Misleading Food Labels

Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork. ~English Proverb

Women’s Health magazine has an excellent article on the “18 Worst Packaged Food Lies”.
Always look at what a product has in it, not what it’s “free” of. For example, “Fat Free” does not mean “non-fattening”. Most "fat free" foods are empty-calorie junk foods with 100 percent sugar and processed carbs. In the cartoon above from http://www.xkcd.com/, a product advertises itself as “asbestos free”. Hopefully ALL products are asbestos free so this is just an empty claim to boost sales.

"100% juice pomegranate blueberry” should be read as 100% juice containing some pomegranate and blueberry. The majority of the “juice” is made from apples or white grapes and is little different from sugar water. (See below) In my family we buy 100% juice made from one fruit (i.e. pure pomegranate) and then dilute it 50/50 with Diet 7-Up or similar low calorie mixer. When I was on a diet in college, one of the restricted foods was fruit juice. Whole fruit is healthy and you get pulp and fiber eating apples, etc. But fruit juice packs a lot of calories, can be consumed in bulk, and does not fill you up. Drink it in moderation.

Beware of any product that calls itself a “food” or “drink”. These are words of last resort to hide the fact that the product as little real content and is mostly chemicals. Beverages labeled "juice drink" or "juice cocktail" are primarily sugar water (corn syrup, etc) with a little juice (18%) for flavor. Yoo-Hoo "Chocolate drink" looks like chocolate milk but is really water, high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil. Nonfat dry milk is listed as the ninth ingredient. A “cheese food” has very little cheese in it. Likewise Macaroni & Cheese “made with real cheese” must contain some cheese but there is no law saying how much or how little. Most of the cheese flavor and texture will be artificial.

The phrase "All Natural Flavors" is not defined by the FDA and means very little. High-fructose corn syrup is a “natural” super sweetener made from corn via some serious chemistry and lab processes. Just because a chemical is extracted from a “natural” source does not make it safe or desirable.

Another unregulated term is “Healthy”. The product line "Healthy Choice" did not pass any tests to earn this title. There is no guarantee that a "Healthy Choice" meal is actually healthy.

Bottom Line

Never trust the product labeling on food; it’s designed to sell you. Look instead at the ingredients list and the calories/fat/etc. The ingredients are listed in order of most content to least and will give you a clue as to whether you are buying “food” or chemicals. But even the ingredient list can be deceiving. Sometimes an ingredient like sugar is broken up into different types to avoid being number 1 on the list. Be worried when you see corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup and glucose and other sugars all listed separately.