Nutrition Labels vs. Ingredients?

I'm sure it took you awhile to earn your PhD in reading nutrition labels. You know how to look out for cholesterol, saturated fat and now, trans fats.

The food industry knows that you are an expert. So they've come up with ways to make the label fit your criteria of a "healthy" food.

Is this good news or bad news?

People have been trained to forget about the ingredients. And, unfortunately, if you do happen to read the ingredients, they might not tell the whole story. I could write a disertation on this topic. You really wouldn't have to worry about this if you ate food that didn't have labels. Fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, etc.

If you do eat food with labels, then here's some general guidelines that I found on the Body Ecology website.

What To Look For When Reading Nutrition Labels

Ingredients are required to be listed in order of weight. The first ingredient listed is the most predominant, and so on.

Hidden Sugars

Sugar makes your blood highly acidic, and feeds candida, which can wreak havoc on your health.

The problem is that most processed foods contain sugar in some form or another, but don't list it as "sugar."

These are only a few of the dozens of different names "sugar" has:
sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup, malt, fructose, glucose, carbitol, mannitol, lactose, evaporated cane juice, or concentrated fruit juice.

Beware of MSG

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) seems to be a staple in every processed food. It is used to enhance the flavor of processed foods that lack the real flavor of real foods.

MSG has highly toxic effects, and you might be consuming it in one of its many disguises: glutamate, yeast extract, glutamic acid, hydrolyzed proteins, autolyzed yeast, natural beef flavoring, whey protein, maltodextrin, soy protein isolate, soy sauce extract, natural flavoring, and anything that has "seasonings" in the ingredients.

Gluten

Gluten is a difficult to digest protein found in typical grains that can cause celiac disease and many symptoms of digestive and immune distress.

Many whole grains with wheat, barley, bran, rye, and oats, and the flours or cereals made from them, contain gluten.

But since gluten is also added to many processed foods as a binder, starch or filler, it can be hidden in foods that are free of any of these grains in their ingredients.

Some examples of foods or ingredients that contain hidden gluten include: soy sauce, garlic salt, onion salt, some mustard powders, flavored teas and coffees, hydrolyzed proteins, colorings, flavorings, anything with msg, modified food starch, malt, or graham flour.

Know Your Oils and Fats

The good news is that the media has made us all much more aware of the benefits of certain oils like olive oil, cod liver oil and fish oils. And by now everyone knows the hazards of trans fats found in margarines and processed foods.

Unfortunately you may still be buying the wrong qualities of the so-called "good" oils.

Always look for healthy oils that say organic and unrefined. Even if it says cold-pressed, or expeller pressed, it can still be refined and will not be as good for you as the virgin unrefined options.

Read the label carefully when you purchase a product with olive oil. If it says extra virgin that means that it is from the first pressing.

Take care because refined olive oil is often used in products that say simply say, olive oil. For example, Whole Foods Market uses this cheaper quality of olive oil in most of their prepared deli products, so beware.

Avoid canola oil, or soybean oil, used in many organic, "natural" salad dressings.

Be extremely aware of some processed foods making the claim "trans-fat free," when in fact, reading the ingredients list clearly shows that some hydrogenated oils were used.

How does this happen?

The FDA allows food processors to make the claim "sugar-free", or "trans-fat-free" if the serving size of a food has less than half a gram of these items.

Just remember, anything that has "hydrogenated" in the ingredients is bad for you!

What exactly is "Natural Flavor"?
The word "natural" is often equated to healthy foods, but just because a label says natural does not mean that it's healthy. In fact, there is no meaning in law or regulation around the word natural.

The food processing industry knows that you are more likely to buy something that says it has "natural flavor" as opposed to "artificial flavor". But the distinction between the two is actually quite arbitrary. Both natural and artificial flavors involve some laboratory processing and additives.

So try to avoid "natural flavors" as much as possible.

Can you pronounce it?

It should go without saying that if you don't know exactly what an ingredient is, or can't even pronounce it, it's probably not good for you!

Source:
Body Ecology