Read the Label

Read the Label

     Since the road to health is paved with the foods you eat, it would be a good idea to learn to read the labels on those foods.

     Most of the things you eat should be in their natural state, and so will not have labels. Fill your plate with fresh vegetables, fresh fruits and lean cuts of meat such as skinless, boneless chicken breast, or eye of round steak, and you won’t have to bother with labels. Sometimes, though, you will consider eating some sort of processed food – mayonnaise, salad dressing, whatever – and you will want to compare brands to see which has more healthy stuff in it, or less harmful stuff. The most important thing to look at first is the portion size. If the portion size on a salad dressing, for example is one tablespoon, then the food values given will be the amount found in one tablespoon of that product. Things that you want to see on the low side are sugars, sodium and fat. If the product says “sodium, 10% of daily value” , for example, then you know that in one tablespoon (or whatever the portion size is) you will be getting a tenth of the sodium that you can safely consume in a day. Then if you choose to have TWO tablespoons of that product, you will be consuming a fifth of your daily allotment of sodium in just that one product. That’s a lot.

     If a product is labelled “gluten free” then you may assume that the recommended portion size has no measurable gluten in it. It is not enough to look at the ingredients list and see no gluten-containing ingredient (as far as you know) because sometimes  producers can include a small amount of an ingredient without listing it on the label. Bear this in mind if you are dealing with food allergies, too.

     Fat is generally considered, for various reasons, to be something we eat too much of. That does not mean that there should be absolutely no fat in our diet, but it does mean that we need to be aware of how much we are consuming, and what sorts of fats we are consuming. Saturated fats and trans-fats are types that we should avoid. Monounsaturated fats and Polyunsaturated fats (fish oil, krill oil, peanut oil, olive oil, for example) are healthier. If you are trying to be healthy, dodge the saturated and trans fats. If you are trying to lose weight, pay attention to how much fat you are consuming in relation to protein and carbohydrate. In the calories-in, calories-out model, fat is considered to contain nearly twice as many calories per gram as protein or carbohydrate, so you would need to “burn” more calories to stay in balance.

     For many people who are trying to lose weight, sugar in any of its many forms is especially problematical. Some people respond to sugar as though it is addictive. If this is you, then you would be safer with a sugar-free product even if it has more fat than another comparable product. There is some evidence that chemical sugar replacements (such as aspartame) also have addictive-like properties.  Here is where a food journal is an invaluable asset. Record what you eat, and when, and how you feel throughout the day. You may find that even a sugar-free drink makes you cross and tired later on, and sends you into a seek-and-destroy mission to the doughnut shop! For some people this is not a problem. For some people it is. Know thyself! It is worth the time and trouble.