When you go about choosing what you are going to eat there are many things that you tend to look at for inspiration and guidance. Of course your stomach will have something to say in the matter and simply how good the food looks plays a big role. At the same time you are probably influenced by some extravagant praise by the advertisement you’ve seen for a product and it’s supposed to be too good. And finally you are likely to look at the food label and see what it says about the food. Then you might be well guided partially at least by which foods appear to be healthy and claim to be good for you, which most of us often think and drive towards.
This is made very difficult when you are being misled by the food labels and when what they claim isn’t necessarily true. Here we will look at some common food label ‘lies’ and how to avoid them.
Fortified With Added Calcium
This is an important one to avoid, the reason being that when vitamins and minerals are added to a food item, they are actually much less available, meaning that our body can’t really use them in the quantities they are added. Therefore, they are of least value to your health.
What makes this food label even sneakier is the added fact that these foods generally add the calcium back after the processes used in making it depleted the natural calcium in the ingredients. In other word the grains were high in calcium, but then the calcium was taken out and added back in a less effective form. So it’s not really anything for the food manufacturers to be boasting about.
100% Natural
Saying something is 100% natural is a little bit of an arbitrary term as the definition for ‘natural’ hasn’t been clearly laid out. For instance sandwiches often claim to be entirely natural, but I doubt they grew out from the ground that way.
Sugar Free
Many foods are sugar free, but often they contain a lot of other things that are equally bad as a result such as corn syrup (the main source of calories in the US) and sweeteners as well, which can cause insulin spikes that leave us feeling weak. Furthermore, these sugar free foods are often very bad for our teeth.
No Trans Fat
The FDA has stated that a product can claim to have no trans fat as long as they include under .05 grams of them. This means that you can eat something containing .45 grams of trans fats and not realize – which wouldn’t be a problem except anything more than 2 grams a day can be quite harmful.
Low Fat
This isn’t a lie, but it is important to carefully note the difference between ‘low fat’ and ‘low in fat’. An ice cream can be of a low fat because it has less fat than other ice creams, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t contain tons of fat still.
Pauly singh is a fitness blogger and writes about topics related to health and muscle building. He also writes reviews on http://www.ellipticalreviews.net.
