Do you ever wonder what is in your favorite snacks? As you begin your weightloss journey, it is important to know what nutrients are in your favorite healthy food items. Being able to decipher nutritional food labels is an easy way to learn more about what you are eating, but many labels can often be misleading. Though a product may make a claim that they are “the healthiest on the market,” it is often found to be untrue. Let’s make sure that you do not fall for these false claims as you try to lose weight. Here is a crash course on how to break down nutrition labels.
Make sure you can understand everything on the ingredients list
Though a food item may make the claim that they are healthier than all of their other competitors, this may not always be true. A product advertised as “lower in calories” often contains ingredients with long, complicated names that are not commonly known by the general population. These types of ingredients are usually not natural and will provide you with no nutritional value. If your goal is to lose weight and maintain a healthy diet, choose food items with a small and recognizable ingredient list. The more ingredients that you recognize on the nutrition label, the healthier the product most likely will be.
Understand the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats
When losing weight it is important for your diet to consist of 20-35% fats. Though some fats are beneficial for your health, some may set you backwards on your weightloss journey. Saturated and trans fat are the worst types of fats to consume for not only weight loss, but for your overall health. Trans fats specifically are derived from an industrial process that adds hydrogen to vegetable oil. This allows for the oil to stay solid at room temperature and helps give different food items a longer shelf life. Avoid products that have these types of fat in their nutrition labels as they are not natural and will increase your risk of heart disease. Instead choose food items that contain poly and monounsaturated fats. These types of fats improve blood cholesterol, decrease your risk of heart disease and stroke, and help prevent type 2 diabetes.
Pay attention to serving size
One of the biggest culprits for weight gain is consuming too much food. Often when reading a nutrition label, many will skip over the number of servings a particular product provides. Companies will specifically do this in order to trick your mind into thinking that you are eating less than you actually are. For example, a 6.6 oz bag of Cheddar Goldfish has 840 calories. In order to stick to 1 serving, which is only 140 calories, consider rationing the whole bag into single servings before temptation strikes. By doing this you will properly portion your food so you do not overeat.
For example, if you want to eat Goldfish be sure to count out 55 pieces of the snack and create individual snacking bags before eating them (as 55 pieces are indicated as 1 serving on the nutrition label).
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Announcement: Living Your Healthy Sweet Life Podcast Series
Be sure to check out our Living Your Healthy Sweet Life Podcast Series! In this series, we discuss how to break out of your old habits and form new healthy habits while still being able to enjoy cookies from time to time. Could you imagine a life not controlled by food or other cravings? It would be much easier to enjoy the moment you are in. Let’s make a fresh start together this week with Episode 5 on Enjoy Mindful Eating!
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To your Joy and Health,
Kay Loughrey, MPH, RDN, LDN
This blog post is written by Bailee Richman, Dietetics Student from the University of Maryland