Ingredient Labels and Nutrition Facts: Why You Should Care

Stroll into any conventional supermarket or fast food chain and you’ll find yourself surrounded with more packages of food-like products than fresh food.

Face it, our diets have gone from eating “real food” to “food-like” substances. We’re no longer eating nutritious food that’s been grown from the ground. Instead, we’re actually struggling to meet the minimum required daily intake of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Standard American Diet (SAD), is just that, sad. It consists of chemically altered food or substances that are “enhanced” or “flavored” to taste like food. We are eating chemicals that taste like food. Or for those used to eating less processed foods, food that tastes like chemicals.

Processed foods contain numerous ingredients correlated with disrupting enzymatic processes within the human body. This leads to nutritional deficiencies and toxicities in cells and as this accumulates in the body, it results in disease.

Stop eating chemicals, start eating real food!

This trend towards shelf-stable and taste-bud pleasing food is startling as the new generation of children is more likely to develop obesity, diabetes, and other complications due to a poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. Strawberry-flavored fruit snacks with Red Dye 40 and refined white sugar seems to capture more attention from young ones than real strawberries with natural fruit sugars (fructose) that the body can easily digest and use for energy. Until a healthy balance can be found, growing bodies need to learn how to eat well starting from a young age. If not, kids eventually grow to college students, on their own and ill-equipped to fight off the exposure to more unhealthy foods.

So what’s the deal?

Read your nutrition labels.

A brief overview of how to approach food labels.

The first five ingredients are the most important to consider. These generally indicate, from start to finish, a larger quantity of a specific ingredient found in the product.

It’s important to stay away from:

• “Sugar-Free” and Artificial sweeteners
  • Alters the biochemical processes occurring within the body. It’s best to eat REAL sugar and call it a day then to opt for a calorie-free version that essentially throws your body’s balance off. Be especially weary of Aspartame. Some examples of artificial sweeteners are Splenda, Sweet n Low, etc and should be avoided at all costs.
• “Low-Fat”
  • Unsaturated and saturated fats can be good for the body when eaten from the right sources. Most people generally pick the low fat option because they want to be conscious of their health and waist line. However, most low fat foods still have about the same caloric content with added chemicals to flavor the product or strip the fat content down.
• Heated Oils
  • Only eat products cooked, roasted, or fried with oils such as Olive, Grapeseed, Rapeseed, Peanut, Cottonseed, Safflower, Sunflower, Vegetable sparingly. Most of these oils become carcinogenic (fats) to the body when heated, proteins are denatured, and vitamins/minerals lesser than in their raw form. Even cooking with heart healthy olive oil is a risk. “Heart healthy” doesn’t mean anything when the structure of food is tampered with, especially with heat. Stick to unrefined coconut oil for cooking purposes (post on the mighty coconut coming up soon!)
• Hydrogenated Oils (Trans Fat)
  • Hydrogenated Oils are vegetable oils that are altered to be solid at room temperature for the purposes of keeping food shelf stable for longer periods of time. Kick out Crisco, shortening, and margarine as well as any products that contain these. Partially hydrogenated oils are not good either.
  • One surprising product heavy with hydrogenated oils are JIF and Skippy peanut butters. You’ll be doing your taste buds and your health a favor if you opt for another peanut butter with only peanuts and salt (if preferred) in the ingredients list.
• Preservatives
  • “Preservatives keep food from spoiling and maintain freshness and color or flavor foods. They are often added to baked

    If the ingredients list is super long, it’s most likely super processed. Consider finding another product without the excess baggage.

    goods, meats, jellies and beverages. Preservatives include ascorbic acid, citric acid, sodium benzoate, calcium propionate, vitamin E, BHA and BHT. Calcium propionate is a chemical preservative used in cheeses, and citric acid is used as a buffer and neutrilizer in dressings, cheeses and canned fruit juices. BHA (butylated hydroxytoluene) and BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) are antioxidants commonly used in breakfast cereals to help prevent change in color, odor or flavor.”

  • Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/98992-additives-preservatives-list/#ixzz2KXUnbml1
• Refined (Enriched/White/Bleached) Flours
  • Refined foods, particularly white foods, are empty calories. They cause high spikes in blood sugar, don’t keep you full, and are nutritionally void. These types of foods put an extra strain on the body to detoxify the system. Opt for whole grain or sprouted grain foods instead.
• Refined Sugars
  • High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Sugar, Agave Syrup, Brown Rice Syrup, Beet Sugar, Evaporated Cane Sugar, Glucose, etc cause spikes in blood sugar and put a strain on your body.
  • Some products, particularly health food or protein bars use multiple sweeteners which is completely unnecessary. If you must eat it, at least stay away from HFCS and artificial sweeteners. Make sound decisions on what you’re consuming.
• Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)
  • Sugar, soy, corn, and grains may be genetically modified which means that their by-products (oils, cane sugar, breads, etc) are as well. The repercussions of these alterations are still unknown and since the majority of Californians recently voted against Proposition 37 (mandatory labeling of GMO foods) it makes it harder to avoid these ingredients. Check for “non-GMO” in the labels whenever possible.
• Other ingredients to be concerned of:
  • Excess amounts of sodium, Mono/diglycerides, Carrageenan (emulsifier), food dyes, colorings (caramel color), artificial flavors, modified ingredients, and anything you can’t pronounce

If you don’t know what it is, look it up! You’ll be eating healthier just by bringing awareness to what you’re consuming and slowly shifting your food choices for the better.

It’s true that many people don’t have the option or time to fully sustain themselves eating minimally processed foods but the key point here is to find the balance.

You want a cookie? Have that cookie. And enjoy it, completely. Accept every tidbit and eat it mindfully. Treating yourself within reason is not a bad thing.

Although this may seem like an overwhelming amount of information to take in all at once, consider that the food you eat can directly influence your mood, energy, immunity, and overall well-being. It’s important to find out what works and doesn’t work for your body and there’s never a better time than now! You’ll have to power that house of yours for years to come so start asking questions and exploring new options!