British Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs)

The GDAs, or Guideline Daily Amounts, were introduced in Britain to help consumers make sense of the nutritional information on food packets and help the consumers make clearer choices about the foods they eat. The Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU, or CIAA (initials from French name), developed the guidelines.

The guidelines are for the average male, female and child – they do not take into consideration individual people that could be different from the ‘average’ in terms of height, weight and amount of daily activity. Therefore these guidelines have come under some criticism but they are a good indication and starting point for people wanting to calculate how many calories they should eat, or how much saturated fat should be in their daily intake.

	For Men	For Women	For Children
Calories (kcal)	2500	2000	1800
Protein	55g	45g	24g
Carbohydrates	300g	230g	220g
Sugars	120g	90g	85g
Fat	95g	70g	70g
Saturated fat	30g	20g	20g
Fibre	24g	24g	15g
Sodium	2.4g	2.4g	1.4g
Sodium equivalent as salt	6g	6g	4g

These figures were initially based on figures in the ‘Dietary Reference Values for Food Energy and Nutrients for the United Kingdom’, published by COMA in 1991. However until 2005, the figures were only for fat, saturated fat and calories for adults. From 2005 onwards, the GDAs were expanded to include figures for carbohydrates, sugars, protein, salt and fibre.

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