|
What food labels aren't telling you.. The real truth! |
 |
 |
 |
|
HOW TO READ THE NUTRITION FACTS ON YOUR FOOD LABEL
Are you the kind of person who picks up foods at the supermarket and flips it over to check for nutritional values? Are you watching your weight or do you just want better health for you and your family? Whatever be the reason, you maybe shocked to know that those food labels you rely on are not telling you the whole truth. Go the extra mile to clear your concerns about what you’re ingesting. This article will give you a mini tutorial on how to read food labels. Ready?
Getting the total calories vs serving size part right… Grab any edible product within reach and flip it over to the nutritional value chart. How many calories does it contain? If you answered with the number beside the amount per serving, brace yourself for a big shock! Here’s the tricky part. When they say per serving they mean per serving… where one serving is equal to one cup or one portion. Most people however do not realize that each container contains anywhere between 2-4 servings. So you need to multiple the amount per serving with the number besides servings per container to get the total calorific value of the container. So to give you an example, if my soda says amount per serving 100 and servings per container 4, the total calorie content of my soda is 400 calories and NOT 100 calories. This just does not apply to the number of calories but the fat, sodium, sugars, protein, carbohydrates etc. This is yet another advertising technique manufactures use to misguide you. So when ever you see ‘per serving’ start doing the math!
The myth of the word reduced or low (fat/sodium)
How often have you reached for a cup of yoghurt or a packet of soup because it said “low fat’ or ‘low sodium’? The word reduced or low often directs our thoughts to the feeling of consuming little to nothing which is far away from the truth. When a product says reduced sodium it only means that is has sodium content reduced by 25% than the original, it doesn’t mean that the product is a low sodium food. It still has a high content of sodium just a little lesser than the original. The same rule applies for low fat. For a product to be low fat it has to have 1/3 less calories than the original product. So if the original product is a1300 calories, is the low fat version of it really low fat? When something is low fat you have a tendency to binge without guilt and fail to remember that it still has calories and it still contributes to your calorie consumption.
Interpreting the % daily values (%DV as written on the nutritional chart)
Calories from fat are different from %DV total fat. Calories from fat is the fat content of the product that is usually a number you’ll see beside the amount per serving. However %DV total fat is the % of fat your using up from your total calories from fat you need for the day. Therefore you’ll mostly see at the bottom “Percent daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet” This means that if the product contains %DV 5% from fat, means you are consuming 5% of your daily fat requirement if you consume a diet of 2000 calories per day. Kapish?
Natural sugar vs added sugar
You don’t need to be scared by the word sugar. What you really need to be scared of though are these four words… “HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP” This is the fancy name for artificially added sugar that manufactures use to misguide us. Milk has sugars too but you won’t find high fructose corn syrup on a milk carton. All soda does however have them. When you see those four dreaded words on your nutritional label it means that refined sugar is added to the product and you want to stay clear of it.
There’s no such thing as free
The FDA allows all products with contents below a certain limit to be termed as free. For example if a product contains less that 5mgs of sodium per serving it’s allowed to be termed as sodium free. Less that ½ a gm of fat is allowed to be termed fat free, less that ½ a gm of sugar per serving is allowed to be termed sugar free. That means nothing is a 100% free it’s just within the legal limit. No preservatives, you’ve often seen this one… no preservatives added does not mean no preservatives at all it just means it contains no ingredients that are not approved by the FDA.
So now you know better than to let the back of the box fool you... Go on stay healthy!
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
