Every grocery store seems to have an overwhelming amount of choices.
Colourful cans try to convince you that they’re better than the ones next to it. The boxes of granola jostle for your attention with fun fonts and fancy packaging.
With so many options, how do we know what to put in our baskets?
The first clues that may catch your eye health and nutrient content claims. These are statements that give you key details about a food.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency gives examples: a health claim would be “a healthy diet low in saturated and trans fat may reduce the risk of heart disease;” and a nutrient content claim would say “high in fibre.”
Despite regulations, some of the claims may be too general or somewhat misleading.
A “calorie-reduced” cookie means it has at least 50 per cent fewer calories versus the same branded regular cookie.
A “fat-free” cheese doesn’t mean it has no calories.
A “no sugar added” or “unsweetened” juice does not equal sugar-free, as real fruit juice still has natural sugars from the fruits.
A better source of information is the nutrition facts table.
Currently, each label has information on calories and 13 nutrients for the specified serving size. Note that the serving sizes on labels are not necessarily the same the Canada’s Food Guide portions.
As well, not all serving sizes may be realistic for you. For example, a cereal may show data for quarter cup, but you usually eat more than that. When comparing two products, make sure to check that their serving sizes are comparable.
The amounts of each nutrient are usually in grams and milligrams, which isn’t helpful for most of us. What’s a lot of vitamin C? What counts as a little bit of saturated fat?
Luckily, labels also come with a per cent of daily value (DV) on the right hand side. This is based on a 2,000 calorie diet– the average calories needed by a healthy adult per day.
Although some people need more or less calories, this is a good way to gauge nutrients in the food.
Katherine Zeratsky, a dietitian, explains that nutrients with five per cent or less is considered a little, while 15 per cent or more of a nutrient means a lot.
For most people, Health Canada suggests looking for foods low (less than five per cent) in saturated fats and sodium and foods high (more than 15 per cent) in vitamin A, calcium, iron, and fibre.
Each food label also has an ingredients list ordered by weight – the more of an ingredient there is, the closer it will be to the beginning of the list.
This is another quick tip for choosing better products.
If you want to avoid foods with a lot of sugar, double check the ingredients list to make sure it’s not one of the first ingredients listed. If you want to buy a frozen entrée with a lot of vegetables, look for vegetables in the first few ingredients.
A recent trend claims that if you can’t pronounce a word in the ingredients list, you shouldn’t eat it. While the purpose of this is to encourage you to eat more unprocessed foods, remember that all foods are made of chemicals.
Dihydrogen monoxide sounds scary, but it’s just water. Sodium hydrogen carbonate seems bad, but it’s simply the scientific name for baking soda.
One last tip: expiration dates are not the same thing as best before dates. Expiration dates give you the last day a food is safe to eat. Best before dates are for guaranteed freshness if unopened.
Health Canada recommends that, once opened, follow the package’s instructions on when the product should be finished by.
You’re probably wondering why choosing food has to be so complicated. The good part is that after two years of consultations, the Canadian government is asking food industries to make significant changes to food labels by 2021.
According to Health Minister Jane Philpott, some revisions include “consistent and realistic” serving sizes, allergen visibility, and per centre DV for sugars.
A little tip about what daily value is a little, and what is a lot will be added, but you already know that now.
– By Joyce Chang, a graduate of the dietetics program at McGill University who has experience in clinical and community nutrition in hospitals and schools (joyce.yile.chang@gmail.com).