This post was written to help those who like me back in the day used to get overwhelmed whenever I went grocery shopping. I always used to have a problem reading labels attached to these food items and I was also in a hurry most of the time to check off my grocery list as quickly as possible. Not anymore, I’ve learned the tricks and you too can, there are quick ways you can quickly scan through labels to ensure you’re not being served junk in place of food.
THINGS TO NOTE
- Never get fooled by the claims they make on the pack of the item.
What so many people think are health benefits of using certain products because they are boldly written on the packs of the items are actually just marketing pitches and advertisements that are used to attract you to their product. Also, government-approved claims, like “low-fat” and “light,” often don’t tell the whole story, you have to read through the labels to ensure these products are not high in fat, sugar, salt, and/or calories.
For example, “Light” ice cream, may still pack in about 4 to 5 grams of fats per serving and so may not differ much in terms of number of calories from the “regular” varieties of ice cream. What do the popular claims you could come across?- Natural:
- No added Sugar:
- Reduced-fat
- Don’t ignore the nutrition facts label and the ingredient list.
This is the table you would normally find on the back or the side of the product. This table contains information that can really help you determine how healthy the food is. Crackers, for example, may advertise on the front pack that they’re “Trans Fat-Free,” but in the ingredient list, you may find they contain fatty foods like palm oil and coconut oil, that also clog the arteries just like the Trans fats that they replaced.
- Check the serving size.
The serving size tells you how much food is used to calculate the numbers in the Nutrition Facts table. This means that the figures in the Nutrition Facts table derive from the serving size already shown at the top of the table under “Nutrition Facts”. If you are sure that you’re eating the amount shown, then you don’t have to compute how much fats and calories you’re consuming, however if you are eating twice as much the recommended servings, then you will need to adjust the calories and the % Daily Values of the nutrients.
- Keep in mind that sugar has about 60 different names
Food companies normally use alternative and less familiar names for sugar in their ingredients list to make it harder for you to identify hidden sugars. They’re usually creepy about this and try hard to conceal it so people are not informed on the quantity of sugar in their products. If you are unsure just refer back to the sugar content in the Nutrition Facts section. One way to easily spot sugar names is to spot any words on the label that ends with the letters “OSE” e.g. GLUCOSE
Limit caloric sweeteners. Be on a look out for other caloric sweeteners that don’t say “sugar” but in fact are. Sweeteners such as corn syrup, rice, and maple syrup, molasses, honey, malted barley, barley malt, or any name that ends with the letters “ol,” e.g. sorbitol or maltitol, or ends with the letters “ose,” such as dextrose or fructose.
Make sure that the quantity of these added, refined, concentrated sugars make up no more than 5% of total calories (i.e. no more than 2 tablespoons daily for most people). You don’t need to worry about naturally occurring sugars that exist in fruits and some non-fat dairy products. However, remember that on the Nutrition Facts label, added sugars and naturally occurring sugars are all lumped together as “sugar” so you should be careful to spot them.
Your best bet: Look at the ingredient list, it is most likely that the added, refined caloric sweeteners will be the first three to five ingredients on the list because ingredients are normally listed in descending order of weight, which also implies that the lower than the list you find added sugars, the better.
Tip: Look for products with sugar ratio of less than 15g per 100g of product
- Check the calories per serving
There are millions of people who think that the “110 calories” posted on that 20-ounce bottle of cola means they’re only taking in 110 calories, this is so untrue! You’ll have to first multiply the 110 calories by the total number of servings listed which is 2.5, to realize that you’re actually taking in a whole 275 calories in one swoop.
Likewise, you shouldn’t get too comfortable with “0”s either. Some manufacturers use ridiculously small serving sizes (remember that 120th of an ounce of cooking spray?) and because the FDA states that manufacturers can “round down” to zero, some products who advertise as calorie-free or fat-free are actually not. If you eat multiple servings, no matter how small the serving size, you may find you’re already tallying up quite a few calories
- Check the ratio of fat calories to total calories.
It’s on the Nutrition Facts label. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you the “percentage of fat calories to total calories,” which is probably the most ideal way to check and limit our fat intake how all health guidelines direct us to limit fat. You’ve got to do the math. Divide the number of calories from fat by the total calories. (For example, If the serving’s 150 calories and 50 of it is for fat, your product is 33% calories from fat.).
What about claims like “99% fat-free” soup or “2% fat” milk, you shouldn’t be fooled by them. They’re based on the percentage of weight of the product, not the percentage of calories. So that 99% fat-free soup may actually have 77% or more of its calories from fat and 2% fat milk actually having about 34% of its total calories from fat or 1% fat milk having about 23% calories from fat.
- Check the sodium (Salt content)
Try to keep this below 420mg as much as possible. One tip to quickly spot this is to go for those with only 5% or less as percentage of sodium.
- Check the types of fat
Nutrients you should be aware of on the Nutrient Information Part- Total Fat: Look for products with less than 10g per 100g serving
- Saturated Fat: Go for products with below 3g per sugar per 100g serving
- Fiber: Fiber is an important nutrient for our gut health so go for grain-based products that have more than 3g fiber per serving.
In reality, who wants to spend hours in the supermarket pondering over products. Food labels should be used to guide you, not consume you! My advice opts for wholefoods where you can and don’t get too caught up in the little things.
Eat Your Greens,
When You Read Food, Labels Remember: 4G of Sugar = 1 TEASPOON
SKIP THE DIET JUST EAT HEALTHY