Cruising the aisles of your favorite supermarket, you make a sudden stop to check out the labels of some food products on your shopping list. It’s written in English, all right, but it seems Greek to you. Well, fret not. There are a lot of people out there who can’t “read” food labels. Which is why people like Richard Emerson (author of the book, yes, Read the Label! Discover What’s Really In Your Food, available at Powerbooks) are a godsend.
To begin with, never before have consumers been bombarded with so much information on a little label, which they often find hard to digest. For instance, do you know the difference between “Use by” and “Best before”? Can you tell farmhouse from homemade?
On the other hand, did you know that food makers don’t always give the full facts? While they are not allowed to lie, food manufacturers can decide for themselves how much information to give on their labels.
“Not all the information on food labels is compulsory,” says nutrition/diet writer Richard Emerson. “Also, there is little standardization in food labeling, which is why some food labels are gaudy and wordy while others are dull and uninformative.”
A morsel of trivia: Did you know that you can’t find any cream in cream crackers? Cream crackers are so called because they once contained cream of tartar. This is no longer so, but the name has simply stuck.
And here’s one unsettling trivia: Did you know that rapeseed oil, once used for oiling steam engines, is now increasingly used in food products?
So, here’s what’s really in your food. The most important part of a food label (no, not the price of the item) is the “ingredients” (or “contents”) list. With only a few exceptions, this must list all the food items and chemical additives a food product contains. The ingredients are listed in the order of weight or volume — the largest first and the smallest, last. For the most important or key ingredients (or that which distinguishes a food product from another, like the apple in the apple pie), the list gives a percentage, like “60 percent apple.” This percentage may as well be the consumers’ guide to whether what they’re buying is really an apple pie and good value for money or simply a lemon.
What about the problem ingredients?
The book lists the main ones to watch out for — take double note:
• Bulking ingredients. Protein and/or water may be added to bulk out a product artificially. Like textured vegetable protein (TVP), which is used as a meat extender to increase protein content. “Foreign” proteins may also be added, such as beef protein to chicken. Without being declared on the label, water is added to meat products.
• Hydrogenated fats and trans fats. Hydrogenation involves heating oil to high temperatures and bubbling hydrogen through it. By doing so, food makers create mixtures of fats with unique properties (that are good for the manufacturers’ pockets but not for our hearts). Trans fats are a by-product of hydrogenation. They’re not identified by name, but it’s safe to assume that they’re present in any food that contains hydrogenated fats. According to a European Food Safety Authority report, trans fats are worse than saturated fats at raising levels of the bad LDL cholesterol in the blood and lowering levels of the good HDL cholesterol. Trans fats are linked to clogged arteries, heart disease, angina, and heart attack. So, be good to your heart and avoid trans fats like the plague.
• Added sugars. Sugar added to pre-packed food may appear in the label in a variety of forms/names, such as brown sugar, corn syrup, demerara, dextrose, fructose, glucose, glucose syrup, hydrolyzed starch, invert syrup, lactose, maltose, raw sugar or treacle. The worse of these is corn syrup, often called high fructose corn syrup or glucose-fructose syrup, which may be contributing to the big (and getting bigger) problem of obesity. It is found in highly processed products such as biscuits, cakes, cereal bars, fizzy drinks, iced tea, ketchup, pizzas, sauces, soups, and fruit-flavored yogurt.
• Artificial sweeteners. These are increasingly being used instead of added sugar, but some can cause health problems.
• Added salt. It’s chemically known as sodium chloride and may be listed as either salt or sodium or both. High sodium/salt intake can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.
• Other problem ingredients. There are some ingredients you may have to avoid because they cause food allergy or food intolerance symptoms. There are also some additives that may trigger hyperactivity in children.
Just how healthy and nutritious is this product you’re about to toss into your shopping cart?
Well, read the nutritional information box, which gives the average quantities of the major nutrients or macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, proteins, etc.) in a product. Nutritional information is often shown in two columns: per 100g, and per serving. It lets you compare different brands or products. Can’t decide between a packet of biscuits and a cream cake? Stop, look, and read. If the cake contains 10g fat per 100g and the biscuits contain 5g fat per 100g, you know you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
As for serving size, here’s the rule of thumb: According to Emerson, make sure the figure given for a serving is the amount you would actually eat. For instance, if the label says that a food contains 3g of fat per 30g serving, but you end up eating 60g of the product, you are actually consuming 6g of fat, not 3g.
So, what do “Use by” and “Best before” mean?
Explains Emerson, “The ‘Use by’ date mark is found on pre-packed foods that quickly go bad and may be dangerous if eaten past their time. They include pre-packed uncooked meat and fish, ready meals, pastry products, sandwiches, and some dairy foods. It is illegal for shops to sell or display food after its ‘Use by’ date has expired. For example, ‘Use by 1 June’ means use by midnight on 1 June.”
A chilling word of warning: Never eat refrigerated food after its “Use by” date has expired, even when unopened because microbes may have multiplied to dangerous levels, no matter how fresh the food looks or smells.
On the other hand, the “Best before” date mark is found on longer-lasting pre-packed foods that deteriorate in quality over time — the appearance or texture, flavor, and smell of the product may start to change after this date. However, the food may still be safe to eat for some time, as long as the packaging is unopened and undamaged, and it is stored correctly.
An exception is eggs, which must never be eaten after the “Best before” date.
Also, avoid buying food in damaged tins, as acidic foods can corrode the metal, allowing air and germs to enter.
And here’s how to tell farmhouse from homemade: Farmhouse means the product was made in a kitchen of a working farm, while homemade means a product was made in a domestic kitchen or a commercial building that resembles a domestic kitchen as closely as possible. “Homemade” also suggests the product was prepared by hand from scratch using raw ingredients (but then, even some claiming to be homemade don’t use fresh ingredients; rather, the ingredients come fresh from the can).
Thus, watch out for products that claim to be “natural” when it just means it’s “unflavored,” cautions Emerson. Or those passing themselves off as original or pure, when they’re only unflavored. Or those that claim to be traditional (with a rich and long history) when they’re nothing but plain.
“Many terms used on labels have no agreed definitions and so are virtually meaningless,” Emerson points out.
So, next time you go to the supermarket, heed not those claims that say “garden fresh,” “ocean fresh,” “oven fresh,” “good for you,” “healthy,” “nutritious,” “natural goodness,” and “wholesome goodness.”
And why not bring a magnifying lens so you can read the unsavory information that appears in very tiny print on some food labels?
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