How to Read Food Labels

Reading food labels can be tricky.  I know that when I first started reading them I would read the ingredients and say to myself, "I just read that, now what?"  Then I would put the item in my cart and take it home and eat it!  I simply did not understand what I was reading.  Now I am much better at reading those labels and my hubby is even better at it than I am.  So I thought I would pass on some general knowledge I have obtained to help make your grocery shopping experience a little easier.

Before I begin the 'list' of ingredients and what they actually are, let me say that Less is More.  On any ingredient list the fewer ingredients that are listed the 'better' that product is gong to be.  10 ingredients or less is a good rule of thumb, and you must not only be able to read and pronounce those ingredients, but you must also recognize and know what those ingredients are.  I might be able to pronounce Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG), but what is that?  If you can make it at home with the same ingredients listed you are probably in pretty good shape.  If you can not make it at home because...what is that?  Then you should probably just walk away, or RUN away.

What Good things to look for:

• Organic and All Natural (these can still have questionable ingredients, but you will find that these are much better and easier to read)
• Short Ingredient List
• Actual food items on the ingredient list
• Strawberries, not artificial strawberry flavor
• Pure sugar cane, not high fructose corn syrup
• Whole wheat flour, not enriched bleached white flour
• Sugar should be one of the last items on the list (not one of the first items)
• Realize that items are listed in the order used from most to least.  So if sugar is listed first that is the main ingredient, but if it is listed last then it is used sparingly.
• First ingredient = main ingredient
• Last ingredient = least used ingredient
• Certified Organic
• Non-GMO Verified
• Natural colors with the source listed. IE: beta carotene for color.  Good, an orange color from carrots!

What to Avoid:
Read my last post on How to Eat Clean(er) to see what things we specifically avoid.  I am not going to rehash all of those items here, but rather am going to focus on the actual reading of the label.

• Anything followed by a number.  Ingredients followed by a number are typically man made ingredients that are not food derived, but rather are food additives.  That does not mean that they are made from food, it means they are added to food.  Most numbered ingredients are derived from petroleum (IE: gasoline or coal tar run off).  Examples:
• Red 40
• Polysorbate 80
• Yellow 5
• Anything Bleached. How do they bleach a product/ingredient?  Well, with bleach of coarse!  Yikes!! Would you eat bleach?  If you would not then don't eat bleached ingredients.
• Bleached white flour
• Bleached wheat flour
• Bleached sugar
• Words you can not pronounce or understand. 
• Most ingredients that are not plain English are man made chemicals.  Why are chemicals in our food instead of food in our food?  Well, that is another post, but in short these chemicals lengthen shelf life and make foods addictive so we keep buying them. 
• Artificial Colors.  Many artificial colors have a number listed behind them, but they can also have great names making them sound good (like blue lake).  These are made from petroleum run off.
• Brilliant Blue
• Sunset Yellow
• Indigotine
• Tartarzine
• And the list just keeps on going.  For more information click here.
• Artificial Flavors.  Artificial flavors are not made from food.  They are actually man made chemical compounds made to taste like food.  For example, many strawberry flavored oatmeal's do not have strawberries in them.  Instead they have bits of apple in them dyed red and flavored to taste like strawberry.  These flavors are shelf stable and last a looooong time, they are also addictive.  They can also cause an whole array of problems.
• Natural Flavors.  Now this one sounds promising until you find out that these are labeled 'natural flavors' not because they are derived from natural sources, but because they taste like flavors found in nature.  These are basically the same as artificial flavors but have been allowed to be labeled this way to mimic nature.  If it was a real food flavor they would just list the natural ingredient such as apple or raspberry.  If it is hidden behind a word then it is most likely not natural.
• Spices.  Spices are good....right?  Hummm.  Yes, real spices are good.  We love garlic, cinnamon, ginger and the like, but the word spices on your food label is typically not a real spice!  Just like natural flavors, spices are typically man made chemicals created to taste like natural spices.  Mostly used for their addictive properties.  MSG is often left off an ingredient list because they hide it under the word spices.  If it is a real spice they will list it on the label.  Ginger is easy to list.  A chain of chemical compounds is not easy to list, so let's hide it.
• Artificial sweeteners and hydrogenated oils.  I won't go into this again, but these are awful!
• Sucrose
• Fructose
• High fructose corn syrup
• partially hydrogenated soy bean oil
• Splenda
• And the list just keeps on going.  Just look for cane sugar and get rid of all others for the sweet factor.  And look for clean oils and butters...nothing with the word hydrogenated in it at all!