For the past couple of weeks, Jennifer Sygo, resident dietitian for The National Post, has been doing an impressive job of dissecting and explaining how to read a food label. She goes into extensive detail on how to understand the value of carbohydrates (whether it is from sugar or fibre and what it means if it is from sugar), fats (saturates? trans? whatever else is left?), the daily values, servings sizes, and on and on.
I suppose this is where registered dietitians and holistic nutritionists differ the most. A dietician will get into the deets of the nutrients, nutrient values, daily intakes, calories, grams of carbs, fats and proteins and the lot. I’d say if it has a label, skip it. Easier that way! Allow me to explain.
I could get into detail about what these labels mean. Were I to simplify it, I would tell you to skip the info about ‘Calories from fat’, and % Daily Value from things like vitamin A and instead suggest you have a look at the ingredients that are actually making up these numbers. It is not necessarily about how many calories are in a serving but where those calories are coming from. For example, an apple has about 44 calories, the same as about a 1/2 cup of Fruit Loops Cereal. Does this make them equal in nutritional value? (That’s rhetorical in case you were giving it any thought). Another example is where half of a Chocolate Pop Tart has 180 calories and a serving of oatmeal has 150. When we dig deeper we’ll notice that the calories in a bowl of oatmeal come from a healthy ratio of fats, proteins and carbs (mainly fibre) and 143 of the 180 calories in a Pop Tart come from starch and sugar.
Reading a label is a very complicated endeavor as Sygo pointed out in her series of articles on the subject. My advice is simply to stop being a label whore. Seriously.
Imagine a magical land where you could eat what you wanted. You didn’t have to put on your reading glasses to go grocery shopping, You didn’t need a kitchen scale and calculator to figure out what to eat. You didn’t need to log calories or have a degree in food science to cook a balanced meal. Imagine a world where you sat down to a meal and actually enjoyed the food for it’s flavours and inherent health benefits. This is a world where our food doesn’t have a shelf life that extends into the next millenium, and is free of government mandated ‘enrichment’, the supplementation of our food with synthetic versions of nutrients that occur naturally in real, whole food.
This magical land, my dear eaters, is right there, ready and waiting for us to bite in. This land exists at farmer’s markets, and produce isles the world over. This is the magical land of whole, natural, unprocessed foods. Broccoli doesn’t have a health label when you buy it. It doesn’t have an ingredient list and it doesn’t carry any health claims as it doesn’t have a package to write them on. You don’t need a health label for a bowl of oatmeal or an apple.
For those of you joining the whole foods based 5 Day Vegan challenge beginning tomorrow, you will likely notice that aside from Green Bin / Composte waste, you will have a hugely dramatic decrease in your garbage. When you buy foods that are nutrient label free, they also tend to be packaging free. Bonus!
If you are participating in the Vegan Challenge- be sure to follow me on twitter to get coaching through the day!
Game time! Guess what the top two labels are for and you’ll be entered to win the full set of e-tutorials- Green Smoothie, 5 Days Vegan, Lunar Cycle and The Healthy Cookie: Unbaked. You don’t have to be right, just guess and you are entered.
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Hmmmm…. I think the 2nd label is for apple juice or another type of fruit juice and the 1st label is for good heavens I have no idea… it’s obviously a cake of something, but I don’t have a clue as to what!! lol… Neat game Meghan! I went shopping on Saturday for the foods for the 5 days! I’ve been doing the “vegan” thing for about a month now, but I thought doing your program would be a good boost and a good reminder of why I”m doing this!
I say a rice cake and some type of juice
I couldnt agree more.
Just got back from round 2 of shopping for the 5 day vegan challenge. There seems to be a bit of a vegetable famine going on in Ireland. I couldnt get cauliflower or kale and had to search the town for ginger. There were no leafy greens in the supermarket. Surely Im not the only one in the country eating these things??
Venus Doom- I sure hope not!!! I was in Ireland back in the Spring (in the West- small town of Kinvara) and was sweetly surprised by the organic/health/natural foods focus of the town. I was expecting a week of beer and potatoes… Ireland come through!
I must be living in the wrong town then. Lol.
It took me a while as well to realise that lima beans are actually butter beans, and flax is linseed. Lol.
I went to a green grocers and he said he would try to source some Kale for me.
You and your magical land. Do the unicorns roam freely there?
The last couple of evenings I’ve thought of you while eating dinner. Saturday’s was a salad of mixed greens from the farmer’s market, tomatoes and basil I’d picked at the farm that also supplied the greens, fresh 12 grain bread (okay, not on your challenge), olive oil & balsamic vinegar. Yesterday it was a leftover dish of collard greens, tomatoes, garlic, cider vinegar and other stuff, and then roasted cauliflower, corn (that I picked) and garlic.
I always thought that I looked younger because of genetics, but maybe it’s also because in my family we eat well! My mother appeared to be proud on Saturday at the Food Fair when she took a sip from my water bottle and detected lemon (actually lemon oil from Young Living, naturally) in it. She taught me well.
I guess that the first label is for twinkies, and the second is for pediasure.
Thanks!
I guess at a rice cake and a fruit cup.
I say rice cake too and I think the second one is some sort of fast food child’s soda.
I think this is a great post so many people are so obsessed with the labels and percentage of protein, fat, etc. Time to eat straight from the earth!
Well, given that there is not a lot in the first, possibly a cake of soap? (jk), and the second, some kind of cereal.
Thanks for your continued straight-forward talk on food and nutrition!
I cannot tell you how much this post means to me. I definitely live the holistic lifestyle, yet there was a time I let those numbers rule over me. As much as I’ve always known it’s about the ingredients, I still allowed myself to develop a real fear of certain numbers and got sucked into mainstream messages about “health.” I remember in college when friends would be eating something not particularly good for you and then saying “hey it’s only ____ calories.” Probably because it was some sort of “diet” candy bar- eww gross! Yet other are plagued by the numbers only making them feel constantly guilty. I could go on, but I’m sure you’ve heard it before.
So, THANK YOU for this post!
Labels- rice cake and soda.
i’ll guess rice cakes and fruit juice. thanks! looking forward to the challenge!
Hmm for the first one I’ll need to copy someone else’s answer and say rice cake, for the second I’d say koolaid drink box.
Oh and I wasn’t at your cooking demonstatration on Saturday as I don’t live in Canada but I heard through the grape vine taht it was great and there was standing room only! Congrats!
i recently found your site and i am thankful for all the great info!
i too guess rice cake and fruit punch
How about a rice cake and jello cup? Interesting point on the labels…if it’s one ingredient you don’t need to worry quite so much.
I am thinking a rice cake and the second must be a child’s drink….but 12 ozs is throwing me a curve….seems large for a child serving….Gatorade is possible.
Rice cakes and apple juice!
Plain rice cake and Sunny D!?
~
Btw, thank you so much for all your valuable info. I have been reading your blog for a week now, and watched your demonstration at the Veg Food Fair on Saturday. You’re so funny!
I’m also participating in your 5 day challenge, and have (almost) completed my shopping list. The only thing I cannot find is guar gum. I checked Tutti Fruiti and Essence of Life in Kensington, and both were sold out. Possibly due to your challenge!?
If I can’t find it in time, is there an alternate that would work?
Thanks so much!
Rice cake and Sprite- though I guessed on the rice cake, I looked up at the top of my computer screen and saw it said “ricecake.gif” so that sort of gave away Sprite with “sprite.gif”!
Liz wins for sluethyness… Draw for the prize is still random
oh man now I feel really dumb thats I didnt notice that!! But I have to say I am pretty proud that I guessed correctly! woo go me I guess my calorie counting days helped me do at least one thing good!
I guess a rice cake and a mini can of pop!
I love your blog!
I am with you! And happy to say that the number of labels in my kitchen is quickly diminishing to zero
If you can’t find guar gum- do the old egg replacement- 1 Tbs ground flax with 1/4 cup water- mix together, left sit for 10 mins and you are good to go. Guar gum helps things stick together. When using gluten-free flours, you haven’t got the gluten to keep things bound- so we go to the guar or xanthum gum. Arrowroot starch could also be an option.
VERY well said! i couldn’t agree with you more.
Yes, reading ingredients over numbers makes sense
I can’t find you 5 day Vegan Challenge link…I would like to join you. When I click on the link I get an error message.
i’ll go with a rice cake and a… kids’ fruit drink, but I don’t think it’s actually juice, maybe kool-aid or something.
My guesses are a fig newton (“is it a cookie or a cake?”
) and some sort of fake OJ.
But then I read the comments and the rice cake makes more sense…I just haven’t even thought of eating them in, oh…forever. Didn’t realize they were still made
yuck
“child’s size” Sprite YUCK! Granted, I don’t give my kids fake OJ either, but I didn’t even think of a soda since it said “child” on it! barf
Fun game
I have to go with a rice cake for the first one because sadly I know that they have exactly 35 calories in the Quaker ones, so I will go with that specific brand since many other brands also exist which are not 35 calories.
The second one says cup so it is obviously a beverage. The high sugar means it has to be juice or soda. It might be a light or child’s version of juice because 100 calories is pretty low for a 12 oz beverage. Usually 8oz of juice or soda would be about 100 calories not 12. So I will go with a ‘light’ kids juice or a soda from a restaurant and for some reason they are assuming that the whole 12oz won’t actually be filled.
I was thinking popcorn or rice cake and soda : )
Hmmm, a rice cake (not the caramel kind) and either grape or apple juice. I first thought Juicy Juice but I think that has vitamin C added.
[...] Ignore the food labels. Calories from fat versus calories from sugar etc. etc. is senseless, complicated and no fun at all. Stick with a balance of whole foods and none of that matters. Don’t be a label whore! [...]
Great, thank you!!!