Read those labels!

[SrKen]

We can really improve our health if we read the labels very carefully including the fine print and deceptive wording. Trickery is common on the store shelves.

100% Juice: CRANBERRY - greatest amounts were apple and grape.
100% PURE JAM sounds pure but does not mean 100% fruit, and may contain very much sugar.
NO TRANSFAT. It can be loaded with saturated fat, salt and sugar.

What really got me started I once bought a mincemeat pie and read the label when I got home. Besides the basic were . . . natural and artificial flavors, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, potassium sorbate (preservative), carame (color),cellulose gum, mono and diglycerides,sodium citrate, palmitate, sulfur dioxide (preservative), mononitrate, propionate (preservative).

Yuk!

There is so much bad food out there and so many examples of food labels that can fool consumers and buyers. We should be aware of exactly what labels say and what they do not say. The bottom line: if you care about your health and what you are eating analyze what's written on the label.

[stanmrak]

My bottom line: if you care about your health and what you are eating, avoid any food product that has a list of ingredients (with a few exceptions).

[Firefly101]

Right now I am reading The Hundred-Year Lie by Randall Fitzgerald.

Deals with this issue. Very interesting and eye-opening.

[Angreav]

thank you so much for this info.

[SrKen]

The Hundred Year Lie: How Food And Medicine Are Destroying Your Health (2006) is a book by investigative journalist Randall Fitzgerald that examines the rise of the local and global influence of the United States food and chemical industries, and how they have over the last century, altered, affected and damaged the lives of millions of people in the United States by introducing synthetic chemicals into the mainstream food chain.

- Wikipedia

Sounds like a must read, for us and for politicians to retain office. Where have they been?

[Lakshyayidhi Lakshmihi]

How about you just don't buy any premade food with more than 5 ingredients? Everything else should have had a face or come out of the ground. Easy peasy.

The politicians politick themselves! Everyone else just goes about their lives trying to stay under the radar. lol.

google: food not lawns!

[RomanHD]

Originally Posted by SrKen

NO TRANSFAT. It can be loaded with saturated fat, salt and sugar.

Will the saturated fat myth ever die?

[Arcturus]

Food manufacturers put chemicals in foods to extend the shelf life of the goods they sell. The last thing they want is food turning rotten on the shelf before anyone has bought it as it's all about money and profit at the end of the day. Never mind what these chemicals might be doing to our health in the long (or short) term. Food was more natural in the days of our grandparents because the small shops usually sold their fresh food more or less straight away. The huge modern supermarkets of today are more like food warehouses where some foods can stay on the shelf for days or even weeks before they are bought and eaten.

[joelr]

NO TRANS FAT can mean "less than .5 gr per serving". Peanut butter which has trans-fat actually reads 0 trans-fat but the amount could be .4 per serving.

But if you eat several servings that still adds up to a few grams.
It seems like the biggest lie ever!? They can actually say the word "NO" when there IS trans-fat???
How the hell is that allowed??

If someone eats Skippy peanut butter every single day, thinking there is NO trans fat, you'll actually be putting several grams per week in your body.
I don't know if there is a minimum amount you can eat where your body expells it?
I have a feeling those small amounts actually do stick around and add up.

The FDA should require products to say "<1 gr trans-fat"

[ginkgo]

Dr Oz says to eat foods without an ingredient list!

[Andrew Brunelle]

Label-reading is one of the primary components of good health, but so is eating natural foods without labels, such as most produce, unless the produce comes in a bag, such as baby spinach. I try to make at least one meal a day from all real food as it is currently found in nature, or on a farm or wherever it was grown.

It's not just trans fats, but white flour, HFCS, and sugar that is creating so many problems that the pharmaceutical industry is happy to come in and solve for enormous profit.

[stanmrak]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Dr Oz says to eat foods without an ingredient list!

I happen to agree with Oz on this one, but be careful about taking his advice on anything. He's talking to an audience that watches daytime TV, on a show that's sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry.

[Lifeisamazing]

Originally Posted by RomanHD

Will the saturated fat myth ever die?

Yeah...

I was so strict with this for a while until I started reading all kinds of more trustworthy sources and studies.

Like eggs - people eat a great number of egg whites and throw away the yolks which actually contain way more great nutrients than egg whites.

[Excellent Lodestar]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Dr Oz says to eat foods without an ingredient list!

Dr Oz! Michael Pollan called;he wants his Tagline back...

[goldberg]

Originally Posted by RomanHD

Will the saturated fat myth ever die?

This is still quoted by most public bodies as being the way to cut your heart disease risk. So it is hardly surprising that this view is still prevalent.

[Leesah]

We now have a little traffic light erm... thing ... on the front of (most?) foods here in the UK, stating the calories, sugar, fat, sat fat, & salt amounts (green = it's good, orange means it's ok-ish and red means it has high levels) ... I think this idea is excellent and verrry helpful (it's awkward picking up every product and scanning the back for the info). Sometimes you think you're choosing a healthy wrap, for example, but a quick look at the front of the packet could confirm it's not so good afterall because it's like 600 calories and full of fat (and yet it's called a vegetable wrap or something, without checking calories etc I would assume it's healthy).

But yeah, ingredients are another thing to consider, thanks for the reminder SrKen. I've noticed the same thing lately...it can be funny sometimes, like a "lentil soup" can be 90% other ingredients and just 10% or less lentils.

[Groundless]

Originally Posted by RomanHD

Will the saturated fat myth ever die?

All signs point to no.

:-)

I read my black ball of great decision on tht one. :-)

[Groundless]

Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle

Label-reading is one of the primary components of good health, but so is eating natural foods without labels, such as most produce, unless the produce comes in a bag, such as baby spinach. I try to make at least one meal a day from all real food as it is currently found in nature, or on a farm or wherever it was grown.

It's not just trans fats, but white flour, HFCS, and sugar that is creating so many problems that the pharmaceutical industry is happy to come in and solve for enormous profit.

I would argue refined grains and simple sugars are the prime cause for people getting on medications. Remove these items completely and see how the body responds. Then again, how much hydrogenated crapola would one eat if you didn't have refined sugars and grains in the diet....the mind reels with possibilities.

[SrKen]

...it can be funny sometimes,

I've noticed that Leesah

Contains No Fat. - Label on a jar of dill pickles yet
Contains Real Fruit. - Wow!
Fresh Peaches - Imported from...

Advertising can sell junk as needs, garbage as food; and many must be listening. As Homer Simpson once said; "It takes two to lie: One to lie and one to listen."

[stanmrak]

Originally Posted by Groundless

All signs point to no.

Per-capita saturated fat intake has declined significantly for about the last 60 years, while heart disease has gone from unheard-of to No. 1 with a bullet! DUH!

This myth is so completely ingrained, tho, no one seems to notice this.

[RomanHD]

Originally Posted by stanmrak

Per-capita saturated fat intake has declined significantly for about the last 60 years, while heart disease has gone from unheard-of to No. 1 with a bullet! DUH!

This myth is so completely ingrained, tho, no one seems to notice this.

Just goes to show that when something is discovered by 1% of the scientists, the other 99% don't automatically hear about it. Also, people with PhD's don't usually like to admit they were wrong. Or so it seems to me.