This is the last part in a 7 part series on using food labels to improve your nutrition. If you haven’t read the other posts, I suggest you start here so you can see links to all the posts from start to finish.
The ingredient list
The final thing on a food label that can help you to improve your nutrition is checking the ingredient list.
The problem is, often the font is so tiny that you can barely read it!
In most countries all ingredients that have been used to make the product have to be listed. The list is usually in weight order (the main ingredient first).
You may see some items highlighted in bold. This means it is a common allergen (for example nuts, eggs, milk, gluten, fish etc). They are highlighted so that they stand out and make them easy to spot if.
If you want to improve your nutrition, choosing mainly unprocessed “real” food is a good start.
Take a quick look at the ingredient list. Do you recognise most of the ingredients on the list, or are the majority of them complete gobbledygook?
Highly processed foods tend to be full of additives. These have various uses such as making the food last longer and changing the flavour or colour.
The following is a list of common additives. To improve your nutrition, limit the foods you consume that contain lots of additives:
- Dye
- Preservative
- Antioxidant
- Emulsifier
- Thickening agent
- Gelling agent
- Acidifier
- Acidity regulator
- Separating agent
- Modified starch
- Sweetener
- Baking agent
- Anti-foaming agent
- Coating agent
- Emulsifying salt
- Flour treatment agent
- Firming agent
- Humectant
- Filler
- Propellant gas
- Stabiliser
- Flavour enhancer.
No “one size fits all” approach
As with most things in life, there is no “one size fits all” approach.
The recommendations above are aimed at generally healthy people, who do not have underlying health issues, which can be impacted by nutrition.
Health issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, cancer, arthritis and many many others require a diet specifically tailored to the individual. That is out of the scope of this article. Before making any major changes to your diet, you should consult a doctor or a registered dietician.
Conclusion
That brings us to end of this 7 part series on reading food labels to improve your nutrition.
We have covered: portion sizes, calories, inaccuracy, fats, carbs, protein, salt & the ingredient list. If you have missed any of these posts, you can find links to all of them here or below, or you can check out the summary post here.
Other post in the series
