Day 1, Part 2 - Looking at Labels

Okay.  So we will all say that we read labels.

I look for the amount of fat, you might say.
Oh look, this has no saturated fat(bad fat, bad fat).
Yay! I can eat lots of this! 

But wait! What's this? Why is the sodium content so high?

Hmmmm....let's read the ingredients....

Artificial flavour....."natural" flavour.....long words that I can't pronounce.....
so they've lowered the fat, but what price is my body paying for all the other stuff they've added!


Back to fat content. Here's some helpful information about fat from Katherine Zeratsky a nutritionist with the Mayo Clinic (note:  Mayo doesn't stand for Mayonaisse)

Question

Fat grams, calories or percentages: Which are more important?

When assessing the fat content of foods, which should I focus on — fat grams, calories or percentages?

Answer

from Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D.

All three are intended to help you understand the fat content of foods. However, looking at fat grams is probably the most useful way to monitor how much fat you're getting in your daily diet.

Health experts at the Institute of Medicine recommend that healthy adults get 20 to 35 percent of their total calories from fat. Each gram of fat has 9 calories. So, if you're trying to eat 1,800 calories a day, you should have no more than 70 grams of fat a day — 35 percent of 1,800 calories = 630 calories, divided by 9 (calories per gram of fat) = 70 grams.

For the rests of this article see: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fat-grams/HQ00671

Once I've established the fat content then I will look at the sodium.


According to this article posted by the University of Maine,
"the sodium content should not be more than 5%"
Read more on sodium at:
http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/PDFpubs/4059.pdf




IF the fat and sodium content pass, I will look at hidden additives like:
I cannot name them all here - my first posting about monos$#%um gl(*&mate 
connected my blog to an advertisement for a  site that sells it - lol! 


Reread the names of some hidden forms of "you know what" in earlier blogs and remember...
If I can't pronounce it, it's probably not good for me.


Okay.  That's plenty of information for today.  Take one thing from this post and
pay attention to it in the next while.  Grams of fat, sodium content, words I can't
pronounce - you choose your focus.   Maybe just getting in the habit of reading labels
(either for the first time or a renewed attempt to know what you're eating).


Have a great week!