Did You Know Reading Food Label Can Be So Tricky?
I began to look out for nutrition information
on food label when choosing honey. And when progressing from honey to other
foods, the learning process didn't get any easier; in fact it only got more
overwhelming. From your cabinet or refrigerator, pull out a few canned foods,
bottled drinks, and packaged biscuits, and look at their labels and packaging.
Are you able to make any sense out of what you read on the food label? Do you
question how transparent food manufacturers are? How much is truth and how much
is pure marketing tactics? You probably know what I mean by now.
Food label is an important touch-point for us
consumers as it serves as a key source of nutrition information when looking
for healthy food. A huge global study done by a marketing research agency
ACNielsen revealed that the top six ingredients most likely checked by
consumers were "Fat, Calories, Sugar, Preservatives, Colouring, and
Additives". And because manufacturers recognise how powerful product
claims can be, many have exploited them by being very creative in presenting of
information on the food label to the consumers. Here, I have made a list of 8
simple pointers that I thought Benefits of Honey visitors could gain in one way
or another.
1. Look Out for Hidden MSG!
Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), "the miracle
flavour enhancer" often associated with Chinese foods, is known to be
neurotoxic or harmful to our brain cells. Packaging can claim "no
MSG" yet still contain MSG, which can be hidden in fancy or confusing
names like yeast extract, autolyzed yeast, sodium caseinate, hydrolyzed
protein, yeast food, yeast nutrient, calcium caseinate, gelatine, glutamate,
textured protein, and torula yeast. And as if this doesn't boggle our minds
enough, there is also "No Added MSG", which seems to imply that there
is already some. The truth is MSG is much more prevalent than many people
realize. Many popular fast-foods have MSG, and in general, the more highly
processed a food is (or the more ingredients listed on its label), the more
likely it is to contain MSG.
2. Do You Perceive "Red and Vibrant"
as "Fresh"?
I began to realise how much effort food
manufacturers spent on food appearance when I learnt that most commercial honey
was pasteurised or treated with high heat to prevent crystallisation, which makes
it impossible to compete with honey that are smooth, creamy, and appealing.
Similarly, "sodium nitrates" are added to meats to make them look
fresh and red on the shelf. Without it, meat would be gray and too unappealing
for consumers to buy. Many scientists believe that "nitrates" or
"nitrates" found in processed meats like bacon, ham, sausage,
pepperoni, salami are cancer-causing chemicals. Dyes are fed to egg-laying hens
to make egg yolks turn bright orange, and also given to salmons to look
orange-red. Bacon and ham get their red tint from sodium ascorbate, a colour
stabilizer, to make them look fresh and vibrant.
3. Don't Expect All Ingredients to be Listed
Food companies can get away with using
non-natural processes and chemical ingredients and claim all natural. For
example, foods fried at high temperature, resulting in the formation of
cancer-causing acrylamides. There is no requirement for food ingredients lists
to include chemical contaminants or toxic substances found in food and
manufacturers need not declare all of the ingredients they use. Additives which
are used as processing aids or serve no technological function in the finished
product also don't have to be listed.
4. Definition of "Natural" can be
Ridiculously Loose
A food labelled "all natural" can
contain pesticides, herbicides, heavy metal toxins, hidden MSG, synthetic
chemical vitamins, and a host of other non-natural substances.
"Natural" does not mean organic. As there is no official definition
for "natural food", food producers and manufacturers have the liberty
to call anything natural. Another trick is to pad the list with itsy-bitsy
amounts of great sounding ingredients like natural berries and herbs. Having a
tiny amount of a superfood appear at the end of the ingredients list often
doesn't mean anything in terms of health value.
5. Beware of "Natural Coloring"!
Artificial colours like FD&C Red No.5,
FD&C Yellow No. 5 (Tartrazine), FD&C Blue No. 1 (Brilliant Blue FCF)
come from coal tar which is basically a petrochemical product. Found in ice
cream, canned processed foods, sweets, drinks, soaps, shampoos, and cosmetic
application, they have caused allergic reactions such as migraines, itching,
rashes, anxiety, and general weakness in some people. Carmine, a well-known
natural food, drug, and cosmetic additive found in "strawberry"
yogurt, ice-cream, milk, fake crab, lipstick, eyeliners, nail polish sounds
like an innocent pink food colouring but it's actually made from the smashed
bodies of cochineal beetles (shocked?). Despite reports of severe allergic
reactions, it's still been regarded as safe and imposing "no significant
hazard" to the public.
6. Know that Sugar and Fat Have Many Names
One of the most common tricks is to distribute
sugars such that they don't appear in the top three of the food label. For e.g,
a manufacturer many use a combination of sucrose, high-fructose syrup, corn
syrup, brown sugar, dextrose to make sure none of them are in large enough
quantities to attain a top position on the ingredient list. The same goes for
fat; "total fat" includes all kinds of fat: saturated, trans fat,
polyunsaturated, monounsaturated. Many foods that claim to be
"low-cholesterol" can be full of saturated fats.
7. Nutrition Claims Can Be Awfully Deceptive
The name of the food product has nothing to do
with what's in it. For instance, a "cheese cracker" doesn't have to
contain any cheese, or a "fruit juice" doesn't have to comprise any
drop of real fruit juice. Nutrition labelling is required when a nutrition claim
is made e.g "High in calcium", "High in Fibre", "Low
in Sugar", "Zero Trans-fat". By the way, any food containing
0.5g or less of trans fat per serving is allowed to claim zero trans fat on the
packaging. Hence companies arbitrarily reduce the serving sizes of their foods
to ridiculously small amount (e.g 1 small cookie) to bring trans fat down to
0.5g per serving. If you take 30 cookies with 0.5g of trans fat each, you would
have taken 15g of trans fat in total!
8. Think Twice When Laying Hands on
"Sugar Free" and "Diet" Foods
Watch for hidden sugar in processed foods like
bread, salad dressing, soups, and be careful with "fat-free"
products, as sugar is often used to replace the flavour that is lost when fat
is removed. Fat-free doesn't mean calorie-free. You think brown sugar is less
refined and processed, and healthier than white sugar? Wrong, brown sugar is a
gimmick to fool consumers into paying more; it's just white sugar with brown
colouring and flavouring added. And don't be fooled by what artificial
sweeteners can offer you. They mimic the taste of table sugar but have
virtually no useful energy. In fact sugar substitutes like saccharin, aspartame
and sucralose are toxic to the body. So be more sensitive to food label claims
with words like "diet" "low calorie", and "sugar
free".
Be an intelligent shopper; fill your carts
with lots of fresh raw foods like vegetables and fruits. Don't get fooled by
deceptive food packaging, see through the marketing hype on food packaging, be
sceptical about claims such as "less", "natural",
"reduced", "free", "light", ask if the serving
size indicated is the amount you would usually eat as one portion; be an avid
food label reader.
R. Tan is the owner of the website http://www.benefits-of-honey.com which
is a rich honey resource community specially built for all the honey lovers and
fans in this world. She has packed this website with a wide range of quality
contents on honey based on her knowledge and experience with honey, so as to
promote its invaluable benefits which she believes could bring many positive
spin-offs in everyone's daily life.
