Read the nutritional labels food can be complicated; consumers are increasingly attentive to health and diet, so some manufacturers use misleading tricks to get people to buy highly processed and unhealthy products.
Food labeling regulations are complex and make understanding very difficult for the consumer; in this article we will find out how to read nutrition labels and recognize junk food and truly healthy foods.
Index
ALWAYS LOOK AT THE BACK
Don't be fooled by information on the front of the food.
Earlier labels try to trick you into buying products by making health claims.
Research shows that adding health information to the nutrition label makes people think that food is healthier than a similar product that doesn't have it.
READ CAREFULLY THE LIST OF INGREDIENTS
The ingredients of the product are listed by quantity, from highest to lowest; this means that the first ingredient is the one most used by the manufacturer.
A good practical tip is to scan the first 3 ingredients; if these include refined grains, sugars or hydrogenated oils, then you can assume the product is not healthy at all.
Furthermore, a very long list of ingredients suggests that the product is highly processed.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE DIMENSIONS
Nutrition labels indicate how many calories and nutrients they are present in a standard quantity of the product (usually 100 gr) ..
However, these portions are often much smaller of those that a person consumes on a single occasion.
Most people think the calorie claims are for the whole package rather than a small portion; in this way the producers lead to think that that food contains less sugar and fat.
MISTAKING INFORMATION
Healthy packaging claims are often misleading; let's see some of the most common:
- LIGHT: "light" products they should contain less sugar and calories, but they are often simply watered down.
- MULTICEREALS: sounds like a very healthy word, but it simply means the product contains more than one type of grain; these are likely refined grains, unless marked as whole grain.
- NATURAL: it does not mean that the whole product is natural, but only that at some point in the processing a natural source such as apples or rice was used.
- ORGANIC PRODUCT: this tells us very little about how healthy a product is; the cup sugar organic sugar always remains.
- WITH NO ADDED SUGAR: some products are naturally high in sugar, but that doesn't mean they're healthy.
- FEW CALORIES: the products to low calorie they must have a third fewer calories than the brand's original; however, these may have similar calories to the same product from another brand.
- FEW FATS: they have probably been reduced by the cost of adding sugar.
- WHOLE GRAINS: the product can contain very few; if they do not appear in the first 3 ingredients on the list, the quantity is negligible.
DIFFERENT NAMES FOR SUGAR
Manufacturers exploit the different names of sugar to their advantage to add excess quantities.
That way they can list a healthier ingredient at the top, mentioning the sugar lower.
To avoid consuming a lot of sugar, pay attention to the following names: beet sugar, cane sugar, invert sugar, raw sugar, evaporated cane juice, corn, malt, maple, oat, carob syrup, honey, fructose, agave nectar, barley malt, molasses, lactose, sweetener of corn, dextran, galactose, glucose, disaccharides, maltodextrin and maltose.
The best way to avoid falling into the deceptions of the nutritional labels of processed products is to avoid them altogether, preferring whole and natural foods.
However, if you decide to buy processed foods, be sure to check the labels and all the ingredients they contain
And do you always check food labels when you shop? Let us know in the comments and remember to follow us on our Telegram page
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