Nutrition Label Detective (Part Two): But What Does That Mean? at Her Active Life

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Nutrition Label Detective (Part Two): But What Does That Mean?

Posted April 5, 2008 at 01:00 PM by Caroline Shannon

Section: Her Health, Her Nutrition, Healthy Eating

nutrition lable Deciphering a nutrition label can be tricky, and with words like “hydrolyzed wheat gluten” and “thiamine mononitrate” popping up throughout ingredients lists, an in-and-out trip to the grocery store has become a quick thing of the past.

But don’t fret. There is hope for the health-conscious woman who just wants to know a bit about the foods she is putting into her cart.

The following is a list of the most common – albeit difficult to decipher – ingredients found on a nutrition label. Use it the next time you hit the grocery store, and you will feel like a label-savvy detective in no time!

Sugar
Sugar comes in several forms, and why not?! The average American “consumes more than 152 pounds of added sugar each year — in addition to the natural sugars we ingest from foods such as fruit,” according to U.S. Department of Agriculture, that’s about 40 pounds more per person than we ate just 50 years ago!”

And since Americans are clearly taking a no-holds-barred approach to their cookies and snack cakes, why should food producers care how much of the white stuff they are dumping into our foods?

Well, for those gals out there who give a hoot, here is a list (it’s a big one!) of some of the words that are just as equal to the word “sugar” as chocolate is to my tummy:

Acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K), aspartame, corn sweetener, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, dehydrated cane juice, dextrin, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, invert sugar, lactose, maltodextrin, malt syrup, maltose, mannitol, maple syrup, molasses, neotame, raw sugar, rice syrup, saccharose, saccharin, sorbitol, sorghum, sorghum syrup, sucralose, sucrose, syrup, treacle, turbinado sugar, xylose

Fat Replacers
These big guys are typically found in reduced fat foods. But fat replacers are not necessarily bad. According to the American Dietetic Association “the majority of fat replacers, when used in moderation by adults, can be safe and useful adjuncts to lowering the fat content of foods and may play a role in decreasing total dietary energy and fat intake.” You will notice these words for fat replacers in baked goods, dressings, frozen desserts and dairy products:

Olestra, cellulose gel, carrageenan, polydextrose, modified food starch, microparticulated egg white protein, guar gum, xanthan gum, whey protein concentrate

Nutrients
Surprisingly, the words on nutrition labels that look the scariest and most difficult to pronounce are really not that frightening at all. Nutrients are added to flour, breads, cereals, rice and energy bars because they replace vitamins and minerals that were lost during processing or just simply to fortify a food item. A few words that indicate nutrients have been added to your food include:

Thiamine hydrochloride, riboflavin (Vitamin B2), niacin, niacinamide, folate or folic acid, beta carotene, potassium iodide, iron or ferrous sulfate, alpha tocopherols, ascorbic acid, Vitamin D and amino acids (L-tryptophan, L-lysine, L-leucine, L-methionine)

In addition to these words that are commonly used in food label ingredients, keep in mind that product labels always list ingredients in order “of predominance, with the ingredients used in the greatest amount first, followed in descending order by those in smaller amounts,” according to the International Food Information Council and U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

So, you already have nutrition label word usage under your belt, and now you can add food ingredients to your list. What’s next for the oh-so-powerful-woman shopper to conquer?

The ideal food label to shop for – if there really is such a thing. But we will save that for Part Three. For now, just go hit the grocery aisles!