Foods, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Most people believe that the labels on food packages are a guarantee of the nutritional value and actual ingredients of the product. Most of us would also like to believe that this information will help us make important health and diet decisions.

While packaging disclosure laws have improved significantly over the last two decades, there is still considerable latitude in disclosure requirements for the food product manufacturers. For example, in listing the "nutrition facts" manufacturers are allowed a margin of error of about 20%.

In some cases the label is about as useful in attempting to make an intelligent dietary decision as it would be by reading the advertising or the marketing promotion for the product!

Therefore, it is probably a good practice for you to take the responsibility of considering the real impact of the product on your personal nutrition or diet program. If you keep in mind that manufacturers want their products to appear as healthful as possible, you can't go too wrong by always adding 20% to their calorie and fat calculations.

What Do The Labels Really Mean

Natural Ingredients:
"Anything" occurring in nature. Which includes fats, sugars, and other additives. Natural doesn't necessarily mean healthy.

No cholesterol:
This simply means that cholesterol hasn't been added as an ingredient. The product may however, include other saturated fats as ingredients that will increase your cholesterol levels.

Serving Size:
Always determined at the discretion of the manufacturer. The law instructs that this must closely reflect an amount people would actually consume. Serving sizes are generally calculated by the manufacturer at the level of a 'light appetite' to make the calorie and fat counts appear to be as low as possible.

For example: A 16oz can of a popular energy drink lists the calories and nutrition data for an 8oz serving, not the entire can.

Additionally, it is not uncommon for a package to weigh more than than stated, especially sweets and snack foods. Hey, that's great right? You're getting more for your money! And no you are not, but you are getting more fat, more sugar, and more calories.

Read the label, but then engage your brain too!

Foods to Leave Off of Your Grocery List

1.) Foods high in fat content:

Dairy products with full-fat content
Processed meats like hot dogs, lunch meats, or sausage
Condiments with high-fat content, mayonnaise, butter, etc.
Snack foods like potato chips, corn chips, and nachos

2.) Foods loaded with sugar:

Any food with a high sugar content (read the label)
Sweetened cereals: don't be fooled by words like honey used in the name sugar is still sugar!
Candy, ice cream, cakes

3.) Foods loaded with sodium:

Canned soups or vegetables (most are . . . read the label)

4.) Foods loaded with sugar and sodium:

Soft drinks (read the label, even so called diet drinks have high sodium)
Energy, and Sport drinks (unless you actually work out and burn it off)