Thanks for sticking with me to the end! In this final blog in the series, I will cover the always-intimidating Ingredients list, some additional important information about food allergens, the information on food labels that seems to indicate when a food may no longer be safe to eat, and some places to go for further information. After the first of the year, I’ll review what we learned—and unlearned—about dieting and healthy eating in 2018.
The Ingredients List
We’ve finally gotten to the ingredients list! You know, where you pick up the package and see it contains, “Tocopherols,” and ask anyone within ear-shot, “Now what in the heck is that????” (By the way, tocopherol is really the chemical name for vitamin E; tocopherols are used in packaged food to prevent spoilage and oh, yes, to provide you with some vitamin E!).
The idea of choosing processed foods with shorter ingredients lists might seem like a good way to ensure a healthier, more nutritious diet. But while this idea makes sense for some foods (consider peanut butter whose only ingredient is peanuts and maybe a little salt, compared with the stuff that contains emulsifiers, sugar, and other stuff!), it makes absolutely no sense for some others (think of cotton candy, gum drops, and jelly beans, which are pure sugar!). The length of a list of food ingredients—and even the length of the names of some of the ingredients—is not necessarily a reliable indicator that the food is overly processed, unhealthy, or less worthy. Trust me: All foods, just like our entire bodies, consist of nothing but long lists of chemicals (listing every chemical contained in a simple peanut would probably take a document the length of my arm). What is important is which chemicals we’re talking about and in what proportions.
As I mentioned in the bottom-line of Part 1, the order of the ingredients in the list tells you which ingredients are present from largest to smallest proportions. And some of the ones that sound the least like something you’d want to eat are not only safe but vitally important (such as certain preservatives, emulsifiers, and even vitamins!). I will comment on only a few types of ingredients to reinforce the point I made way back in Part 1 that front labels are often less than truthful.
Whole Grains or a Whole Lotta Hooey?
As I said in Part 1, a food that calls itself “whole wheat” must list whole wheat flour as the first ingredient. If you’re looking for whole wheat bread, pasta, noodles, crackers, cereal, or cookies and the package you pick up shows that first ingredient is “wheat flour,” put the item down and continue your search! It must say “whole wheat flour.”
“Naturally Sweetened”? Really?
Sugars in processed foods can take many different names. A group of researchers at the University of California at San Francisco who, sadly, are more convinced of the “toxicity” of sugar than anyone else on earth, in spite of entirely weak evidence, have actually identified 64 different names for sugar on food ingredient lists (see the link below). Some of them are corn syrup, honey, molasses, maple syrup, brown sugar, agave syrup, fruit juice concentrates, and evaporated cane juice. Manufacturers who are trying to call attention to the “naturalness” or supposed “healthfulness” of their product are likely to use names like “concentrated fruit extract” or “grape juice concentrate,” for what is really just good old sugar. Besides being deceptive, this sleight of hand can be dangerous for folks with diabetes who feel challenged when faced with tables of numbers, and who may instead scrutinize the lists of food ingredients to find out if a food contains “sugar,” and not be able to decipher the ‘weirdly named” sugar contents listed on the Food Facts label. If you are diabetic or simply trying to cut down on your intake of sugar, my best advice is to limit your intake of foods in packages, consume your sweets in the form of fresh fruit, and allow yourself to have modest amounts of artificial sweeteners.
Artificial Sweeteners
The artificial (reduced calorie) sweeteners used in processed foods in the U.S. are acesulfame K (K is the chemical symbol for potassium), aspartame, sucralose, and sugar alcohols like mannitol and xylitol. I am not going to debate the safety of artificial sweeteners, whether they really help with weight management, and how they affect the gut microbiome. No credible evidence has been found for a concerning lack of safety of any artificial sweetener in humans, including saccharine. Whether they help with weight management depends on how people use them, and whether they influence metabolism or diabetes management is unclear. If you’re trying to cut down on your sugar intake, you might at least try artificially sweetened versions of soda, coffee creamer, yogurt, and other foods, IF you tend to use the sugar-sweetened versions of those products.
What About All Those Other…Long Words? Colors, Flavors, Preservatives, Thickeners/texturizers, Emulsifiers, Vitamins, Minerals…?
Flavors
Some labels list “artificial flavors” or “natural flavors,” both of which have undergone testing and demonstrated safety. Likewise, labels may list any of several artificial colors: Rumors about detrimental effects of artificial colors or flavors on children’s behavior seems to surface periodically but these effects have never been supported by any credible evidence. Periodically food companies make well-publicized efforts to remove artificial colors; these efforts are nearly always met with huge fanfare…until consumers see the new gray foods and stop buying them!
Preservatives
Ingredients such as citric acid, calcium disodium EDTA, and BHA & BHT are preservatives. Although the safety of these, especially BHA & BHT, is often questioned by those who like to engage in scaremongering on the internet, no evidence actually supports any lack of safety in humans. In fact, these compounds are antioxidants (i.e. those chemicals we apparently prize in acai berries, blueberries, and lots of other fruits and vegetables), and might contribute positively to our health.
Emulsifiers
Emulsifiers are important to keep food like bread spreads, ice cream, peanut butter, and mayonnaise from separating into unappetizing layers or globs. The eggs in mayonnaise and some other foods are a natural emulsifier, but for other foods, chemicals such as vegetable monoglycerides are used and pose no proven health risk.
Thickeners
Thickeners–including pectin, a carbohydrate naturally found in fruit, and gelatin–provide desirable textures to everything from apple butter to some yogurt. Thickeners are often substances derived from foods themselves and are perfectly safe. Just know that if you are a strict vegan or are precluded for religious reasons from eating animal products, the gelatin used in processed foods is often derived from animals.
Added Vitamins and Minerals
And finally, if you see strange-sounding names like DL-alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E); ascorbic acid or ascorbate (vitamin C); or hydroxy-, methyl-, or cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12) on the label, relax! You’re simply looking at vitamins or minerals that have been added to “fortify” (fortified means the nutrient is added to a food that doesn’t naturally contain it, like calcium-fortified orange juice) or “enrich” a product (enriched means the nutrient is added to replace nutrients lost in processing) or as mentioned earlier, to serve as a preservative.
Recognizing Potential Allergens on Food Labels
The Food Allergen Labeling and Protection Act of 2004 is a federal law requiring the eight foods that account for over 90 percent of food allergies to be clearly identified on food labels. These foods are milk, eggs, fish (e.g., bass, flounder, cod), crustacean shellfish (e.g., crab, lobster, shrimp), tree nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts, pecans), peanuts, wheat, and soybeans. This is not to say that other foods cannot cause allergic symptoms, but allergies to these other foods (for example, sesame and strawberries) are much less common.
The law requires that the label of a food that contains one of the eight allergens be identified in two ways:
- If a product contains one of the 8 foods or an ingredient that is isolated from one of the 8 foods (for example, a food that is fortified with casein, a protein isolated from milk; or albumin, a protein isolated from egg), it must list the actual food (milk, or casein from milk; egg, or albumin from egg) and cannot simply list “casein” or “albumin,” and
- The label must state, “This product contains [the allergenic food]…”
It’s important to know that if a food contains no allergens but was manufactured or packaged in a facility that processes, uses, or packages foods containing the allergen, the label is not required to state that the food was manufactured or packaged in such a facility or that the product “might” contain the allergen.
When Is a Food No Longer Safe to Eat?
The last piece of information I’ll discuss is the often nearly invisible “Use by,” “Best before,” or “Display until” date. This piece of information may actually be the most puzzling and useless on the label! These terms have no legal definitions and are essentially interchangeable. Furthermore, only some 40 states require the statement on some food product labels, but the states don’t agree on which foods should carry the statement, what the statements mean, or what evidence is needed to support the statement. The only thing everyone can agree on is that the statements are completely unrelated to safety, that is, how long a food is safe to eat, or the date after which the risk of food poisoning increases. What does it mean then?
The statement refers to the date after which the taste or texture of the food might begin to be less than it was when first produced and packaged. There are no agreed upon tests or standards for this characteristic, and it applies only to food packages that have not yet been opened.
What should you do?
If you have an unopened package of food that has passed its “Use by” date, it may be fine, but let the appearance, taste, and texture be your guide. The safety of opened products and cooked foods is an entirely different story: The federal government has an incredibly informative web site, listed below with the others I promised, that provides the recommended storage duration and conditions for many foods, both raw and cooked, based on extensive research. Spoiled foods often appear, smell, and taste entirely fine, so we would all be wise to familiarize ourselves with this guidance, rather than doing that research on ourselves and our loved ones!
Should We Just Avoid Processed Foods?
By now maybe you’re probably thinking it would be easier just to avoid processed foods than to do all that reading. I’ve written extensively before about the fact that most foods we eat are—or need to be—“processed,” at least to some degree, before we eat them. So here are my suggestions, some of which are the same key points I made way back at the beginning of this 4-part blog:
- Build your eating plan around foods without labels, as much as possible: fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and fish. Add frozen vegetables, canned tomatoes, canned and frozen beans (especially reduced sodium), canned salmon and light tuna, and (preferably lower fat) dairy products.
- Avoid obvious snack foods that use healthy sounding buzzwords (veggie chips, fruity bites, oat bran pretzels).
- Regard the front of the food package as an advertisement and consider the verbal enticements as attempts by the food manufacturers to waste your time and money and play mind games. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration is asking consumers to write to them with complaints or suggestions about how to clean up food labels (see below)!
- Treat the top of the Food Facts Label—the number of servings and calories per serving—as the most important information on the package, besides the sodium! And beginning in 2020, you will also be able to see the amounts of added sugar.
Websites for Even More Information about Food Labels
As I promised to those who’ve stuck with me through this 4-part Blog, here are some sites where you can find the sources for some of the information I’ve shared and read it for yourself, and find even more information!
- Standards of Identity: This document is the portion of the Code of Federal Regulations that actually describes the concept of Standards of Identity, by which the Federal Government legally defines foods like milk, cheese, and chocolate.
- Code of Federal Regulations applying to USDA food programs: This page lists all federal regulations that pertain to USDA food safety, inspection, and distribution programs. https://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/regulations
- FDA Health Claims: This page describes (or links to) the definitions of Authorized and Qualified Health claims and lists foods and ingredients that have been granted the right to carry these claims.
- Structure Function Claims: This page describes what foods and dietary supplements can legally make structure-function claims.
- The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004: This page describes the provisions of the act that regulates how allergenic ingredients in foods are described.
- Definitions of organic, free-range: this page describes the government definitions of organic and free-range eggs
- Centers for Disease Control information about giving antibiotics to animals, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and antibiotic-free claims
- Recent New York Times article on reading food labels (for a mostly similar perspective with less detail and a few inaccuracies)
- The 64 different words used to describe sugar in Ingredients lists
- Food safety: federal government website that provides information on proper storage and handling of foods and when to discard
- Where to write to express your opinions on food labeling