Food Labels

I got this off of an email (source below) but wanted to pass it along because this is very good info!


A little hocus-pocus is going on in your local supermarket, things are not as they appear. We have to be smart, savvy shoppers and not fall for this slight-of-hand trickery. I'm talking about the claims of healthiness, lower fat, less sugar, sugar free, etc....so let's crack the code, shall we?

There is deception in numbers. Look at those boxes with big red or yellow
letters screaming that they have 33% Less fat than the original product. The
math may be accurate, yes they have 33 % less per serving. The original product
contained 3 grams of fat per serving, while the reduced product has 2 grams. It
is a 33% difference....BUT...we're only talking about 1 gram here! What they
don't tell you is that this reduced version has 33 percent more carbs! The
manufacturer replaced fat with sugar! Why? Because when you remove fat you
remove flavor, replacing it with sugar makes it yummy!

Take "Swiss Miss" cocoa as another example. There is a Swiss Miss for
Diabetics and the Swiss Miss low sugar version as well. Picking up the box and
reading the label I was mystified to see that there was actually MORE sugar in
the Diabetics mix!! Unbelievable! Read those labels!

Let's look at those little red hearts that carry the badge of honor for the
American Heart Assoc. Read the small print and you will see that the product was
given the heart because the food meets the criteria for saturated fats and
cholesterol. Your product could actually carry a ton of sugar and still wear the
heart! Why is that? Because that heart is bought, yes, companies PAY to wear the
AHA sign! Check out the flavored oatmeal with the old man on the box wearing the
Quaker hat...now look at the store brand on the same shelf, look at the sugar
content, now see which one is wearing the heart. Interesting.

When you see the words "Good Source" on something, usually referring to calcium,
vitamins and minerals, you think that you're smart to purchase it, right? Guess
again! In order to be considered a "good source" of something, a product must
only meet 10% of the recommended daily value! Example, look at Teddy Grahams, a
"good source of calcium"...you would have to eat 10 servings to get your daily
requirement...ridiculous!

How about those "Lean" meats? When you remove fat you not only lose not only
flavor, but juiciness also. With that in mind, manufacturer's enhance their
pork, poultry and beef products with a solution of water, salt and nutrients,
thereby increasing the products salt content. An example....a 4 oz. serving of
regular turkey tenderloin contains about 55 milligrams of sodium, while the same
amount of LOW FAT Turkey comes in at around 840 milligrams. Stay away from
"enhanced" anything!

Last, but not least, those wonderful healthy drinks. You know the ones I
mean...those bottled green teas! They are all over the place! They are teaming
with antioxidants and out to kill all those free radicals in your body, well
guess again! Don't believe it, there is only one brand on the market that lives
up to this claim, "Honest Tea Organic Honey Green Tea" with 215 milligrams of
catechin. The rest are somewhere around the 28 milligram mark and serve no
purpose at all.

So what to do? Read those labels! Brew your own tea. Roast your own turkey,
etc., make your own oatmeal and flavor it with natural ingredients, and READ THE
FINE PRINT!

The above information was taken from the EAT THIS NOT THAT SUPERMARKET SURVIVAL
GUIDE by David Zinczenko, Rodale Press, 2009 and from the Women's Health, Aug.
2009