Learning to read labels

Mo-Mo

I've started over the last 6 months to really get to grips with what I am eating and trying to understand food.

Can anyone recommend a book that explains food labeling. I understand cals per 100 and what are sugars, trans fatty acids etc. but I'd like to really know how to read them.

I noticed on the muller rice thread someone posted the contents and some people were able to state that they were full of crap. I want to be able to do this. although I have a small amount of an idea, I feel I need to understand it more.

Transform

very simpe really, what i teach is -

1. If you can't spell or pronounce it do not eat it
2. If sugar, veg oil, hydrogenated fats, wheat are in the top 5-6 ingredients then its a no no
3. Boxes and excessive packaging is not only bad for the planet and also generally means they have spent lots on the look, advertising of the product and very little on quality.

You can get very technical but it most do not need to go beyond the above.

rubadub

Theres not much to it. They have to list ingredients in order of what % is most in it. They may do tricks to make it appear better. Say you have a fruit juice drink.
ingredients: water, fruit juice 10%, glucose syrup, fructose syrup, sucrose.

So even thought it appears to have more fruit juice than sugar, the % of the additional sugars could be 9,8,7 so the real sugar content is 24%.

This is also a trick done with fats, calling them various names. You can look at the overall % listed too. Some companies are snakes and simply omit the fat or sugar carbohydrate %'s. If they are doing this they have something to hide.

If a product says "low in fat" check the sugars, usually high, and vice versa. You see muffins saying "only 5% fat!" but are about 80% sugar.

Also pay attention to what you really eat portion wise. Cereal boxes say 30g, most eat about 50-60g. Milk ads say "only 4% fat", but a pint weighs about 500g so thats 20g of fat.

Mo-Mo

If a product says "low in fat" check the sugars, usually high, and vice versa. You see muffins saying "only 5% fat!" but are about 80% sugar.

while I get this, I sometimes don't know how to tell is how high is high.

rubadub

Mo-Mo wrote:

while I get this, I sometimes don't know how to tell is how high is high.

Well men are supposed to take around 90g of fat per day, obviously unsaturated is better. You will just have to add up and calculate the fats.

You will see ads saying say crisps have only 10% of you fat requirments for a day. i.e. 9grams, but crips are about 40% fat! it is just that the packs are light, only about 25g. A pint of milk will have about 20g of fat in it.

I dont really calorie "count", i.e. tot them up or have a set amount. But I am fully aware of the calories and calorie "compare" more than count. So if I am reaching for a bar, I will look at it and say "I could have 4 chicken fillets instead of that"

base2

1. If you can't spell or pronounce it do not eat it

??
Trying to think of the reasoning behind this.

Smellyirishman

He does not mean it entirly literally, just that if something is manufactured (and thus something to generally avoid) it will have a load of crap in it that is often hard to pronounce (IE, chemicals). Something along those lines (I think).

Boru.

I run a 6 week nutritional training and meal planning program for some clients. If you'd like pm your email address I can send you the notes on food labelling that I hand out to my clients.