you spread, drizzle or dip: of the 37 foods served by the tablespoon, 33 are Fats and condiments. An ounce is almost always protein: 14 of the 15 foods served in ounces are Protein foods, the nuts, cured meats and poultry, and the other is Queso fresco. A fluid ounce is a drink: 10 of the 12 are Beverages, and the other two are Half and half and Heavy cream. A medium serving is one whole piece, 41 foods in all, and 22 of them are Fruit or Vegetables. Slices run through 39 foods, from bread and cheese to cake, pie and pizza.

A cup says much less. It is the most common unit, used by 155 foods from every one of the nine groups: 32 are Vegetables, 26 Mixed dishes and 22 Protein foods, such as beans. A piece is next with 104 foods across eight groups. For those, lean on the grams. The median serving weighs 88 g, and the groups differ a lot: Fats and condiments have a median of 30 g, Snacks and sweets 45 g, Mixed dishes 159 g and Beverages 248 g, with Bubble tea the heaviest serving at 435 g and Mints the lightest at 2 g. Of the 10 foods whose serving weighs 300 g or more, nine are Beverages and the other is Watermelon. Of the 30 whose serving weighs 20 g or less, 22 are Fats and condiments and 5 are Snacks and sweets.

3. Open from the middle of the list

Your first guess should split the possibilities rather than aim for the answer. Take the middle value of each figure across Daily Value’s 442 foods and you get a typical food with about 130 calories in an 88 g serving, 4 g of protein, 5 g of fat and 190 mg of sodium. A food near the middle on every clue can come back blue or orange on more clues than an extreme one. We checked by running each of the 442 foods as an opener against the 228 answers and counting how many different rows of feedback it produced from wrong guesses, leaving out the solved row when the opener is itself the answer: Deviled egg and Macaroni salad each produced 120, the most of any food, against 85 for Banana, 79 for Whole milk and only 33 for Olive oil. Counted the other way, by the size of the biggest group of answers one wrong row can leave, Chocolate pudding and Coleslaw do best: whichever other answer is hidden, their most common row leaves 13 of the other 227. Apple does the opposite. For 114 of the other 227 answers it returns the same row, grey on every clue with arrows saying the hidden food is denser and lighter and has more protein, fat and sodium, and that tells you little.

4. Learn the groups

Group is the only clue about what a food is rather than how much of something it holds. It follows USDA’s What We Eat in America categories, 136 of which appear in Daily Value, and they roll up into nine top-level groups:

A blue Group is the strongest single clue in the game, because categories are small. Of the 136, 46 hold one food and 78 hold one or two, and the largest, Nuts and seeds, holds 17. Pizza holds two foods, Pepperoni pizza and Pizza. Soft drinks holds Cola and Ginger ale. An orange Group is weaker but still useful: it says the food is in the same top-level group, so it narrows the 442 foods to a group of between 25 and 90. The groups do not always match the shelf you would expect, and that is the easiest way to be misled. Peanut butter and Trail mix are in Protein foods, with the nuts. Avocado, Plantain, Sweet potato and French fries are Vegetables. Almond milk and Hot chocolate are Dairy. Hummus and Guacamole are Fats and condiments, in the dips, and so are Ketchup and Salsa. Baked beans are Protein foods, Applesauce is Fruit, and Chicken salad is a Mixed dish.

5. Read the bands and the arrows

Density and Serving are compared against the hidden food’s figure, so the bands are a little wider above your guess than below it. A guess of 200 kcal/100 g reads blue for a hidden food anywhere from about 182 to 222 and orange from 160 to 267. A guess with a 100 g serving reads blue from about 91 to 111 g and orange from 77 to 143 g. So an orange is a broad hint, not a near-miss, and the arrow beside it is worth more than the color.

Protein, Fat and Sodium work the same way with floors, and the floors matter most when the hidden food has almost none of the nutrient. If the hidden food has no sodium at all, a guess with up to 2 mg reads blue and one with up to 6 mg reads orange, because both gaps are measured against a 20 mg floor. If it has no fat, a guess with up to 0.1 g of fat is blue. A blue Sodium on a 0 mg guess therefore means the hidden food has 2 mg or less, which is far more specific than it sounds. Remember that 119 of the 442 foods print 0g of fat and 54 print 0mg of sodium, so those floors come into play often.

6. When to take a hint

The group hint is most valuable early, when you have not yet placed the food at all: it names one of nine groups, and Fruit, for example, is only 34 of the 442 foods. The second hint, the shape of the name, is stronger than it sounds, because names are short. Of the 442 foods, 204 have a one-word name and 210 a two-word name, and only 28 have three or four words. A shape like “Name: 2 words, 6 + 6 letters” fits just seven foods: Almond butter, Frozen yogurt, Ground turkey, Peanut butter, Smoked salmon, Turkey breast and Veggie burger. The first-letter hint is strongest late in a round, when you have two or three candidates left and can simply check which name fits. Letters are not evenly spread, and C starts 82 of the 442 foods, ahead of P with 49 and S with 45, so a hint of C alone leaves a lot.

7. Two worked rounds

Suppose the hidden food is Pizza. The label reads: Serving size 1 slice (119g), Calories 320, Total Fat 12g, Sodium 640mg, Total Carbohydrate 40g, Protein 14g. Before you type, read it. The 320 calories in 119 g work out to about 270 kcal/100 g, above the middle of the list but nowhere near the oils and nuts. The unit is a slice. Sodium of 640mg puts it among the 77 foods that print 500mg or more, and 14g of protein alongside 40g of carbohydrate points to a mixed dish. You open with Grilled cheese. The row reads: Group Cheese sandwiches, close; Density 343 kcal/100 g, a miss with a down arrow; Serving 116 g, a match; Protein 13 g, a match; Fat 24 g, a miss with a down arrow; Sodium 954 mg, a miss with a down arrow. The close Group confirms a mixed dish, the two blues say the hidden food weighs and holds about the same protein, and the down arrows say it is less dense and has less fat and less sodium. For a slice, you try Pepperoni pizza. The row reads: Group Pizza, a match; Density 282 kcal/100 g, a match; Serving 124 g, a match; Protein 15 g, a match; Fat 15 g, close with a down arrow; Sodium 769 mg, close with a down arrow. A blue Group means the same category, and that category holds only two foods, Pepperoni pizza and Pizza. The arrows point to the plainer one, so you guess Pizza and solve it in three.

Now suppose the hidden food is Peach. The label reads: Serving size 1 medium (150g), Calories 70, Total Fat 0g, Sodium 20mg, Total Carbohydrate 15g, Total Sugars 13g, Protein 1g, Potassium 180mg. The unit is medium, so it is a whole piece. The density is about 47 kcal/100 g, near the bottom. Zero fat, 13g of sugars and 180mg of potassium is the fruit pattern from step 1. You open with Apple. The row reads: Group Apples, close; Density 61 kcal/100 g, a miss with a down arrow; Serving 200 g, a miss with a down arrow; Protein 0.3 g, a miss with an up arrow; Fat 0.3 g, close with an up arrow; Sodium 0 mg, a miss with an up arrow. The close Group confirms Fruit, and the hidden food is lighter and less dense than an apple. You try Orange. The row reads: Group Citrus fruits, close; Density 50 kcal/100 g, a match; Serving 154 g, a match; Protein 1.4 g, a match; Fat 0.2 g, close with an up arrow; Sodium 6.2 mg, a miss with an up arrow. Three blues say the hidden food is almost exactly an orange’s weight and density, a medium fruit with a few more milligrams of sodium. You try a nectarine. Daily Value counts a nectarine as a peach, because their labels are nearly identical, so typing “nectarine” offers Peach and the guess wins in three.

8. Common mistakes

• Reading Density as calories per serving, when it is calories per 100 grams and has to be worked out.
• Treating an orange Density as a near-miss, when the band is wide: at 200 kcal/100 g, orange reaches from 160 to 267.
• Expecting the food’s group to be where you would shelve it, when Peanut butter is Protein foods and Avocado is Vegetables.
• Opening with an extreme food: Water returns the same row for 133 answers and Olive oil for 109.
• Reading a blue Protein, Fat or Sodium on a tiny amount as a precise match, when the floors make small amounts easy to match.
• Forgetting that the printed label is rounded, so 640mg on the label can be a little off the figure the clue compares.
• Stopping at a row of blue and orange, when the arrows are still telling you which way the answer lies.

Practice these reads in unlimited mode until they feel automatic, then bring them back to the daily puzzle. The how to play page has the rules, and the data and method page explains where the numbers come from. The figures are USDA’s values for generic foods, and none of this is dietary advice.