“Made With Whole Grain”

by Sheila | Nov 11, 2010 | Natural Weight Loss, Uncategorized

The topic of this post is misleading ingredient claims. Most of us want to see more whole grains and more fruits and vegetables in what we eat. Food companies know this and they fill the grocery store with packages that claim “made with” whole grains, fruits or vegetables. The FDA does not have any guidelines for the use of these ingredient claims. The FDA also does not require the food companies to include how much of the claimed ingredient is actually in the food. The ingredient list can give the consumer some sort of idea because ingredients are listed in order of quantity. The first ingredient in the ingredient list is the largest ingredient in the product and quantity goes down as the list goes on. But there is no way to tell what the actual amount of the ingredient is from the ingredient list position.

This means food companies can easily trick consumers into thinking their product has a lot of whole grains or fruit when it in fact contains miniscule amounts. When buying products that claim “made with whole grains” on the package, you should flip the package over and take a look at the ingredient list. Most of the time, the first ingredient will be “unbleached enriched wheat flour” which is not a whole grain. “Whole wheat flour” is a whole grain, and often times this will be in the ingredient list further down… meaning the product contains relatively little actual whole grains. If you want to increase your whole grain intake, make sure whole wheat flour is the first ingredient in the list.

“Made with” certain fruits and vegetables works the same way. Examples! Strawberry Splash Fruit Gushers say that they are “made with real fruit” if you look at the label more carefully you will find that they products doesn’t contain any strawberries! The “real fruit” is actually pears from concentrate and the strawberry color comes from Red No. 40 dye… the product is also almost half sugar which is not healthy at all. Knorr Chicken Broccoli fettuccini also uses this trick. By using the word “broccoli” in the name of the product it makes you believe there is a substantial amount of broccoli present. If you look at the ingredient list however, you will find that it actually contains more salt than broccoli.

Stay tuned for the next post on “all natural” foods!

“0 Trans Fat” Is Not Necessarily Healthy

by Sheila | Nov 9, 2010 | Natural Weight Loss, Uncategorized

In continuing our discussion of “health halos,” we’re going to talk about trans fats. Trans fat has been very big in the news in the past few years because it was found that it is has very negative effects on cholesterol levels. The FDA concluded that trans fats are at least as harmful if not more harmful than saturated fats and play a large role in increasing your risk of heart disease. As a result of these findings, the FDA requires that trans fat content be shared on the food package label. Because there was so much negative press about trans fats, many food companies ended up changing the make-up of their products so that they wouldn’t include any trans fats at all. This sounds like a really great thing for us as consumers of these products. In reality though, many of these companies did not end up making their products healthier by taking out the trans fats. The simply replaced the trans fats with saturated fats. Which, as denoted earlier, are just as bad as the trans fats they are replacing.

So, when a package reads “0 trans fat” on the label, it does not mean it is healthy, it can still have large amounts of saturated fat. For example! Edy’s Dibs ice cream treats say “0 trans fat” on the front but when you read the nutrition facts panel on the back, they contain a whopping 16 grams of saturated fat per serving! To put this in perspective, the FDA considers 4 grams per serving to be high and does not allow products with saturated fat levels above 4 grams to make health claims on their packages. “0 trans fat” is not considered a health claim, so the package is tricking the customer into believing the product is healthy!

I really hope this series on healthy marketing is helping you to see past the packaging and make more informed decisions about what you are putting into your bodies. We have two posts left; the next on misleading ingredient claims for whole grains and fruit and vegetable content and the last on misleading “natural” claims. Check back soon for those!