Food Labels Exposed!

When was the last time you read the ingredients of the food you have in your kitchen? When I began learning about nutrition, I focused on the Nutrition Facts and namely, the calories. While Nutrition Facts and calories are important, the ingredients used to produce the food is even more important. When reading a food label, one should beware of the words fully hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated. These words indicate trans fats, which increase the risk of heart disease by increasing “bad” cholesterol levels and decreasing “good” cholesterol levels.  Take peanut butter for instance.  When looking at the Nutrition Facts of a well known brand and that of natural peanut butter, the caloric intake, total fat, carbohydrate, and protein are all equal.  The difference is that the well known brand is made using hydrogenated vegetable oils and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, while the natural peanut butter is made using peanuts and salt.  The shorter the list of ingredients the better.  I believe I should be able to pronounce most of what I am eating otherwise I am ingesting chemicals they have added to the food to prolong self-life.  These types of oils have only been in our diet since the 1970′s.  This is also the time that Obesity, Heart Disease. and Diabetes started its meteoric assent.

I am guessing we would all love to live enriched lives but when we see the word enriched in our food it takes on a whole new meaning.  Sure it sounds like they made it better but then I guess that is what they want you to think.  Enriching is a process in which they bleach most if not all the nutrients.  You will generally find things have been enriched if they are white.  White Bread, White Flour and White Rice have all been “Enriched”.  This helps with the self life but it also plays havoc with our blood sugar.  I will cover the details of what white bread and how other Enriched products spike our blood sugar levels.

I started looking at all the food labels in my kitchen and was absolutely shocked to find how many had hydrogenated oils and enriched items in them.  My kids cereal, a bag of chips, and crackers just to name a few.  I try and keep Whole Grain bread instead of white bread and I have since removed most of these items and I have replaced them with foods that have natural ingredients in them.  I do not try and find everything that has Organic listed on the label but I do read the list and try to minimize the chemicals that are added to my food.

I will give you some homework.  Go through your pantry and kitchen and pullout everything that has partially hydrogenated, fully hydrogenated, or Enriched in the Ingredients list.  I was shocked to find that most of my pantry was full of this stuff.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think.