Sneaky nutritional labeling

It seems you have to have a degree in nutritional labeling and government regulations in order to understand what is REALLY in the food we buy from the store. With so many people trying to "watch" what they eat and trying to find healthy foods at the store, it has become increasingly popular for manufacturers to try to label their product as "healthy" in one degree or another. I feel bad for the normal consumer who doesn't have the time or energy to thoroughly investigate what the labeling actually means.

For instance, if you see a box that says "0 grams of trans fats", you probably think, GREAT, no trans fat right? Wrong, usually what that means is that there IS trans fats in that product, but because the government has regulated that a product can claim it is trans fat free if the amount of trans fat per serving is less than 0.5 grams. So say you go to buy some cookies that claims they have "0 grams of trans fat", and the serving size is 1 cookie. How many of us really eat only one cookie?? Not me, I eat lots if I'm craving cookies. Beware of anything that says "0 grams of trans fat". Look carefully at the ingredients. If it lists anything saying "partially hydrogenated" or "hydrogenated", put it back on the shelf and walk away!

You probably heard that New York City banned restaurants from using Trans fats in their food preparation. Recently New York City has also ruled that all restaurants with more than 15 branches (like Burger King, McDonalds, Wendy's, etc.) will have to post the calorie count for all their foods next to their menu. WOAH, talk about sticker shock! Yes, I'd like the 570 calorie Big Mac (sorry KW), with a side of a 540 calories large fry, and 350 calories large coke. You do the math! Go New York!!! I think this is going to make the big fast food chains much more aware of how they are making their foods, which can only be a good thing. As an added benefit, those fine New Yorkers will not have a leg to stand on if they want to sue McDonalds because they got fat from eating there 3x a day everyday, because they "didn't know" it was bad for them. As you might imagine, the fast food establishments are none to happy about having to post the nutritional info.

The other tricky labeling ploy used by manufacturers is to market something as "fat free". Lets take non-stick spray for instance. It is the same trick as with the trans fat labeling. If the serving size of the spray contains less than 0.5 grams of fat, they can label it as "fat free". Think about this. If you buy a can of olive oil spray, do you really think they have magically sucked all the fat out of it? The serving size is 1/3 second spray. Do you know how fast that is? It is a VERY short burst. So if you are spraying a whole fry pan you probably are spraying for 2-3 seconds. This may not add that many calories/fat to your food, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's fat free.

Another tricky and frustrating task is to find a healthy bread in the bread isle. This is next to impossible unless you are in the health food isle or organic section. Big name bread manufacturers have also developed some very deceptive labeling practices, which have even fooled me several times. Just last month we were at Costco and quickly looking for a whole wheat bread when we came across the Kirkland brand whole wheat bread. I skimmed the nutritional label as always, and the first ingredient was whole wheat flour (great), and then I looked for high fructose corn syrup (another terrible ingredient that has managed to find it's way into nearly every type of processed food). There was no HFCS in the bread, so I deemed it a good buy. My husband likes soft bread, so he was equally excited that I had OK'd it for the family. So we went through about 6 loaves, and I really enjoyed the bread (in moderation of course). So the next time we go to Costco we need to buy more bread, and I'm thinking to myself, this bread just seems TOO good to be this healthy, so I examine the ingredients a little closer. Sure enough, while the first ingredient was whole wheat flour, the 2nd ingredient was enriched white flour!!! AAAAGGGGHHHH, no wonder it tasted so good, and was so nice and soft. I'll probably be avoiding the bread from now on.

There is talk in the works of implementing a new nutritional rating on foods, giving the consumer and idea of how healthy the product is in relationship to other foods. It's called the ONQI (Overall Nutritional Quality Index) rating system. This system would rate foods from 0-100 depending on how healthy they are, taking in to consideration all their nutritional ingredients and recommendations. So spinach would be a 100, and I'm thinking Oreos would be a 5 or something.

My advice is to stay away from the center isles of the grocery store. The outskirts of the store is where you will generally find the most whole, healthy foods. If you must venture into the middle, look for products with minimal ingredients. If you can pronounce all the ingredients it is an added bonus! Also avoid products with "enriched" flour. Essentially this means they've stripped the grain of almost all it's nutritious value, and then tried to replace the naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. Also avoid anything with high fructose corn syrup (this is really difficult if you are looking for a pasta sauce, BBQ sauce, marinade, ketchup, bread, etc). And lastly, look out for those tricky advertising ploys. If it says "99% less fat, fat free, 0 trans fats, etc" you are probably better off just buying the regular version. Sometimes it's just better to get the natural peanut butter and real mayonnaise because they are made with whole products rather than a bunch of chemicals to make it lower fat. Our bodies don't quite know what to do with all those engineered chemicals and processed foods!

Finally, your best bet, but one that can be somewhat difficult depending on where you live, is to buy locally grown produce and meats. Not only does this help your neighborly farmers and economy, but you are almost guaranteed a more nutritious and delicious product.

GOOD LUCK!!