Read the labels!!–Nutrition 102
So recently I learned a very valuable lesson. Read the labels, especially the ingredient list. While I was doing the low carb thing one of my goals was to stay away from simple, processed, and refined carbs and sugars. That meant no candy. So here I was doing really good. But one day I bought a pack of tic-tacs. I look at the back and it says 1.9 calories and less then one gram of carbs per mint. I think to myself “oh this will be fine because even if I eat the whole pack in one day there are only 120 calories in the pack.” But my plan was to space it out and only eat one or two a day.
This didn’t happen. The next day I ate them all!! But again, I am thinking it is only 120 calories and no carbs. After I finish them off I get out my phone and plug in the tic-tacs to My Fitness Pal. The great thing about this app is that you can check on the nutrients not just the calories so I check my carb intake for the day to see how I am doing and realize that the packet of tic-tacs actually has 29 grams of carbs and it is all sugar!!
What?? How did that happen? The package says there is >0 carbs in each mint. So I assumed because I saw the 0 that there were no carbs. However, if I had read the ingredients I would have seen this–SUGAR!! It was the very first ingredient on the package. I would have known that this was the major ingredient and hopefully realized that even though 1 mint had less then 1 gram of carbs, eating all of them at one time would certainly add up.
There are so many foods out there that claim things on labels and packaging. They say things like “low carb” “low fat” “only 6 grams of sugar” and “all natural”. However when you actually look at the nutrition and the ingredients you begin to realize that there is so much they aren’t telling you. Like when they say low carb or low fat ranch they don’t tell you that low carb ranch is high in calories and fat and low fat ranch is high in carbs. As a matter of fact the less fat or calories you get in ranch the more carbs you get. You can’t get a low carb and low calorie ranch dressing. It is either one or the other. Don’t believe me? Take a look one day. Or when they say only 6 grams of sugar, they don’t tell you that there are 23 grams of carbs but only 6 of them are from sugar. And all natural doesn’t always mean all natural or healthy.
It is also important to look at the ingredient list. Here are some pointers in learning what to look for in ingredients.
1. Ingredients are listed by percentage in the product. So the first ingredient is the primary ingredient. You want this to be a good ingredient. If the first ingredient is sugar or high fructose corn syrup or some name that you can’t pronounce just put it back. Don’t even bother with it.
2. Most of the ingredients should be natural ingredients. How do you know what is natural and what is not? Well go grab you a third grader and take them shopping with you! If they can’t pronounce the ingredients listed then you don’t want it. Just put it right back on the shelf cause it is not even worth your time.
3. Keep it simple!! Opt for foods with a short ingredient list. This is usually the more natural foods.
Let’s try a few examples
I think this is for a breakfast cereal!! Anybody else scared just a little bit? Forget a third grader being able to pronounce this! I can’t even pronounce half the words. By the way, several of the bold words are all types of sugars. This means that the majority of the food is sugars when you add it all up. Not a good product. Just put it back.
This product on the other hand is a pretty good example. I still has some sugars and stuff but look at the first word “whole wheat” The next 4 ingredients are also a type of grain and sugar is not mentioned until the 5 ingredient. There is also 6 grams of fiber which is pretty good. Now you do need to be careful because right off the bat I see 4 different types of sugar mentioned. So again not perfect but definitely a much better option then number one.
Organic Sprouted Wheat, Filtered Water, Organic Malted Barley, Organic Sprouted Rye, Organic Sprouted Barley, Organic Sprouted Oats, Organic Sprouted Millet, Organic Sprouted Corn, Organic Sprouted Brown Rice, Fresh Yeast, Organic Wheat Gluten, Sea Salt.
This is another example of an ingredient list. This is from the Ezekiel bread I was telling you about in an earlier post. Notice that there is no added sugars at all. The first ingredient is a good healthy ingredient. A third grader could easily pronounce these words. And it is really really simple. This is about as close as you can get.
Now I know that it is almost impossible to find food that doesn’t have impossible to pronounce words in the ingredient list but do the best you can. Opt for food products that have fewer impossibly unpronounceable words and these words listed last with the good ingredients listed towards the front.
Those are my tips for the day. Thanks for reading.