Eating healthy is tough when you aren’t even sure what’s healthy and what’s not! Too many people who strive to be healthy fall into the trap set by expert food marketers. They purchase what looks healthy based on the words or pictures on the package without questioning the motive behind it. As soon as a food can be altered by humans, there is money to be made from its sale and distribution. Notice there are no pictures, slogans, or ingredients lists on whole foods! This means that whenever you wander into the center sections of the grocery store, you are entering a marketer’s world. It is important to stay vigilant here since the advertising you see is expertly designed to appeal to your emotions, impulses, or brand-loyalty habits. Rarely do they highlight healthy qualities, nor are they backed by research. This is the minefield we will guide you through. Not only do we want you to spot advertising tactics meant to distract you, but also give you tools to gauge the true quality of food. We’ll first talk about misleading health claims and then move onwards towards the nutrition facts label and ingredients lists.
Health Claims to Be Aware Of
Before you flip over the box or bag and read the nutrition label, it is important to first gather information from the front of the package. If used properly, it can be a quick way to learn whether or not it’s worth purchasing. Only after the front of the package passes the test do you flip it to the back and see if it measures up.
The front of any food packaging tells you a lot of information and is the first step to helping you weed-out (or weed-in) the food. In general, most health claims on the front packaging should be viewed with caution. The purpose of any health claim is to get you to buy the product by making you think it is healthier than another, less flashy, brand. Manufacturers are often dishonest in their labeling and use misleading messages that appeal to emotion rather than fact. However, not all health claims are misleading, as you will find below. But it’s wise to learn which claims are supported and which are not.
Here are common health claims along with their underlying meaning:
Light:
This label means the food has one third fewer calories and less than half the fat than the original food. As great as this sounds, the process of removing fat usually involves the addition of sugar, flavor enhancers, and artificial ingredients. This is because naturally-occurring fat concentrates the flavor of food, making it taste good. Taking away that fat essentially robs the food from its original taste. Thus, manufacturers have to add sugar and synthetic ingredients to bring back the same taste consumers want. Regarding lower calories in the “light” label, there are more calories in fat than in sugar or other additives, so removing fat will naturally cause the calories to decrease.
Low-Fat:
Similar to the “light” label, above, any low-fat label usually means the addition of sugar and synthetic flavor enhancers.
Heart Healthy:
This label is put out by the American Heart Association (AHA) and is symbolized by a red checkmark. It can also be stated boldly by manufacturers without the AHA’s stamp of approval.
The problem with any supposed “heart healthy” products is that they contain processed vegetable oils (think of margarine). These oils are deemed heart healthy because they contain polyunsaturated fat (also called PUFA). While this is a healthy fat, it’s important to look at the type of PUFA. There are two types of PUFAs: omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. Vegetable oils are rich in omega-6 fatty acids. This is a highly inflammatory fatty acid which competes with the phenomenal benefits of omega-3’s (which are found in fish, eggs, and grass-fed beef). Americans today are consuming abundant amounts of harmful omega-6 fats and not enough omega-3 fats. This has set us up for a health disaster. Paradoxically, over-consumption of “heart healthy” omega-6 fats increases our risk of several diseases including heart disease (the very thing we were trying to avoid by using this label).
Secondly, “heart healthy” vegetable oils use harsh chemicals, like hexane, and need to be deodorized to make them palatable. They also become rancid quickly and the crop is often sprayed with pesticides prior to harvest. These attributes may not affect your heart directly, but they certainly disrupt the way your body functions on several levels.
The other concern with the heart-healthy label (aside from vegetable oils) is that they are often low in fat. And we have already learned that low-fat foods are usually code for “high sugar.”
Low-Calorie:
This label is all the rage with diet bars and single-serving cookie snacks. Ever notice that the low-calorie label is mainly seen on snack foods, which are inherently unhealthy? This is a ploy to get you to buy them by justifying that you’re not doing much damage since it’s “low-calorie.” The truth is, calories should not be a deciding factor behind any food purchases. The exception might be for athletes in training who must maintain a certain level of fitness and performance. But keep in mind that sports nutrition is a different segment of nutrition entirely, where calories and carbs are the ultimate measure of a food’s value. However, once you enter the world of whole-food nutrition, the importance of calories and carbs takes a back-seat (with the exception of the keto diet and some detox or fasting regimens). Calories, after all, do not measure the quality of food. If a person equates low-calorie to good health, they’ll soon find that a serving of low-calorie cookies is “healthier” than an avocado! Rather than looking at calories, look at the value that the food will give you. Does it contain a variety of nutrients? Is it low in sugar and sodium? Are the ingredients unprocessed or minimally processed? Answers to these questions are a better gauge of food quality than the number of calories it contains.
Low-Carb:
This label can get you in trouble. As much as low-carb diets can be helpful for many people, this label doesn’t indicate the quality of the carbs. Check the ingredients to see whether it contains refined or processed grains.
Multigrain:
The multigrain label can be very misleading for health-conscious consumers. It simply means there is more than one type of grain in the food, but it doesn’t specify the quality of the grains. Oftentimes, multigrain labels contain refined grains.
Natural:
It is not uncommon to see this label on a variety of food products. For products that contain plant foods, this label simply means that at one point the manufacturer began with a whole plant food such as wheat or an apple. However, the rest of the manufacturing process is as far from “natural” as you can get. When it comes to meat products, the term “natural” means the meat was minimally processed and contains no artificial ingredients or added color. It does not mean the animal was raised in a pasture. In fact, statistically, it was likely raised in a crowded feedlot and received routine antibiotics.
Organic:
The organic label is designated by the USDA and requires farmers to meet a high standard of quality. Certified organic foods contain little to no pesticides or antibiotics and do not use genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). Thus, this label usually indicates a healthy food item containing whole-food ingredients. But be wary of believing that every organic food is healthy. Indeed, you will find the organic label on cookies, cheese crackers, and hydrogenated oils. Unhealthy foods should be avoided regardless of whether they are organic.
Gluten-Free:
Similar to the organic label, those foods labeled as gluten-free aren’t necessarily healthy. These days you can find processed gluten-free cookies or toaster waffles, which are just as bad for you as the conventional version.
No Added Sugar:
Be careful with this one. This label means no sugar was added on top of the natural sugar already present in the food. Natural sugars can still spike blood glucose (depending on the type of food) such that fruit servings should be limited to two per day. Another caution with this label is that the food likely contains artificial sweeteners that don’t technically qualify as “sugar.”
Made With Whole Grains:
Unlike other labels, this label at least indicates quality. The trap here is that the food may contain very little whole grains. Check the ingredients list to see if any whole grains are listed as the first three ingredients. If not, then the amount of whole grains (regardless of the label) is negligible.
Fortified or Enriched:
Although these terms seem similar, they have different meanings. Fortified foods are those that have had nutrients added to them that otherwise are not naturally present. Examples include milk fortified with vitamin D, fruit juices fortified with calcium, or rice fortified with iron, zinc and several vitamins.
Enriched foods are those that have lost nutrients during processing and thus have them added back into the food. Examples are in breads and pastas where B vitamins are initially lost and then added back in.
The problem with both enriched and fortified foods is that the nutrients added to them are synthetic versions (folic acid is the synthetic version of folate for example). Synthetic nutrients are not usually absorbed and utilized properly as compared to their natural form. Furthermore, most fortified foods and all enriched foods are heavily processed anyways. There are better ways to get the nutrients you need: through eating whole, unprocessed foods.
Fruit-Flavored:
This label is different from natural flavors in that it’s created using chemicals to mimic the taste of fruit. You’ll see this label a lot in fruit yogurts or soft drinks. Synthetic flavoring is also used to create imitation extracts for baking. Imitation vanilla flavoring comes from distilling wood-tar or tree resin, while imitation almond flavoring comes from benzaldehyde, a chemical used in dyes and perfumes.
Nutrition Facts By the Numbers
Now that you know what to look for on the front of food packaging, you can quickly determine if the food should be put back on the shelf. If it passes the first inspection though, now we can read the nutrition facts label and the ingredients list.
Know Your Serving Size!
The first thing listed on the nutrition label will be the serving size. This is probably the most important piece of information as it tells you what to expect in the nutrients that follow it. Servings sizes don’t have to be killjoys though. They actually help keep you out of trouble (if you follow them).
For example, if you read that a bottle of flavored Yerba Matte has 20 grams of sugar you might be concerned (at least I hope you would be). However, if you read the serving size and it says ½ bottle, then you know that if you drink half the bottle you’d be cutting that sugar content in half. Never assume that the entire container is a single serving (this is especially true with beverage bottles).
Likewise, if you see a low amount of sodium on a box of crackers and think to yourself that it is worthy of eating, great. But if you then eat half the box in one sitting, you’ve just given yourself a surge of sodium over and above what’s healthy (not great).
The key in both instances is to follow the serving size! If you eat (or drink) indiscriminately and to your heart’s content, you will have consumed way more sugar, sodium, carbs, fat, etc than you bargained for.
Nutrient Label Highlights:
Moving down the label, there are a few items we should always look for, as well as an idea of how much is too much per serving. The actual amounts (in grams) is more helpful for us than the percent daily value (listed as %DV). This is because nutrition labels are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. However, many people of healthy weight consume less calories than this, making the percent daily value inaccurate for their needs. Let’s take a look:
-Sugar: less than 10 grams
It should be noted that the negative effect of sugar in your body is lessened when you pair it with fiber. This not only makes the case for eating whole fruit rather than pure fruit juice, but it also means that packaged foods with high fiber will help moderate the effect of the sugar that’s in it. This doesn’t give license to reach for sugary, high-fiber foods! But it does help give peace of mind when a healthy, fiber-rich food happens to contain 10 grams of sugar.
-Fat: this is divided into saturated fat and trans fat. Usually, these numbers will be low for most packaged foods so there isn’t a reason to worry.
Trans fats were banned by the FDA in 2018 although there are exceptions to the ban. Naturally occurring trans fat is found in meat and dairy in very small amounts. Other foods use partially hydrogenated oil (trans fat) such as margarine, fried food, and baked goods. Be aware that the FDA allows labels to say “0g of trans fats” if a food contains less than 0.5 grams. You can locate these foods by looking for “partially hydrogenated oil” in the ingredients list. Unfortunately, quantities of healthy fats are not listed on nutrition labels. It would be quite helpful to know whether a food contains unsaturated fats, so hopefully this will be added in the future.
-Fiber: at least 3-4 grams, but the more the better!
-Sodium: less than 200 mg
Micronutrients:
The next section of the nutrition facts label (right above the ingredients list) will list the micronutrients and their associated percentage of daily value per serving. Nutrition facts labels are now required to list vitamin D and potassium in this section, whereas vitamins A and C are no longer required to be listed. Calcium and iron are also commonly listed although not required. After that, food packages will have varying lists of vitamins and minerals depending on what’s in them.
As a general rule, however, it is good to choose food that has at least 15% of its daily value per serving. Do be aware that synthetic versions of vitamins and minerals should not be the main source of your nutrient intake. Your body will absorb and use much more of these nutrients when they’re packaged in fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains rather than in boxes.
Ingredients to Watch For:
Moving down the nutrition label we come to the ingredients list. There are a few things to point out here that will help guide your food purchases.
The ingredients list is ordered based on the quantity of that ingredient, from highest to lowest. As a rule of thumb, the first three ingredients listed make up the majority of the food, with the fourth ingredient onwards comprising only a small percentage of each serving. Because of this, make sure those first three ingredients are whole foods rather than any refined grains, sugar, or hydrogenated oils.
Another rule of thumb is to aim for foods that have less than 10 ingredients listed. Any more than that usually means the product is highly processed.
A common recommendation when reading ingredients lists is that if you cannot pronounce an ingredient or if it sounds like something you might have encountered in your high school chemistry class, then it’s best not to buy it. Ingredients must be identifiable. Oftentimes, you’ll see things like “cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12).” This means they’re listing vitamin B12 but also giving you the specific form it comes in. Ingredients listed like this may make things tough to pronounce but the vitamin it refers to is not a harmful ingredient. By the way, cyanocobalamin is the synthetic version of vitamin B12 and is the version used in processed foods (whether fortified or enriched). While not harmful on its own, it is not usually well-absorbed.
Lastly, it is good to be aware of the various ways of saying “sugar” in ingredients lists. All of these forms of sweeteners are counted in the “added sugars” label.
Common Names for Sugar:
Anything with the name “sugar” in it (like beet sugar, date sugar, or confectioners sugar). Also, evaporated cane juice is a fancy way of hiding sugar in the ingredients.
Common Names for Syrup:
Anything with “syrup” in the name (like carob syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, maple syrup, or rice bran syrup). Also, honey and agave nectar classify as syrup.
Common Names for Other Added Sugars:
molasses, cane juice crystals, crystalline fructose, malt powder, fructose, maltose, barley malt, dextran, fruit juice concentrate, ethyl maltol, galactose, glucose, corn sweetener, disaccharides, and maltodextrin.
Grocery shopping is the first step in deciding how well your body is going to function for the next week. Wise purchasing habits at the corner market today gives you abundant health benefits at the kitchen table over several days. The tricky part about wise purchasing habits is that many of us believe we are doing it correctly. Too often, it’s the clever food advertisers who are the wise ones. Knowing the facts behind misleading health claims on flashy packaging helps you decide whether a food is worthy of your shopping cart or worthy of the store shelf. Further, knowing the importance of serving sizes, and what to look for on nutrition labels and ingredients lists will allow you to choose the healthiest options in the store. Of course, the best way to avoid being misled by sneaky advertising is to focus on foods that haven’t been altered by scientists. After all, fruits and vegetables don’t have ingredients lists!