Tips for Writing Your Own Nutrition Facts
Whether you've been a returning customer of The Favor Maker for years, or whether you stumbled upon our store today, you've probably noticed that we love to personalize things! And what better way to personalize things like candy bars, popcorn wrappers, water bottle labels and more, then to create a nutrition panel that allows you to show your creative side!
While we offer standard nutrition facts for all of our items in themes for baby and bridal showers, weddings and themed birthdays, some of our customers have expressed interest in making up their own. We LOVE that idea! While our nutrition facts are fun, YOUR nutrition facts are even more special, because they are written by YOU! You certainly know the guest of honor better than we do and we'd love to help you create a keepsake that your guests will still be talking about at the next party.
Here are some things to think about when writing your nutrition facts:
- Humorous or sentimental? Before you start writing your nutrition facts, think long and hard about your guest of honor and your guests. Do they have a good sense of humor? Can they take a joke? Or would they appreciate something sappy, yet touching and sentimental. For instance... if your Over-the-Hill guest of honor is sensitive about losing his hair, it might be a bad idea to write something like Balding....80%. Then again, your guests may get a real kick out of it, even if it is at his expense. And if everyone doesn't know that the bride's ring is a Cubic Zirconia, it's probably best not to point that out with nutrition facts like Diamond Ring....0%, CZ Ring.....100%. If your guests are more reserved, you may want to stick with sentimental or serious facts that don't poke fun at anyone (although it won't be quite as fun writing them!).
- Determine your "Serving Size" It's pretty difficult to write nutrition facts that describe your "serving size" if you don't know what your serving size is. For example, if your serving size is One Wedding Guest, then your nutrition facts should describe One Wedding Guest with appropriate % values. You wouldn't want to put One Wedding Guest as your serving size and then nutrition facts like Respect....100%, Commitment...100%, etc... Those would be more fitting for a serving size like One Lasting Marriage. Make sense?
- Brainstorm. Here is the fun part! This is especially fun when writing nutrition facts for kids' birthdays. You get to make a list of 4-5 qualities that describe your serving size and then determine an appropriate % of Daily Value. For example, if your serving size is One Energetic Three-Year-Old, you'll want to brainstorm characteristics that describe the three-year-old, such as Curiosity....100%, Future Athlete.....100%, or Green Bean Lover.....0%. If your serving size is Three Amazing Years, you'll want your nutrition facts to describe events over the third year of the child's life. Here's another example- Serving Size: Three Amazing Years, %RDA: Going to bed on time.....25%, Getting peas stuck up nose.....10%, Bad Hair Days.....80%, etc... Read on for tips on determing the %RDA.
- Determine the %RDA. This part seems to be a little confusing. The values for % RDA are not supposed to add up to 100%. That's okay, you can blame that line of thinking on your grade school math teacher. The idea is that each RDA (recommended daily allowance) stands on its own and should be somewhere between 0%, which would indicate absolutely never or not at all, and 100% which would indicate all the time, or consistently. A good example might be using a nutrition fact for a three-year old that states Broccoli Lover....0%. That would indicate that child absolutely hates the stuff and probably flicks it off of his plate when mom isn't looking.
- Writing your "packaging" information. This part can be quite fun if you're good with puns/plays on words. We especially have fun with this part on popcorn wrappers. For baby showers, we might put something like Best if Popped by May 1, 2008. The date used would be the baby's due date, playing off of the idea of mom "popping" and the fact that the favor is a microwave popcorn. Another popular saying is used on our water bottle labels. For a birthday-themed water bottle label, this section might say something like Bottled at Redding Spring on April 4, 1985 where Redding is the family name and April 4, 1985 is the date the person was born. For a wedding, how about Bottled in Holy Matrimony, or Bottled with Love? Have fun- use your creativity!
- Decide on your ingredients. The ingredients section is most popular for our baby showers where the ingredients are made up of a little of mom, a little of dad, and lots of love. (We use mom & dad's actual names) Ingredients are also used on most bridal shower and wedding water bottle labels. For birthday labels, many customers decide to replace the ingredients with something like Thanks for coming to Amy's 1st birthday party or anything else they didn't have room for elsewhere on the label. As long as it fits on the two small lines, you can put whatever you like in this section.
- Can't figure it out? Call us! We do this over and over, day in and day out, so we've seen a lot of nutrition facts. If you're stumped, feel free to give us a call on our toll-free line (800-285-7814). We'd be happy to offer suggestions or initiate your brainstorming section!
