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Advice On Choosing Health Food And Healthy Foods And Reading
By Chris Robertson, Mon Jan 2nd
Health food doesn't need a definition, does it? We all know whathealth food is it's yogurt and granola, whole-grain cereal andorganically grown vegetables and fruit. It's 100% natural, nopreservatives or dyes, unadulterated, pure. When you put allthat together, you should have healthy food, yet all too often,what's marketed as health food these days barely classifies asfood, let alone health food.
Take a look at one of our favorite health food choices - yogurt.It hit supermarket shelves in the early seventies, though it hadbeen available before that in health food stores andrestaurants. Real yogurt has two ingredients: milk (whole, skimor low fat) and live yogurt cultures. That's health food -calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, protein. Next time you're at thesupermarket, take a look at the dairy case. You'll find rowafter row of hyper-sweetened brightly colored rainbow swirledand candy-sprinkled yogurt packaged in ways that appeal to ourlittlest consumers - children. Millions of parents buy theenticing packages, secure that because it's yogurt, they'rebuying food that's healthy for their children.
One look at the label, though, and it's clear that these kiddyyogurts (as well as most of the yogurt that's marketed toadults) are a far cry from heath food. Some of the most popularyogurts for children contain anywhere from 3 to 10 addedteaspoons of sugar. Considering how many teaspoons of yogurt arein a single serving, you might as well hand your child the sugarbowl. In addition, most yogurts include "natural" ingredientsthat have little to do with health food. Ingredients like pectin(to thicken yogurt), carrageenan (a seafood extract that givessome yogurts their body, and annatto (for color) add littlenutritionally to yogurt. They're in the mix to serve one mainpurpose: to help yogurt survive its trip from the factory toyour table.
You'll find the same situation with other foods that originallymade their debut as health foods in the seventies. Granola hasbecome granola bars with chips and gooey caramel.Whole wheat flour is bleached and denuded of its flavorfulkernels. Sunflower seeds are roasted in oil and salted. Evenbrown rice comes in the instant variety.
Healthy food not health food The secret to feeding your family (and yourself) a healthfuldiet of healthy food is to read the labels. The United StatesFood & Drug Administration has laid out strict guidelines fornutritional labeling of all food products. The nutrition labelwill tell you all you need to know to choose real health foods.Some things to keep in mind when reading nutrition labels forhealth foods:
* In the ingredient's portion of the nutrition label,ingredients are listed in order by amount. The ingredient that'slisted first is the main ingredient, followed by the nextlargest amount, etc. * The nutrition facts label must list each of the requirednutrients even if the food provides 0% of the recommended dailyvalue. * The nutrition facts label must list what portion of the food'scalories is derived from fat, from sugar, from protein and fromcarbohydrates. It will also break down the fat into saturatedand unsaturated fat.
Reading labels on everything you feed your family is the bestway to tell whether a food is really a health food - or justmasquerading as one.
About the author:Chris Robertson is an author of MajonInternational, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies onthe web. Visit this Food Websiteand Majon's Fooddirectory.
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