Nutrition label tricks

If you’re serious about your diet then I’m sure you know that every calorie counts. Quality should be the main word here and a good place to start looking for quality is the nutrition label. What are the key points to watch for when buying something? First of all you should realize that manufacturers are interested in making a profit and not your health. That’s why world wide the food industry spends over 12 billion euros on chemicals that are added to food. A statistic shows that on average, a normal person consumes somewhere between 7 and 8 kg of chemical additives per year. To my surprise I know people that said: “Hey, if I eat it and I’m not feeling anything bad it must be OK!”. I don’t know where to begin explaining how dumb this kind of thinking is. Most of the processes inside us DON’T have immediate results. Just because you’re young and your body is struggling to filter the junk you eat doesn’t mean it can keep on doing that indefinitely. Sooner or later everything will collapse and you’ll be puzzled how this happened because you didn’t do anything different.

You may now wonder why manufacturers are allowed to use these substances. Why aren’t they banned? Well, some got banned; others probably will get in the future after more research. On the other hand, there are new additives hitting the market every year so they are here to stay. In Europe it is most likely to find them in their short form: an E followed by a number. In recent years people realized how bad they are, and started avoiding them. As a result the food market adapted and listed these additives by their full chemical name. This is why we have this simple rule: Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human could remember. Ethoxylated diglycerides, Xanthan gum, Calcium propionate, Ammonium sulfate; if you don’t use them why let someone give them to you?  Other ingredients that you should avoid are sodium nitrite, saccharin, caffeine, Olestra (a synthetic calorie-free substitute for fat), acesulfame K (a low-calorie artificial sweetener) and any artificial colorings.

Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes nutrition labels CAN be incomplete. It is not something that uncommon. When found guilty manufacturers usually claim that they use a lot of flavor components and they just couldn’t fit them all on the label. Again… if something sounds too good to be true then it probably is!
Also be careful about portion sizes. Often they are made incredibly small so that the producer can put things like "Low on calories", or "low fat content" on the label. This happens because the current law let's them write these such messages if the quantity / portion is lower than a given value. Don't make the big mistake of judging a product only by its front side. You’ll be amazed by the huge differences from the commercial claims written with huge letters and the actual label on the back. “Great for loosing weight!!!” …. and it’s full of sugar; “Only natural flavors” and it’s full of trans-fats; fruits with “No cholesterol!” signs (this one is kind of funny… if you didn’t know only animal sources have cholesterol, plants don’t have it). And these are just few of the market strategies used to fool clients.

If you know other tricks used by food manufacturers to sell their products feel free to share them.

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