Food Selection: Reading Glasses Required!

Food labeling can help us make an informed decision when shopping, but understanding the labels takes a bit of practice. Here is some information that can help to turn food labels into useful reading:

The First Is the Most

Packaged foods have an ingredients list somewhere on the package. Everything that goes into the product is listed in weight order from the most to the least. So, if the first few ingredients contain fat, such as oils, cream, butter, cheese, or sugars, such as white or brown sugar, syrups or concentrated fruit juice, we’ll remember that these make up the largest proportion of the food.

Ingredients that appear further down the list are added in smaller quantities, but that doesn’t always make their impact insignificant. Vitamins and minerals added to some breakfast cereals, for example, are light in weight, but can make a positive impact, while even small amounts of salt can have a large, not-positive impact.

Check the Nutrition Information

When reading the nutrition label, which resembles a chart, the most important numbers to look at are total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt; these are the “big four” that can affect our weight and blood pressure, contributing to our risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. You can also compare other nutrients to make healthier choices, including the proportion of unsaturated fats and fiber to the “big four.” For example, fibers helps to offset some of the issue with sugar. So, if a food is high in fiber and has a bit of sugar, the body may not absorb most of the sugar content, as the fiber helps to prevent this.

Fat: More Than Twice

Fat has at least twice as many calories as protein and carbohydrates. Proteins and carbohydrates contain approximately 4 calories per gram, while fats contain approximately 9 calories/gram. And, just in case you are asking, alcohol contains approximately 7 calories/gram. It’s important to check whether the fat is saturated or unsaturated; the calorie content is the same, but the health effect is not. Unsaturated fats, found in foods like avocado, nuts, seeds, oily fish and vegetable oils, are better for your heart health than saturated fats, found in butter, fatty meats, pastry, cookies, snack foods and cakes. Too much saturated fat can increase cholesterol, which increases risk of heart disease. Saturated fat should be listed on the nutrition label, near the total fat content.

Check the nutrition information per 100g to see whether the fat content is high, medium or low:

• Low fat means: 3g or less per 100g
• High fat means: 17.5g or more per 100g
• Low saturated fat means: 1.5g or less per 100g
• High saturated fat means: 5g or more per 100g

Reduced Does Not Mean “No”

Reduced-fat or low-fat versions of foods aren’t always the healthiest options. Sometimes manufacturers replace fat with sugar, which isn’t a healthier choice. So read the nutrition information to compare sugar and fat content on the original and the reduced-fat product. It’s worth checking salt too, as “low-fat” or “low-sugar” options can be higher in salt. If the “lower fat” version is not much lower in calories, it might be better to simply have a smaller amount of the original product.

In other words, “ reduced” means “ less than the original,” but not necessarily a healthy amount. For example, peaches in light syrup (or “reduced-calorie peaches) contain half the calories of peaches in heavy syrup, but still contain lots of sugar. Think of eating a whole candy bar versus half a candy bar; there are some calorie savings, but still not getting into the realm of “healthy.”

Sugar: By Any Other Name Is Still Sugar

Sugars include all sugary-type ingredients that are added to foods, as well as sugars in fruit juices. Sugars are added for many reasons, including for preserving and flavoring. Sugar can sometimes be disguised under other names, such as honey, syrup, nectar, fruit juice or fruit juice concentrate or any word ending in “ose,” such as dextrose, glucose or fructose. If it’s listed on the ingredients list then it’s added sugar, however natural it sounds.

Low sugar means: 5g or less per 100g

High sugar means: 22.5g or more per 100g

Salty Language

Salt is added to many everyday foods, including things you might not think of as being salty like bread, cakes and cookies, so always check the label.

Excessive salt intake can increase blood pressure over time, which can increase the risk of developing heart disease and stroke. Many of us consume more than the recommended maximum of salt, which is equivalent to one teaspoon.

Salt content is labeled on most foods. For a food to be low in salt it needs to contain 0.3g or less per 100g (or 0.1g sodium). We’ll want to note that some products label” sodium” instead of salt. If this is the case, we need to multiply the sodium amount by 2.5 to work out the salt content. To confuse the issue even more, sometimes the sodium is listed in milligrams instead of grams.

Low salt means: 0.3g or less per 100g (or 0.1g sodium, or 100mg sodium)

High salt means: 1.5g or more per 100g (or 0.6g sodium, or 600mg sodium)

Please contact Nancy at foodprof2@gmail.com for nutrition questions or for requests for future columns.