Uncovering 3 Hidden Facts about Food Labels
First, let’s start with a product’s serving size. This is what the manufacturer’s nutritional information is based on, and how they can make their claims. What you don’t see on the front is how many servings are in the package, two, three, or even more. You’ll find this information at the top of the nutritional label found on the back in much smaller letters (bring the glasses). A good example of the importance of serving size is Non-stick spray (not mentioning any names, but rhymes with ham). A typical 6oz can contains approximately 529 servings. That’s not a misprint: 529. When your serving size is a 1/3 of second, those servings add up fast. Is it even humanly possible to spray for only a 1/3 of a second? Most of us just keep spraying until the bottom of pan is covered. You might ask, “If it’s fat free why should I care?” We’re glad you asked because this brings us to fact number two: Is the product label telling you the whole truth? With the example of the spray, if you read the list of ingredients it says “Canola Oil.” We all know oil has fat, but they get to say its “Fat Free” because of the serving size. If the manufacturer can show the product has less than a half a gram of an ingredient per serving they can claim that their product is that ingredient free. This is when it pays off to read the list of ingredients in the product, because you think you are getting one thing yet you get another. Another great example of this is Partially Hydrogenated Oil (aka trans fat). The front of the label reads “No TRANS FATS!!” So how can Partially Hydrogenated Oil be in the ingredient list? Beware of this trick, especially in fat free snacks. The third fact we want to discuss is converting grams into teaspoons. The food companies know here in America we don’t use the Metric System much; they count on this. Most of us look at a label and see grams and don’t really understand how much that is. The truth is, approximately every four grams equals one teaspoon. This is really important when it comes to sugar because the average American consumes 130 pounds of refined sugar a year. Now let us take a quick glance at the label of a soda. The average soda at a convenient store is about 16 ounces, which contains 54 grams of sugar. We take that 54grams of sugar and divide by 4 (grams to teaspoons) and that gives us 13.5 teaspoons of sugar. For a good visual of this take a measuring cup, a teaspoon and a bag of sugar. Then pick just a few items out of your fridge or pantry and use the conversion 4 grams to 1 teaspoon and put that amount of sugar in the cup. Trust us this will be a real eye opener. If you would like more information, and to see great visual examples of what we just discussed, check out our short, “Demystifying Fancy Labels.” Just click on the video and you’ll get a detailed guided tour. You are now armed and ready to hit the grocery store aisles….no more tricking you!!
Yours in health,
Colleen & John
by John on August 5th, 2010 Tags: elite physique personal training, Exercise, Fat loss, fitness coaching, Health, healthy grocery shopping, healthy lifestyle, lifting weights, losing fat, losing weight, Weight loss
Posted in Diet, fitness, Health, Healthy, healthy lifestyle, lose pregnancy weight, mommy makeover, nutrition, trainer, Weight Loss, Weight loss, workout | Comments Off



