by Jeremy Likness

It is important that you know how to shop for quality foods. This section explains how to maximize your trips to the grocery store by revealing exactly how to read labels and find healthy foods. It is not very complicated, but a little knowledge can go a long ways when it comes to healthy shopping.

Here Are A Few General Guidelines For Looking At Food Labels

• It is the ingredients and the nutrition facts that are important. One without the other doesn't tell the full tale.
• Ingredients list are listing in descending order of predominance. This means that the first ingredient is the most prevalent in the product, while the last ingredient has the least amount in the product.
• In general, you'll want sugars and salts to be listed last in the ingredients list
• If you are looking for a whole fat food, remember that the labels list fats in grams. The percentage listed next to the fats is percentage of daily intake, not percentage of fat calories in the product. You need to look at the top of the label, "calories of fat," and divide that by total calories to figure out the percentage. You can estimate this - if the fat calories are around ½ of the total calories, then the fat calories are about 50%.
• When looking for carbohydrate products, try to choose products that are the least amount processed. Here are a few tips:
  • Breads should have the words "whole" or "stone ground" first on the ingredients list. Often, you might see "unbleached enriched flour, whole wheat..." which is not the bread you are looking for - this is processed bread with some whole grains added for color. The first ingredient should be whole grains.
  • A quality carbohydrate should have fiber and sugar. Try to avoid carbohydrates with zero fiber. Carbohydrates that are nothing but fiber will also not provide optimal nourishment- a combination of both is good. I typically look for at least 1/6 of the total carbohydrate count as fiber - so something with 20 grams of carbohydrate would have around 3 - 4 grams of fiber.
  • It is your decision whether or not you wish to consume highly processed foods. I choose to look for whole, natural foods. If there is too much Latin on the label - i.e. Ingredients I can't pronounce or don't recognize, I leave it on the shelf!
• Canned goods, frozen dinners, and other pre-packaged items are typically very high in sodium. You are better off purchasing the whole, individual ingredients and then making your own meals from recipes. You can store these in containers and freeze them for later.

Shuffling Ingredients

Foods are often "grouped" on ingredients lists to present the items in a specific way. Sometimes this is for legitimate reasons, and sometimes it can be downright tricky. Most people understand that ingredients should be listed in descending order of quantity -- in other words, the ingredient that occurs the most in the product should also be listed first. Therefore, someone looking for a protein bar will be happy to pick up something that reads:

super-di-awesome Protein blend (hydrolyzed cow toes, whey), maltodextrin

The label will list protein, and zero sugars.

Of course, there is more going on here. That special protein blend -- what is it, really? Let's say our ingredients list had 10 grams of whey, 11 grams of cow toes (ew!) and 12 grams of maltodextrin. That list would need to be in descending order of quantity, or "maltodextrin, hydrolyzed cow toes, whey."

Anyone familiar with sugars knows that while maltodextrin doesn't affect the sugar count, it is very high glycemic and therefore not something you would want to be the primary ingredient (unless this was a post-workout shake). So looking at this label, the average consumer would say to themselves, "High in sugar, tons of poor protein, and only a little whey."

So what to do? Simple. The company groups the cow toes and whey together. This is the "super-di-awesome protein blend." Because the sum of the ingredients is 10 + 11 = 21, this new "blend" can be listed before the maltodextrin, with the components of the blend listed in order.

Now, it appears to the unsuspecting consumer that there is actually more whey in the product than maltodextrin (sugar). But we know there is less! The whey makes its way (pardon the pun) to the front of the list through the use of the blend. Therefore, when you are checking out labels, make sure you are aware of how this grouping works.

Special Statements

Sometimes label contain special statements. It is important to understand exactly what these mean.

When a label states, "Not a significant source of calories from fat," it must have less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving. Be cautious of deli meats that are sliced so thin that they may have less than ½ gram of fat per serving, but still contain a significant percentage of calories from fat.

"Not a significant source of sugars" means that the sugar count on the label is less than one gram. Don't take this statement for granted. Some ingredients, such as maltodextrin, are not technically considered to be sugars, but have the same effect as sugars. This is why the ingredients list and the nutrition facts are important when taken together.

Here are some definitions for other special statements:

• No Fat Or Fat Free - Contains less than a 1/2 gram of fat per serving.
• Lower Or Reduced Fat - Contains less the fat or calories of the original version or a similar product.
• Low Fat - Contains less than 3 grams of fat per serving.

• Lite - Contains 1/3 the calories or 1/2 the fat per serving of the original version or a similar product.
• Low Calories - Contains 1/3 the calories of the original version or a similar product.
• No Calorie Or Calorie Free - Contains less than 5 calories per serving.
• Sugar Free - Contains less than 1/2 gram of sugar per serving.
• No Preservatives - Contains no preservatives (chemical or natural).
• No Preservatives Added - Contains no added chemicals to preserve the product. Some of these products may contain natural preservatives.
• Low Sodium - Contains less than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving.
• No Salt Or Salt Free - Contains less than 5 milligrams of sodium per serving.
• Baked Not Fried - Used mostly for potato chips, crackers or corn chips, this label means the product is usually sprayed with a light oil then baked in an oven instead of fried in the oil.

Sugars by Any Name

Understand how to locate sugars in your foods. I am not against sugars, as you read in previous chapters, but it is important to know how to find these if they do exist. Here are some common names for sugars. Be cautious with foods where these appear higher in the ingredients list, as the foods may contain too much sugar and create undesirable spikes in your blood sugar:

Dairy Derivatives

If you are avoiding dairy, the following elements on an ingredients list are dairy or dairy derivatives:

Natural & Artificial

There seems to be a lot of fuss over having natural versus artificial flavorings. It seems that many products are proud to brag "natural flavors" on their ingredients, while consumers are quick to erect a stake and start building a pile of sticks to burn anything that remotely mentions something as "artificial." The truth about these ingredients, however, is not what you think! So what exactly is the difference between natural and artificial flavors?

Natural and artificial flavors are defined by the Code of Federal Regulations. This means there are specific laws regarding which of these terms can be used on an ingredients list.