Nutrition Labels: Don’t Be Fooled!

We all want to be healthier so we try to buy something that is healthy but sometimes we are being tricked into thinking something is better than it actually is. I hope this post will help you look for certain things on the label so you are not tricked again. When you buy a product is it just the calories you glance at? If that is true then let’s fix that now! The very first thing you should look at is the serving size. Let’s say you purchased a product and looked at the label and it has 100 calories per serving. That is great right, until you look at the serving size, which states 4 servings. If you consume the whole product than you just ate 400 calories! DON’T BE FOOLED BY SERVING SIZES! the extra calories could lead to gaining weight. Now that I have you paying attention to the serving size let’s talk about what else should you look at. You should always limit nutrients like fat, trans fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium. Products that are high in these nutrients are the products you want to avoid cause they will increase body fat, raise cholesterol levels, and could lead to many other health problems. High blood pressure is a big problem and limiting sodium could help bring it down. When is comes to fat we want to limit the saturated and trans fats and choose products that contain monounsaturated or polyunsaturated as a better choice. Those are the nutrients you should avoid or limit as much as possible. There are other nutrients you should make sure you are getting enough of. Many of our diets cause us to lack such nutrients as dietary fiber, vitami A & C, calcium, and iron. The importance of calcium especially in a woman’s diet is well documented. A diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables and whole grain products that contain dietary fiber, particularly soluble fiber, and low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease. Last and definitely not least is the ingredient list. The ingredient list is the heart of a product as it show you what it is made of. This is very important as you can see if there is any unnecessary added things such as sugars and preservatives. The way the ingredient list is arranged is from the most to the least. That means whatever is first in the ingredient list is the highest amounts of in the product. This is crucial cause if you have sugars listed close to the beginning of the ingredient list than you know it contains a lot of it. There are also other names that added sugar can have such as corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, dextrose, sucrose, honey and maple syrup. Trans fat also has other names such as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. A product may list that it doesn’t contain trans fat directly but if it has these oils than it contains trans fat in the product. Let me give you an example of how we are tricked. You purchase a product that claims to be “Wheat Bread”. If you look at the label it says “enriched flour”. This is something you do not want as the word “enriched is a word you want to avoid. Replace enriched with whole wheat. A company can call the product wheat if it does contain some source of wheat usually in very small amounts. They even go about and add a bleaching process to give it the look of wheat. This is all legal cause as long as there is some sort of wheat in the product it can be called “wheat”. I hope I have helped you in understanding nutrition labels. Exercise and Nutrition Tips