Eat Out Eat Well

Does The Label On The Front Of The Food Package Tell You The Whole Truth?

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I was recently helping a client learn how to interpret nutrition and ingredients labels of food products.  He clearly wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of spending the extra time to read labels.

It does take time.  But, you don’t have to do it for everything.  It’s particularly important to get a feeling for products that might have a laundry list of ingredients.

It’s also really important if something screams “healthy,” “loaded with fiber,”  “reduced calorie,”  “contains a day’s worth of nutrients,” and a whole host of other “you’ve got to buy me because I’m great for your health” claims.

 

Does The Front Of The Box Tell You The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth?

There just might be a kernel of truth surrounded by a great big blob of calories, sugar, chemicals and other stuff.

My client pulled out an Oats and Chocolate Fiber One Chewy Bar that his wife had bought for him.   She thought that with140 calories per bar and a label emblazoned with “35% daily value of fiber,” it must be a good snack.

The Facts

According to the nutrition label, each bar has 140 calories, 4 grams of fat (1.5 grams are saturated fat), no cholesterol, 95mg of sodium, 29 grams of total carbohydrates (9 grams of which are dietary fiber and 10 grams are sugars), and 2 grams of protein.

The calorie count isn’t bad, there isn’t too much sodium, there are 9 grams of fiber, but there are also 1.5 grams of saturated fat and only 2 grams of protein.

The ingredients label:  chicory root extract, semisweet chocolate chips (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, natural flavor), whole grain oats, high maltose corn syrup, rice flour, barley flakes, sugar, canola oil, glycerin, maltodextrin, honey, tricalcium phosphate, palm kernel oil, soy lecithin, salt, nonfat milk, fructose, malt extract, cocoa processed with alkali, baking soda, caramel color, natural flavor, mixed tocopherols added to retain freshness.

Hmmm:  It seems that eight ingredients are sugars or forms of sugar:   # 2 (semisweet chocolate chips), 4 (high maltose corn syrup, 7 (sugar), 9 (glycerin), 10 (maltodextrin), 11 (honey), 17 (fructose), 18 (malt extract).

Not only are there a whole lot of ingredients for a 140 calorie bar, there sure is a whole lot of sugar.  Nine grams of fiber may be 35% of the daily recommended amount of fiber, but this bar is filled with sugar – 8 of its ingredients are sugar and this measly140 calories is using up a full 10% of the recommended daily value of sugar for a 2000 calorie diet.

 

What Do You Think?

The 35% of your daily fiber label on the front of the package is true – BUT – with this much sugar, 1.5 grams of saturated fat and only 2 grams of protein, is this a healthy food?

 

 

Are You Waiting For The Perfect Time To Start Your Diet?

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Do the stars, moon, sun, and all the planets need to be in alignment for you to start your diet?

Diet, not a word I usually use, implies deprivation and a way of life that is not easy, comforting, and fun.  So no wonder there are tons of excuses and reasons not to start.

 

Does This Sound Familiar?

You’ve decided that you want to lose weight.  Do any of these thoughts and actions seem familiar:

  • “I’ll wait until Monday to start” – and then you eat enough over the weekend to gain more weight.
  • “Wow, it’s Monday, but so and so’s birthday is Wednesday and we’re going out to dinner and then there will be cake – so I might as well wait until after Wednesday to start.”  And then it’s Thursday and you go back to “I’ll wait until Monday.”
  • “I don’t have the right kind of food in the house and it’s raining outside and I can’t get to the gym – so I might as well chow down today and wait until I can stock up on the right stuff” (and when is that?).
  • “I was so ‘good’ all week and then on Friday I went out and had drinks and dessert and a ton of bread.  So I figured I ‘blew it’ and might as well eat what I want all weekend.  I can start again on Monday.”  Of course Monday comes along and another verse is added to this tune.

 

There’s Always A Reason — Or An Excuse

You get the idea.  You can always find a reason not to start your new healthy eating plan or activity program.  How about listing the compelling reasons to want to start.

 

Try A Different Way Of Thinking

Diets don’t work.  Maybe they do for the short-term for some of you, but it’s rare to have long lasting weight loss from a restrictive diet mentality.

Try a different approach.  Healthy eating habits are the key to success.  Finding what works for the long term may require some out of the box thinking and creative solutions.  Go for it and give it time.  Just start.

Have you ever watched an athlete look for an opening through a crowded field of players all trying to obstruct his or her way?  The athlete just keeps looking for an opening – an opportunity.  The choice might be unconventional and require lateral movement or some pulling back before surging forward, but without some kind of move nothing’s going to happen  — no momentum will be gained.

Look for your opening and take it – stop waiting for that elusive perfect moment or the perfect time to lose weight.  You can keep telling yourself that you’ll start tomorrow — but will tomorrow ever come?

The Five Second Rule: Don’t Start The Countdown

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The Five Second Rule: if food falls on the floor you can safely eat it if you pick it up within five seconds.  I wrote a popular post on this last year and it’s a topic that resurfaces all of the time — recently in The New York Times.

The Truth About Five Seconds (or three, or seven)

It’s bogus!  In most cases, if bacteria are on the floor, they’ll stick to food almost immediately on contact.

Things that affect how quickly the bacteria cling are the kind of floor; the kind of food; the kind of bacteria; and how long the bacteria have been hanging around on the floor.

 

Let’s Go For Zero

A food scientist and his students at Clemson University tried to determine if the five second rule has some validity or if it’s just a bunch of bunk.

For their study, they put salmonella (as few as ten of these bacteria can cause stomach issues) on wood, tile, or carpet, and then dropped bologna on them for 5, 30, or 60 seconds. More than 99% of the bacteria were transferred nearly immediately from the wood and tile and a smaller number were transferred from the carpet. Over a number of hours, the number of bacteria that transferred decreased, but thousands per square centimeter still remained on the surfaces after 24 hours. Hundreds hung around for as long as four weeks.

 

Location, Location:  The Sidewalk Is Better Than The Kitchen Floor

Most researchers agree the important thing is not how long food takes a vacation on the floor, but where that stay is. Believe it or not, according to a professor of microbiology and pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and author of Germ Proof Your Kids, it may be okay to brush off and give back the gummed up bagel that your kid tossed out of the stroller. Pavement has fewer types of germs that cause illnesses than the kitchen floor — which is probably coated with health hazardous bacteria from uncooked meat and chicken juices.

 

Don’t Retrieve Food From The Kitchen Sink Either

Kitchen sinks have more germs than bathroom sinks and three-quarters of kitchen dish cloths and sponges are heavily contaminated with harmful bacteria like  E. coli and salmonella.  The bacteria, probably carried into the kitchen by food, kids, or pets, can cause diarrhea or infections with flu-like symptoms (especially dangerous for small children, the elderly, and pregnant women).  Bacteria adore the food collected in sponges used to wipe stuff up and can find a happy growing ground nestled in your sponge.

 

How To Figure Out The Carbs On Nutrition Labels

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Trying to interpret the carbohydrates on nutrition facts labels can be downright confusing.  There’s a number for total carbohydrates but then there are subheadings for dietary fiber, sugars, and sometimes insoluble fiber, sugar alcohols, and other carbohydrates.

What Does Everything Mean?

  • Total Carbohydrate, shown in grams, is first. It gives you the total number of usable carbs per serving. This number includes starches, complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, added sugars, and non-digestible additives.
  • The subheadings under Total Carbohydrate are Dietary Fiber, sometimes broken down into Soluble and Insoluble Fiber; Sugars; and sometimes categories for Sugar Alcohols and/or Other Sugars. The sum of these numbers will not always equal the total carbs because starches (types of carbs often used as binders or thickeners) aren’t required to be listed on food labels.
  • Dietary Fiber, shown in grams, gives you the amount of fiber per serving. Dietary fiber is indigestible, usually passes through the intestinal tract without being absorbed, doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels, and slows down the impact of the other carbs in a meal. Subtracting the non-impact carbs – the ones that don’t affect blood sugar (fiber and sugar alcohols) from the total carbs gives you the number of net (also called usable or impact) carbs – the ones that do affect your blood sugar.
  • Sugars gives you the total amount of carbohydrate, in grams, from naturally occurring sugars like lactose (milk sugar) and fructose (fruit sugar) PLUS any added sugars like high fructose corn syrup, brown and white sugar, cane juice, etc. Added sugars are the sugars and syrups added to foods during processing or preparation.  They add calories but little or no nutrients.
  • You can determine if there are a lot of added sugars by checking the product’s ingredients label. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity so if added sugars (white/brown sugar, corn syrup, etc.) are listed in the top three or four ingredients you can guess that the bulk of the sugars are added, not naturally occurring.
  • Some products, although not all, separately list Sugar Alcohols. You might see mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, and others on the ingredients label. If the package says the product is “sugar-free” or has “no sugar added” it must list the sugar alcohols in the ingredients. If more than one type of sugar alcohol is listed, there must be a line for sugar alcohol grams on the nutrition label.
  • Other Carbohydrates shows the number of digestible complex carbohydrates not considered a sugar (natural or added) and includes additives like stabilizers and starchy thickening agents.

They don’t make it easy, do they?

What Not to Ask: How Much Weight Have You Lost?

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In the past few weeks I have heard two well-respected interviewers ask some well-known people questions like “How much weight have you lost?” or, “What do you weigh?”

The interviewers, Barbara Walters and Ann Curry, are excellent at their craft; highly intelligent; two people I admire; and thin, thin, thin. Neither of them looks like she has ever struggled – really struggled (I don’t mean losing five pounds to look better) with her weight.  I’m talking about the kind of weight that makes your health care professional describe you as obese or morbidly obese and start waving red flags.

In both cases, the person being interviewed (Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey in Ms. Curry’s interview, Carrie Fisher in Ms. Walters’) declined to give a number – but rather said that s/he’s on the right path, feels better, and is dedicated to losing weight for his/her health.  (Carrie Fisher is a paid spokesperson for Jenny Craig).

Good for them!  No, a stand-up round of applause for them!  I get it – both personally and professionally, that people who have never really had weight challenges don’t understand the difficulties associated with losing weight – real weight, not vanity weight.  There are legions of completed and ongoing research studies that have looked and are looking for answers to why some people gain – and cannot easily lose – weight, even though their caloric intake and energy expenditure should allow them to do so.

Inherent in the question, “How much weight have you lost?” is the implication that there is a formula, an algorithm, and if it is just applied weight will fly off and stay off.  Yea, right.  Don’t we wish!  Do people trying to lose weight function in a controlled space where all of the influences from the outside world coupled with their own unique physiology allow a predictable weight loss — a weight loss that can be easily sustained after it occurs?  If that’s the case, my education has misled me and I’m lying to my clients.  (On the record, I respect my education and I love working with my clients.)

So, here’s the thing.  If someone you know – or have occasion to talk to – is in the process of losing weight, don’t ask him or her to put a number on it.  Quite honestly, this could have a counterproductive effect because frequently people will lose inches, feel better, and have better clinical numbers (lipids, blood sugar) that may not initially be reflected in pounds lost.

Asking that dreaded question, “How much,” might just make the person think that a lack of significant change in numbers means that they are not succeeding.  If they want you to know, they’ll tell you.  Anyway, why do you need to know?

Losing weight is a long-term process.  Healthy habits need to be created that will facilitate weight loss and then keep it off.  Some people will never be slim – but they will be a whole lot healthier at a higher number on the scale if they are eating well and moving around.

Keep the number questions to yourself – just encourage and applaud the effort.