Food article...

Nov 28, 2007 12:44

I thought this was an interesting article for avid lable readers like myself-

When you pick up a food, scan the nutrition label, and think, "cool"--because it's surprisingly lite or low-cal or free of trans fat--you expect those claims to be bonafide, right? Hah. Watch out for these traps.

1. Snacking on an itty-bitty 3-ounce bag of Sun Chips? A portion is only 1 ounce! Eat more than that and you might as well be enjoying Oreos.

2. Just downed a 20-ounce bottle of SoBe's mango-and-passionfruit Fuerte? Your sugar surge is 84 grams, not 33, as a glance at the label suggests. That's 'cause the portion size is only 8 ounces. (And the calorie hit is 320, not 130.)

3. Still got a thing for Snackwells cookies? Think small. Snackwells' serving sizes are for one or sometimes two cookies, tops. Right, like that's gonna happen.

4. When it comes to comfort food, has it got to be Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese? Unless you plan to eat it straight from the box, know that the prepared version (made with margarine and 2% milk) adds an extra 150 calories and 16 grams of fat per serving to the figures on the nutrition label.

5. Let's say the label on your fave baked goodie says 0 grams trans fat--that's good enough news to deal with the guilt of the other stuff tomorrow, right? Sorry, but zero doesn't mean zero. It means less than 0.5 gram per serving. Okay, that isn't much, unless a serving is, say, one donut hole, and by midnight you plan on finishing the whole box. (Who, you?)

6. Need a protein pick-me-up? Also check the ingredients for sugar, including its many code names such as fructose, polydextrose, corn syrup, and honey. Special K's Chocolatey Chip Protein Meal Bar weighs in at 15 grams of sugars--versus only 10 grams of what the bar was named for: protein.

Shady labels like these give a whole new meaning to "making a list, checking it twice." Learning to read labels and avoiding foods with saturated and trans fats, simple sugars, or processed grains. 

health, food

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