Deciphering Food Labels
How to make wiser choices when buying prepackaged foods.
March 11, 2008
By Stephanie Bloyd
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Avoid potentially harmful ingredients, such as genetically modified foods, by reading packaged food labels.
ISTOCKPHOTO
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Most of us know that boxed mac and cheese isn’t what you’d call a nutritious food. And while fresh foods, such as fruits and veggies, are the healthiest choices, our fast-paced lives often steer us toward prepackaged food options. With that in mind, here are some things to watch out for on food labels.
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Salt
Hidden salt lurks in many processed foods because it’s an inexpensive way to add flavor and extend shelf life. Experts recommend taking in no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day, but most Americans eat nearly twice that. A turkey sandwich made with processed lunch meat, cheese and condiments, for instance, has about 1,300 milligrams of sodium — more than half your recommended intake — and that’s not including chips on the side! Unfortunately, high salt consumption leads to high blood pressure and higher incidences of heart and kidney diseases. So be sure to check the sodium content of any packaged food you buy, and opt for herbal seasonings to add flavor to food when cooking. (Read Avoid Salt to Reduce Blood Pressure to learn more.)
Sugar
Sugar and high fructose corn syrup are popular ingredients in processed foods. Ideally, you should have no more than 10 teaspoons (160 calories, 40 grams) of added sugar per day. Sugar can cause excessive weight gain, which often leads to obesity, and puts you at risk for cardiovascular disease. It also adversely affects cholesterol and triglyceride levels, as well as blood pressure and blood glucose levels.
So read ingredients lists to know how much sugar is in a product. All the following terms can be considered added sugars: sugar, corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate, sucrose, dextrose, glucose, fructose and maltose. Ingredients are listed in order of weight within the food, so if the list starts with sugar, or contains several forms of it, then it’s safe to say sugar is a major ingredient.
And don’t assume artificial sweeteners are much better for you. A recent animal study at Purdue University concluded that artificial sweeteners can actually cause you to gain weight. Plus, these ingredients are far from natural. For instance, sucralose, sold as Splenda, is made through a chemical process that adds chlorine atoms to sucrose. And high doses of saccharin (a.k.a. Sweet’N Low) were found to cause bladder cancer in lab animals, so the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that all saccharin products have a warning label. High levels of phenylalanine found in aspartame (labeled as NutraSweet or Equal) can cause brain damage in certain people, so these products also must include a warning label. (Read The Perils of Too Much Sugar for more information.)
