With the recent announcement about nutrition facts labels possibly getting their first major facelift in 20 years, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my thoughts on nutrition labels in general. First of all, I almost never read them. I used to read them though. In fact, it used to be the only thing I looked at on the back of the package, but these days I find MUCH more value in reading the ingredient label instead.
Reading the ingredient label is the number one way to know what’s in your packaged food and how processed it is.
I have never been one to count calories, fat grams and the like, and one of the reasons for that is – and hopefully we can all agree – not all calories or fat grams are created equal! Please don’t let anyone try to tell you an avocado is just as “bad for you” as a donut just because they both have 21 grams of fat.
Same goes for calories – a pack of Skittles has about the same number of calories as 2 cups of organic grapes. Clearly those two are not even close to being equivalent when it comes to eating whole foods for good health. I would also say that considering grams of naturally occurring sugars vs. added sugars falls into the same category as well. And these are all the “facts” pointed out to us on the Nutrition Facts Label!
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5 Reasons I Don’t Read Nutrition Facts Labels:
- Prominently featured stats like calories, fat grams, and sugars are not all created equal (as demonstrated above).
- Tracking those calories, fat grams, protein, etc. most definitely takes the “fun” out of eating.
- I prefer to stop eating when I feel full (granted, not always an easy task) to know when I’ve had enough food. And if you do this in addition to eating a variety of whole foods I believe everything else will fall into place – no counting or label checking required.
- The vitamin section can be incredibly misleading. A loaf of bread made with factory enriched white flour can “appear” to have more vitamins than a loaf of bread made with whole wheat flour, and that’s because the vitamins featured are not even close to showing you the whole picture.
- The stats highlighted tell me absolutely NOTHING about how highly processed the packaged food is.
One Sweet Exception
Now with that said – there is one “sweet” exception to all of this. There is a pretty major change proposed to the one part of the nutrition label that I do look at on occasion (a change I have actually been wanting for some time). This change has to do with sugar. Sugar itself is not necessarily the devil, but the quantity in which it’s typically consumed is a problem when it comes to our health. And it’s easy to overlook because sugar is no longer just reserved for sweets but rather added to everything these days including bread, crackers, yogurt, salad dressings, cereals, beverages, and so on.
So on occasion, if I do see some form of added sugar spelled out on the ingredient label I like to know exactly how much it contains. For example, I wanted to purchase some smoked salmon the other day and was surprised to see brown sugar on the ingredient list. But when I looked at the grams of sugar per serving it was less than 1 gram, so I knew it contained very little sugar (and therefore I purchased it).
But the “Sugars” listing on the current Nutrition Facts Label does have one major flaw. If you were considering buying a product like flavored yogurt, which is made from milk obviously and therefore has naturally occurring sugar, there is no way to separate how many of the grams of sugar are from the milk versus the refined added sugar to give the yogurt it’s flavor. So that’s why I am super excited to see this proposed change that I would refer to on occasion…
I’d love to hear your thoughts on packaged food labels (and the proposed changes as well). Do any of you look at the Nutrition Facts labels? If so, what are you looking out for?
Giveaway: Plant Therapy (+ Top Uses for Essential Oils)
I’m a big fan of the new changes, I think anything that helps consumers know more about what their eating is a good thing
I wish they would list the potassium on nutrition labels. I deal with adrenal insufficiency and resulting hyponatremia, so I must avoid food and drinks that are high in potassium while making sure I get high amounts of sodium. Sodium is listed, so why not potassium? Only some companies choose to list it.
I think it would be a wonderful idea to list the added sugars separate from the natural sugars. It really would be nice to know to be able to make an informed decision.
I used to read Nutrition Facts exclusively. First, it was for portion size and calories, but later on, it was for portion size and carbs. I think the limit I had for carbs on that diet was 31g per day. As I became more aware, I did pretty much stop with the Nutrition Facts, with the exception of noting portion sizes per container on some. Like you, I switched to paying more attention to the ingredients list.
I like the proposed changes! I like that the servings per container will be more prominent, and the serving size is right under it. That would’ve alleviated some disagreements of a few years ago! Teenage boy, and his father!, thought the whole thing was the serving size, no matter how many times I showed them servings per container and serving size! They couldn’t get “read the small print”. haha
I’ll be happy to see added sugars instead of just total sugars, as well.
I read nutrition labels mostly for carb counts. My physician wants the daily carbs to be 150 a day. Once I hit 150, no more carbs of any kind. I have a book that tells me the information for hundreds of foods, but if it is on the label, this helps make it easier.
I heard that there was talk of listing the sugars in tems of teaspoon equivilents instead of grams. Most people don’t know how a gram translates in real life so I think that would be a huge change for the positive. Of course, the food industry is fighting that. As far as people not reading the labels, the government can only do so much as far as providing easy to interprete labeling standards. If people refuse to take the time to read the label that’s their problem.
It would be nice if they listed the percentage of sugar on the label too. The reason they don’t is the government caved to lobbyist in the sugar industry. In most cases the percentage is so high, no one looking at it would buy the product! And even the reccommended daily allowance is artificially high for the same reason. Check out the movie, Fed Up’ if you haven’t already. Eye opening!
What about labeling all the other added garbage in processed food such as tectured soy protein, hydrolyzed soy protein or anything hydrolyzed, msg, yeast extracs, guar gum, modified food starch, caramel color, citric acid, calcium chloride, disodium EDTA…and the list goes on. ‘m just looking at a can of soup to get this list of crap. All I know is that when I make soup at home NONE of these ingredients go in the pot. So yes, I look at labels all the time. If an item contains something I wouldn’t use as an ingredient, I wont buy it. Sugar is the least of my worries. And BTW, I don’t use sugar when making bread at home so if a store bought loaf contains sugar or any other additives, I don’t buy it. I rarely buy bread anywhere else other then an organic bakery. Oh, and look at the labels on something as simple as cottage cheese. Daisy brand has three ingredients:cultured milk, cream and salt. Perfect. Now look at any other brand in the grocery store and they have up to 20 added ingredients in simple, plain cottage cheese. No thank you. There are good options out there for pure food but you really have to read the labels. For instance-I don’t like canola oil for many reasons. I was duped into buying Hellman’s Olive Oil Mayonnaise because the label said it was made with olive oil. I was lazy and didn’t check. Guess what? The first ingredient was canola oil. Olive oil was one of the last ingredients on the list which means olive oil is the smallest ingredient used in their so called olive oil mayonnaise. I now make my own for pennies with eggs, olive oil and spices of my choice using an emersion blender and a small jelly jar. And don’t let the foods found in the organics department fool you. There’s more unhealthy crap in some veggie burgers and vegan cheeses then one would think.Just because it’s vegetarian or vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Much of the processed (V) stuff is pure crap.Oh, and don’t even get me started on Eggbeaters or margarine. Seriously, eat real eggs and real butter. Your body will thank you for it because it’s food as nature intended and your body can use. And any low-fat/fat-free version of an original will do you more harm then the original because of all the added sugar, salt and artificial ingredients. And yes, sugar is the better choice over artificial sweeteners.
Really curious as to why fat, cholesterol, and sodium all have a %daily value, but sugar does not??? This is the biggest problem of all, the immense amount of sugar in everything. I read about how the World Health Organization researched sugar intake and recommended a daily standard, but that the processed food creators(a.k.a. big dollar food corporations) fought to have this retracted. Could it be that hidden sugar products = increased obesity = higher demand of more hidden sugar products = more corporate profits ??? Hmmm…
Justt look at the ingredients to see if sugar is on it. If it is you know it was added.
Actually, you don’t. Currently, all sugars are lumped together. The nutritional label for an orange would include sugars, but they are all naturally occurring sugars. As she mentioned, flavoured yogourt will also have sugar, but some will be naturally occurring (from the milk), and some will be added.
If you’re trying to cut down on processed sugars, then this is an important distinction which is not indicated on nutritional labels now.