When it comes to filling your grocery cart with the healthiest foods, careful label reading is critical. Yet even the savviest shoppers can be fooled by some of the claims found on the front of food packages. They’re designed to make you think emotionally, and before you know it, you’ve picked up a box of junk masquerading as health food. Many of the terms on the front of food packages aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees nutrition and health labels and claims. Manufacturers use colorful images, product names, and claims that give the food a “health halo.” In some cases, the claims are factually true, but still can be quite misleading. Here are some claims that fall into this category:
No Cholesterol
Cholesterol is found only in animal products. Seeing “no cholesterol” on a plant-based food (like peanut butter or vegetable oil, which would never contain cholesterol) is stating the obvious, but it’s there to make you think it’s healthier than a similar product that doesn’t proclaim it.
Made With Real Vegetables or Fruit
The ingredients listed below the Nutrition Facts panel are in order of weight. The first few are the only ones that really count, and if the ingredient is below the first five, there’s probably not much of it in the product. For example, in the case of Simply Lay’s Veggie Poppables (which proclaim “made with real veggies” on the package), the only “vegetables” in them are spinach and tomato powders—listed 10th and 11th in the ingredients list. Welch’s Fruit Snacks correctly state that “fruit is our 1st ingredient,” but second and third in line are corn syrup and sugar, effectively negating any real benefits from the fruit.
Lightly Sweet
This suggests that a product would have very little sugar, but that’s not always the case. For example, a cup of Morning Summit cereal, labeled “lightly sweetened,” has 14 grams of added sugars. And “slightly sweet” Gold Peak iced tea has 16 grams of added sugars in 12 ounces. By contrast, the terms that the FDA has definitions for are: “sugar free” (contains less than 0.5 gram sugars), “reduced sugar” (contains at least 25 percent less sugar than a comparable product), and “no added sugars” (no sugar or sugar-containing ingredient is added to the food, which may contain plenty of original sugar).
Keto
Ketogenic foods contain little or no carbs or added sugars, but that doesn’t automatically make them healthy. Cereals, bars, or cookies that say ’keto’ on the package are often “ultraprocessed,” a category of foods that are made with industrial ingredients, such as isolated proteins and sugar alcohols. The latter don’t have calories or raise blood sugar, but they are manufactured sweeteners, and there is doubt about how safe they are.
Gluten Free
Unless you have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, there’s no health reason to avoid gluten. In fact, some gluten-free versions of breads, pasta, and tortillas can be a less healthy choice. They may be lower in fiber than whole-grain products, and can contain gums and other additives that push them into the ultraprocessed food category.
Uncured
Cured deli meats and hot dogs are preserved with synthetic nitrates and nitrites, which may raise the risk of some cancers. But all “uncured” means is that the meat is preserved with celery seed powder or another natural source of nitrates and nitrites. Uncured meats aren’t better for you because synthetic and natural nitrates and nitrites have the same effects on the body.
CONCLUSION
Much of this information stems from Consumer Reports, a highly reliable source of accurate information about many products, which I highly recommend!
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