Food labels: What are you really eating?

 

Going grocery shopping tonight? Make sure you look out for these ingredients and avoid them at all costs.

Take a look in your cart the next time you go grocery shopping. We’re all guilty of having multiple items of processed food on our shopping list from time to time, but we make up for it with the healthy products, right?

Wrong.

Start making informed choices on the things you eat by kickstarting your habit of reading food-labels. Flip to the back of that juice carton you are holding – citric acid, fructose, reconstituted fruit juice? What are all these terms, you ask.

We help you decode them in this nifty guide.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Found in: sugary sodas and fruit drinks.

The chemical process which creates high fructose corn syrup separates glucose and fructose, which allows the fructose to go straight to your liver. Too much high fructose corn syrup can lead to fatty liver – a condition that affects 90 million Americans.

Avoid products sweetened by chemical means. If the product is sweetened ensure it only says ‘sugar’, ‘cane sugar’ or ‘barley sugar’.

Partially Hydrogenated Oil

Found in: Processed baked snacks, creamer and margarine

As one of the main culprits in increasing your bad cholesterol level, partially hydrogenated oil is a form of trans fat. Vegetable oil has no trans fat on its own, but after undergoing an industrial process that adds hydrogen, the oil solidifies in room temperature. It has a longer shelf life than unprocessed oils.

Some food labels have been shying away from this but they’ve substituted with equally harmful oils that contain saturated fat (usually from animal products) – which is equally bad for you.

Look out for healthy fats that come from olive, peanut and canola oils instead. Or consume less saturated fat products.

Maltodextrin

Found in: Almost everything from baked goods to diet products and health foods.

Maltodextrin is a treated grain starch that’s hydrolysed with enzymes and acids, and then purified. It is counted as a complex carbohydrate because of the sugar content, but due to its high glycemic index, it passes through the digestive system quickly.

Most muscle recovery drinks contain a form of maltodextrin which gives you instant energy after a workout, however since most daily products contain this ingredient and we aren’t exercising as much as we should, this extra sugar can be stored as excess fat in the body. And you wouldn’t want that!

Sodium Nitrite

Found in: processed meats and fish like bacon, smoked salmon and luncheon meat

This is a common preservative that helps prevent bacterial growth that causes botulism. It also helps make meat and fish look more colourful. Too much sodium nitrite can lead to a health problem called methemglobinemia – your red blood cells cannot transport oxygen throughout your body.

Eating too much sodium nitrite can irritate your digestive tract and cause abdominal aches. So there is such a thing as too much bacon!

Cellulose

Found in: cheese and pre-made milkshakes

Cellulose is essentially powdered wood pulp. Yes, you read right. There is wood in your food. It keeps dairy products from clumping and help stabilise the food.

It is even found in certain ‘organic’ products as it is considered ‘natural’… because wood is a natural source.

There is no harm in consuming cellulose as it contains insoluble dietary fibre. You’ll just pass it out. But it’s still disturbing to know there’s wood in our food.

Cheryl Lee

Photo: 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com