Food companies are master manipulators.
They love to hop on the latest trend, plaster it all over a cookie box, and somehow get you thinking you’re eating health food instead of a double stuffed Oreo.
It’s like a magic trick.
You almost need a dictionary to make it through a shopping trip and know how to tell what’s healthy and what to skip. That’s where this list can help. Read this and you’ll be able to read your food labels like a pro.
No matter what the label is screaming, you’ve got to read the ingredient list and see what else is happening in there. If the ingredients don’t match the claim; or if there’s artificial colors, flavors, or other chemical preservatives used in it, you might want to keep it moving.
Just because something has whole grains! cane sugar! is all-natural!, doesn’t automatically mean it’s been transformed into a healthy whole food. Sorry, guys.
Part of the “healthy” test is that it’s not made with anything that was made in a factory.
DON’T LET LABELS FOOL YOU
If you’re looking for an easy way to get you through the pre-packaged food aisle, use this list to help you remember what’s what.
There are no substitute on this list.
NO HFCS does not mean all natural or healthy
Choosing something without high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a good choice. Actually, it’s a very good choice. But just because your iced tea has NO HFCS plastered all over the bottle, doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
It just means it doesn’t have something unhealthy in it.
There’s a lot of really good info out there about why high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is neither natural nor healthy. This is a great place to start for some light reading on HFCS.
MADE WITH REAL SUGAR also does not always mean healthy
Real sugar is way better than HFCS. This is true.
It has less processing between plant (sugar cane) and food (your sugar bowl), than say, HFCS. And that makes it closer to a whole food.
But if you’re still getting a ton of non-food ingredients or they just have used a whole lot of that real sugar, what’s the real benefit? Probably not much. And then you’re back at square one, holding something that isn’t all that healthy. Just a processed food filled with a sugar that’s better than HFCS.
SUGAR-FREE does not mean no (or even low) carbs
Sugar-free means no one added their own sugar to what you’re eating.
It does NOT mean that it has NO carbs in it, and it definitely doesn’t mean it’s a health food.
Most of the time, sugar-free means sweetened with a chemical sweetener like sorbitol or aspartame. These are made in a factory and taste sweet, way sweeter than natural sugar tastes, but don’t carry any calories with it.
That’s why they are in all things “diet”. Because your body doesn’t hold on to them and use them for energy.
But if you’re picking something sugar-free because you want to watch your carbs (shout out to the diabetics in the room), you’re going to have to do more than trust a label that says sugar-free.
Look at Total Carbohydrates on the nutrition facts label, and then decide how low carb it is. You might be surprised what’s actually in those sugar-free cookies.
GLUTEN-FREE does not mean healthy (or not -fattening)
You know what gives things made with dough their texture? Gluten. It’s a big part of what makes cake and breads and cookies do what they do.
So if companies want to take out the gluten, they’ve got to replace it with something so you still like what they’re selling.
Because, let’s be honest here, we want our gluten-free pound cake to taste exactly like a regular pound cake.
What do they usually do? They usually add sugar. Gluten-free foods are often way higher in sugar than the original was.
Sugar keeps things moist and light. And that extra sugar isn’t making your pound cake any healthier, just because it’s gluten-free. If you don’t have celiac disease, you’re probably better off with just a small amount of the original version.
MADE WITH WHOLE GRAINS does not mean 100% whole grain (or high fiber)
What it really means when a package says the bread is made with whole grains, is that somewhere in the ingredients, there’s something that is a whole grain.
It could be last on the ingredient list, meaning it has the least amount of all the ingredients. Maybe it’s somewhere in the middle. It could be anywhere, and it doesn’t have to be a lot to count as being added. Once it’s in the ingredients, it can go on the label.
If you’re really looking for whole grains, find the package that says 100% whole grains. Then the first ingredient will be whole grains, and there would be no other grains after it.
BOTTOM LINE
If you want a pick a healthy food choice, find one that’s got about 5 or so ingredients that you can pronounce.
Bonus if you know where all those ingredients came from and you can probably find them all in a supermarket somewhere.
All your food should come from something else that is also a food. If you can’t tell, you’re starting to walk the line between healthy and junk.
No matter what a food companies say, these labels aren’t your big chance to eat a whole box of cookies guilt-free. Sometimes foods need to stay as sometimes foods, no matter what is or isn’t in them.
Want more on reading labels? Start here.