Generally speaking it is far better to create your own meals and snacks
from raw ingredients rather than relying on processed and packaged
foods. But in practice this is not always easy. There is nothing wrong
with using a few packaged/pre-prepared foods to make life easier and by
choosing wisely they can help you to meet your health goals. The key is
to learn to read and understand food labels. These are different in
each country with some offering expansive information and others saying
very little. Become familiar with the labelling of foods in your
country and it will help you to be more discerning with the foods you
buy rather than buying into the marketing of the product. It may say
it’s healthy but the label tells you otherwise.
What to look for?
Ingredient list
All
foods sold must have a list of the ingredients that make up that
product. If the ingredients list reads more like a chemistry textbook
index than real foods, put it back on the shelf. The best products to
choose are those that have a list of ingredients you recognise as
foods, without numerous additives, flavourings and preservatives.
Secondly
consider the order of ingredients. They are listed in descending order
of weight, so that the first few ingredients are the most plentiful.
Look therefore at what the first three ingredients are. If they include
sugar or syrup, you see immediately that the product has a lot of added
sugar. This is often the case with low fat foods where the fat is
replaced with sugar to improve the taste. Be aware that sugar can come
in many different forms, often with several in the same product. Look
out for glucose syrup, fructose, corn syrup, maltose, dextrose, honey –
all are different types of sugars.
Finally look for specific
ingredients you know are best avoided eg hydrogenated vegetable fat.
Hydrogenation is the chemical process used to make a liquid vegetable
oil ‘act’ more like a saturated fat such as butter. By hydrogenating
the fat the product is more stable and the shelf life is lengthened.
This sounds good but unfortunately this process also results in the
production of trans fats – the absolute worse kind of fat for health.
If hydrogenated oil is listed put the product back.
Nutrient Label
In
most countries, foods must also show a nutrition information table.
This will give you the total energy, fat, carbohydrate and protein
contents of 100g of the food, or one serve of the product. It may then
also give information on other nutrients such as fibre and/or vitamins
and minerals. Take care to look at what constitutes a serving size as
this is often misleading. For example in order to make the product look
lower in fat and/or energy the manufacturer may state that a serve size
is half of the packaged product, while most of us would consume the
whole product. The two key factors to look at are:
Energy Density
An
excellent way of assessing a food product is simply to look at its
energy density. Compare the kilojoules (kJ) or calories (kcals) per
100g of the product shown on the nutrition information table:
less than 750kJ OR 180 kcals = a low energy-dense food
750-1200kJ OR 180-290 kcals = an intermediate energy-dense food
more than 1200kJ OR 290 kcals = a high energy-dense food
Fruits,
vegetables, cooked rice, pasta and potatoes all have low
energy-densities whereas many processed products made from these foods
have high energy densities, particularly when the water content is low.
Looking at the energy density rather than just the fat content alerts
you to the fact that many ‘diet’ foods are extremely energy-dense,
despite having a low fat content. Rice crackers and cereal snack bars
are good examples. Knowing this, it’s easy to understand how despite
avidly following a low fat diet, you can’t seem to reach your fat loss
goals.
For drinks we tend to consume a greater amount so the
cut-offs are a little different. Compare the kJ or kcals per 100ml of
the drink:
less than100kJ OR 25 kcals = a low energy-dense drink
100-150kJ OR 25-35 kcals = an intermediate energy-dense drink
more than 150kJ OR 35 kcals = a high energy-dense drink
The
higher the energy density of the food or drink, the smaller your
portion size should be. If fat loss is your goal aim to include more
low energy-dense foods and drinks and cut down on the number of high
energy-dense foods and drinks you are using. For example:
whole milk
has 280kJ/100ml making it a high energy-dense drink, whereas skim milk
is a better choice as it has 150kJ/100ml making it an intermediate
energy-dense drink. Similarly most soft drinks such as cola have a high
energy-density of ~175kJ/100ml whereas diet soft drinks contain only
2kJ/100ml. Most sports drinks have an intermediate energy-density of
~125kJ/100ml while water is the best option of all providing hydration
for no kilojoules/calories.
Fat
Look at the grams of
fat per 100g of product – if this is greater than 10 the product is a
high fat food and you should identify what type of fat the product
contains. If it is mostly unsaturated fat it can still be a good choice
(depending on the other factors above). If it lists the saturated fat
content, you are looking for products that have less than 10% saturated
fat (i.e. 10g/100g) and the lower the better. If it doesn’t list the
types of fat read the ingredients list and look for oils, butter and
other fats to give you an idea.
Be careful not to fall into
the trap of assuming a low fat product is also a low energy dense
product. Many are almost as energy-dense as their high-fat original due
to concentrated sugars or other ingredients added to replace the fat.