 Every parent wants to feed their little one high quality foods loaded with vitamins, minerals, proteins and essential fats. Unfortunately, choosing healthy foods and interpreting wordy food labels often feels overwhelming with hard to interpret health claims and ingredient lists.
In order to ensure you are selecting healthy foods for your household, check the list below that indicates the “bad stuff” that you want to keep out of your grocery cart.
Trans fats – Trans fats are found in a variety of food items such as vegetable shortening, margarines, crackers, cereals, cookies and snack foods. This type of fat is formed when manufacturers change a liquid oil into a solid via a process called hydrogenation. These newly created chemical fats are appealing to food manufacturers because it reduces cost and increases the shelf life of a product. Unfortunately, these types of fat increase the risk of serious health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity.
As of January 2006, new government regulations require food manufacturers to list the amount of trans fats found in a food on the nutrition facts label. This label will show a trans fat line directly below the saturated fat line on the Nutrition Facts panel on all products with a measurable level of trans fats (at least 0.5 grams per serving). Consumers should also look for the words partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or shortening on the ingredients list. These words are also indicative of trans fats.
Sugar – There are many different ways a food label can indicate the presence of sugar. In terms of health, it is the “added sugars” found in most processed and packaged food and beverages that are to be greatly reduced in the diet. Added sugars can contribute to obesity, dental decay, type II diabetes and immune system suppression.
When looking at the nutrition facts label, check the ingredient list for words that refer to sugar such as brown sugar, confectioner’s sugar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrin, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, honey, invert sugar, lactose, levulose, maltose, maple syrup, molasses, sorghum, starch, sucrose, sugar alcohols (mannitol, sorbitol, malitol, xylitol). Ingredients are also listed in order from most to least. If sugar appears as the first or second food item, then the food in question is filled to the brim with it!
In addition to sugar and trans fats, it is important for consumers to become familiar with various claims on packaging in order to know the meaning behind the food they are buying. The most common claims and their meanings per serving are;
• Fat free = 0.5 grams of fat or less
• Calorie free = 5 calories or less
• Sugar free = 0.5 grams of sugar or less
• Sodium free = 5 mg of sugar or less
• Cholesterol free = 2mg of cholesterol or less
• Low fat = 3 grams of fat or less
• Low in saturated fat = 1 gram of saturated fat or less
• Low cholesterol = 20 mg of cholesterol or less
• Low sodium = 140 mg of sodium or less
• Very low sodium = 35 mg of sodium or less
• Low calorie = 40 calories or less
• Reduced calorie = At least 25% less energy (calories) than a comparable product
• High = 20% or more of daily value
• Good = 10-19% of daily value
• Good source of fiber= 4 grams or more of fiber
In addition to becoming an informed label reader, loading up your grocery cart with less processed and packaged goods and replacing with fresh whole live foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, low fat dairy products and lean meats is another powerful step towards health and wellness.
Dr. Joey Shulman is author of Winning the Food Fight (Wiley 2003) and the national best seller The Natural Makeover Diet (Wiley, 2006). For more information, please visit www.drjoey.com
Reprinted with permission from Sweetpea Baby Food www.sweetpeababyfood.com
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