Food Label Decoder

Making smart choices about what you put in your grocery cart should be an easy task, but food manufacturers often use misleading wording to sell their products.

Food labeling regulations are complicated and food manufactures have full-time employees working to increase the sales of their products through creative (misleading) labels. Food companies are more concerned about sales than your health.

Three major misleading label statements:

Preservative Free Lunch Meat:

Meat products are labeled as having “no added preservatives” or “natural,” when they in fact contain nitrites in the form of cultured celery extract. Nitrates are used in the preservation of meat and may be linked to cancer according to the Canadian Cancer Society. The link between nitrates and cancer has caused manufacturers to want to remove them from their label, which they have by renaming them. Celery has a naturally high concentration of nitrates. However, in a stick of celery these nitrates are not thought to be harmful in the way that added concentrated celery nitrate can be.

Nitrates that occur naturally in vegetables contain vitamin C. Research indicates that the vitamin C limits the harmful effects for nitrates. The natural balance of nitrates to vitamins in vegetables is lost when concentration, dehydration, or synthetic processing occurs. When celery extract is added to so-called ‘natural’ hot dogs or sandwich meats, you may be getting just as many harmful nitrates as those found in conventional preservative meat products. Labeling for these types of meats in Canada is misleading.

Made With Real Fruit:

Made with real fruit and some other ingredients that are not so real. The claim “made with real fruit” can be misleading. A fruit drink or snack may have real fruit in it, but what percentage of the product is real fruit? There are many foods that advertise real fruit on the front of their product, but reveal the sugary ingredients listed as one of the first three ingredients.

Also, watch for labels claiming to be “unsweetened.” In Canada, concentrated fruit juice can be considered a fruit ingredient as opposed to a sweetening ingredient. Food manufacturers can then add the concentrated sugars from different kinds of fruit juice and still claim “no added sugar” and “unsweetened.”

Natural products that are not natural:

In Canada companies are allowed to use the words “natural ingredients” on the label even if most of the ingredients are not natural. There is no law regulating what percentage of the product must be natural to put “natural” on the label, so the tiny addition of one or two natural products enables this label claim.

Also, in Canada, some food ingredients can be labeled “natural” even if there is no longer anything natural about them. Heavily altered additives are not what most people think of as natural.

The Key to Good Food Shopping:

The trick to cut through the advertising jargon and make healthy food choices is to ignore the front of the label. Completely ignore the label on the front of the packaging and only look at the ingredients list on the back. Product ingredients are listed in order of quantity, from highest to lowest amount. That means that the first ingredient listed is the one the manufacturer used the most of.

A good rule of thumb is to scan the first three ingredients. They are the largest part of what you’re eating. If the first three ingredients include processed grains, some type of sugar, or hydrogenated oils, the product is likely unhealthy. Instead, try to choose items that have whole foods. For example, the canned tomatoes that you use to make chilli should not have sugar, or cornstarch in the first three ingredients. A healthier choice would have only tomatoes and water.

Another good rule of thumb is if the ingredients list is longer than three lines, you can assume that the product is highly processed. Ideal food has only one ingredient. These are non-processed foods like fresh fruits and vegetables and meat.

It is not easy to consistently make healthy choices at the grocery store, and it can be frustrating to decode food labels. But remember that becoming an educated consumer is the most important first step.