liebman, "10 common food goofs"

8/3/2019 Liebman, "10 Common Food Goofs"

1/4

S P E C I A L F E A T U R E

10 CommonT o o l me o n c e . . . "

BY BONNIE LIEBMANfood. (Even the most

who should know better, occasionally screw up.)

and m ore sugar than) the regular. Or that you ty pically fill your b ow l withtwo 200-calorie servings of cereal. Or that you would never touc h

Selling is its job , after all.re 10 food goofs you need never make again.

1 . It says it's fat free.fice and man y kitchens : a fat-

e Coffee-mate. A ccording to th e

ies and no fat,a deal!

ou might wonder how aoils (partially

-mate has both . It's just tha ts label is only o ne (level) tea-. The sugar and fat roundto zero because a

of each. That's the Food and Drug Adminis-tration's magic rule.Of course, many people use far morethan a level teaspoon of powdered cream-er to whiten even a small cup of coffee.Most folks simply turn over the containerand pour. In fact, the directions say "Pouror spoon Coffee-mate into prepared cof-fee, tea, or cocoa. Stir and enjoy!"If you enjoy, say, two tablespoons (sixteaspoons) of Original Fat Free Coffee-mate in your 12 oz. mug ofcoffee, you're up to 50 caloriesand 1.6 grams of saturated fat(according to a 2008 m emo fromNestl). Two tablespoons of ordi-nary half and half have 40 caloriesand 2 grams of sat fat. Oops.2.1 avoid high-fructosecorn syrup.

"Now, new research at OregonHealth & Science University dem-onstrates that the brainwhichserves as a master control for bodyweightreacts differently

another common sweetener, glucose," saidthe OHSU press release in February."High fructose corn syrup has becomethe sweetener most commonly addedto processed foods," it noted, addingthat "Many dietary experts believe thisincrease directly correlates to the nation'sgrowing obesity epidemic."No wonder shoppers are confused. Evesome institutions of higher educationdon 't seem to know that high-fructosecorn syrup (HFCS) isn't pure fructose.In fact, HFCS is, on average, roughlyhalf fructose and half glucose. (It's "high"in fructose compared to ordinary cornsyrup, which is pure glucose.) Ordinarytable sugar? Half fructose and half glucosSo if anyo ne wants to say that fruc-tose caused the obesity epidemic, regularsugar deserves just as much blame. As doevaporated cane juice and honey (whichare also half fructose), brown rice syrup,agave nectar, barley malt syrup, and juiceconcentrates.

A smattering of foods actually containpure (crystalline) fructose. But they'reoften foods like Vitaminwater, KashiGOLEAN Crunchy! P rotein & Fiber Bars,and Weight Watchers Yogurt. Go figure.What's m ore, some people who avoidHFCS also avoidfoods that raiseblood sugar lev-elsthat is, foodswith a high glyc-mie index. Guesswhat? Fructosehas a low glycmieindex. Glucosehas the highest.(Table sugar andHFCS are in themiddle.)Bottomline: Fructoseraises harm -ful triglyc-People who avoid high-fructossyrup might buy these bars an

foods that contain pure fruc


2/4

than other sugars do (see Nutri-tion Action, }an./eh. 2010, coverstory). But most sweeteners areabout half fructose and half glu-cose, so it's smart to minimizeall sugars, not just HFCS.

3.1 look for the mostservings of f ru i ts or vegetables."A full serving of vegetables in everybowl," promises Chef Boyardee, whose adsshow parents desperately trying to keeptheir kids from finding out.Each serving of the salt-laden white-flour pasta has a serving of vegetables be-cause it contains a half cup of "tomato es"(tomato pure plus water, actually). Bigdeal. Yet labels or ads touting the num berof servings of fruit or vegetables must beimpressing some consumers, because theclaims are proliferating.Take Bo lthouse Farms beverages (whichare often found in the produce aisle)."3 % servings fruit per bottle," says thelabel of the 15 oz. Blue Goodn ess FruitSmoothie. (Goof alert: the label's Nutri-tion Facts apply to just half the bottle, sodon't think that you'respending 170 caloriesto get those 3% serv-ings. You're reallyspending 340.)

The catch: thelabel pictures the"goodness" in eachbottle: 31 blueber-ries, 1 'A blackber-ries, 1 banana,3y4 apples, an d14 lemon.Impressive? Notonce you realizethat thebeverage ismostly apple

juice fromconcentrate,banana pure, and blueberry juice fromconcentrate. The "goodness" of 3% apples,for examp le, is what you'd get in the sameamount of any apple juice concentrate.Looking for fruits and vegetables? Buythem whole (fresh or frozen), not asingredients in juices, tom ato sauce, chips,crackers, or other processed foods.4.1 on ly buy lean m eat .

Think you're buying lean meat or poultry?It's hard to know, since many packages offresh beef or pork have no Nutrition Facts

W h y d o n ' t l a b e l s s i m p l y s a y " 2 0 % f a t " ?A d d i n g " 8 0 % l e a n " s e l ls m o r e m e a t .

labels. And post-ers (if your storehas them) oftengive num bers fora puny 3 oz.serving of beefor pork that'sbeen trimmed

F o r 3 4 0 c a l o r i e s , y o u g e t"3 % s e r v i n g s o f f r u i t " t h a t ' s

m o s t l y a p p l e j u i c e c o n c e n t r a t e .

by scalpel-wielding technicians.Ground beef, pork, turkey, or chickenpackages usually do have Nutrition Facts,which are supposed to keep people frombeing m isled by claims like "80% Lean/

20% Fat."The fattiest groun d beef you can buy is70% lean. Even ground beef that's 85%lean has 5 grams of saturated fata quarterof a day's worthin a 3 oz. cooked serving.Why do n't labels simply say "15 % Fat"or "20 % Fat"? Because those claimswouldn't sell as much meat.The industry doesn't mind slappingsome Nu trition Facts on the packagebecause most people don't look past the"85% Lean." Don't let that fool you.

5. My ice cream has just150 calor ies.Your ice cream has just 150 calories. Yourhum mu s has just 70. And your beef eye ofround has just 180. Not too bad...if that'swhat you actually eat.

The serving sizes on the Nutrition Factslabelsw hich are largely set by the Foodand Drug Administrationare unreal-istically small for many foods. And thatmakes the calories, saturated fat, sodium,sugar, and other nutrien ts look unrealisti-cally good. For example: Ice cream. The !/2 cup (4 oz.) servingis equal t o two golf b alls. Have you seenthose single-serving cups sold by Edy'sor Dreyer's? They're % cup (6 oz.), whichis 1V2 servings. M e a t , p o u l t r y s e a fo o d . A serving is4 ounces raw, which is about 3 ounces aftercooking. Th at's the size of a deck of cards. Hummus. Only 50 to 70 calories in2 Tbs...a golf ball's wo rth. Pasta. The calories(about 200) onthe box apply to2 ounces of un-cooked pasta. Thatcooks up to around1 cuproughly the sizeof a baseball.

V

A y 2 -c u p s e r v i n g m a k e s r e g u l a r i ce

Soup. A can of Campbell's CondenSoup is supposed to make 2V2 one-cuservings. And its Select Harvest microwaveable bowls are supposed to servYou and your g erbil, perhaps. Cereal. For denser cereals (like graGrape-Nuts, and muesli), the servingis just V2 cup (half a baseball). Douband you're up to about 400 calories. Nuts or dried fruit, just '4 cup. Goball, anyone?

6 . If it has v i tam ins, it m usbe good fo r me .It started 40 years ago with breakfastcereals ("fortified with 8 vitaminsand iron"). Wonder Bread ("helpsbuild strong bodies 12 ways!"), andsugary kids drinks like Hi-C andSunnyD ("100% vitamin C").Now vitamins are also being addedto cereal bars, energy andgranla bars, and sugarydrinks for adults.And we keep fallingfor it.The perfect example:Glacau V itaminwater.Without vitamins, theline of "nutrient en-hanced water beverages"would be, well, water.(Of course. V itamin-water's owner, Coca-Cola, has that marketcovered withDasani.)With flavorslike Power-C,Focus, Revive, XXX (antioxidants).Defense, and stur-D, you'd think thaV itaminwater was offering more th anwater plus less than a penny's w orthC and B vitamins that most of us doneed more of.And it does offer more...about 130ries' worth of sugar per 20 oz. bottle.

7. It 's ok ay to judge a foo dby i ts re putat ion .Face it. We think of some foods ashealthyor at least acceptableevthough they're no better than fowe would never touch. A fewexamples:

Choco la te soy m i lk . Woyou drink a glass of ordinary

A s p r i n k l i n g o f v i ts u g a r w a t e r s e


3/4

We think of the doughnut as junk food,but the muffin is worse.

cup of low-fat chocolate milk has 160teaspoons of sugar (roughly

the naturally occurring

No way you'd ever eat dough-

Donuts, a yeast dough-like a Choco-Frosted has

7 gramssaturated fat.

t is worse.) A

ip Muffin? Try 610 calories, 14 teaspoons

Tortilla chips are junk food

et an ounce of pita chips like New Yorka Salt (about 10 chips) has 140

has 140 calories and 115 mg of so-An ounce of Nacho Cheese Doritos

o you eat white bread? No way. How

8.1 didn't get the memo.

type. Most of the time, you're just sup-d to know. Here's a decoder:

whole grain. Only some ofis whole. (Why don't labels say

Made with a lit tle(and it's probably mostly grape, apple,

fla-W h e th e r

na tura l ly orfla-

yo u getor none ofthe flavoring

S P E C I A L F E A T U R E

Omega-3. Contains the omega-3 fats infish oil (EPA and DHA), the omega-3 fatin flax, soy, and canola oil (ALA), or both.The evidence is much stronger that EPAand DHA lower the risk of heart disease,but most "omega-3" foods have only ALA.

High fiber Contains at least 5 grams offiber per serving. The fiber can be eitherthe intact kind in wholegrains, beans, vegetables,and fruit or the isolated kind(like inulin, polydextrose,maltodextrin, oat fiber, orwheat fiber). There isn'tmuch evidence that isolatedfiber helps keep you regularor lowers your risk of disease,

like the intact fiber in wheat bran can.

you t h i n k is "Made with real blueberriesand natural

Natural, it has never been defined, un-less the word appears on a food that con-tains meat or poultry. Then it means thatthe food's ingredients are not artificial(like most food dyes) and are only mini-mally processed.

9. Calories don't count if..Calories don't count if you eat stand-ing up, you eat off someone else's plate,you're just straightening the edges of a pieor cake, the refrigerator door is still open,or you eat really quickly. Or so we'd liketo believe.

But even reality-oriented shopperssometimes fool themselves. A case inpoint: toppings for frozen yogurt.

Let's say you start with just 200 to 300calories' worth of frozen yogurt. (That'sa medium or regular at places like RedMango, Pinkberry, or TCBY.)

But then the toppings call out. For-get the chocolate chips (80 calories perscoop), the gummy bears (80), and theOreo pieces (60). Even the"healthy" toppings like gra-nla (60 calories), nuts (100),and "yogurt" chips (100) pileon the calories.

Ever watch people add top-pings to their frozen yogurt

from a pay-by-the-ounce ex-tras bar? Theirwaistlinesmight be better off with a200-calorie single scoop ofchocolate ice cream fromthe local Ben & Jerry's.

It's not just frozen yo-

Don't forget to count the toppinfrozen yogurt and salads.

virtuous for or-dering a saladthat theydon't noticethe calories inthe croutons(170), tortillaor wontonstrips (140),cheese (100),bacon (60),and saladdressing(100 to 300). And that's without the breathat comes with the salad...which doesncount, of course.

1 0 . All organic foods aregood for you.Recently, University of Michigan researchers showed 114 sfudents a label from eitheordinary Oreos or (fictitious) Oreos "madewith organic flour and sugar." Then theresearchers asked: "Compared to othercookie brands, do you think that 1 servingof these Oreo cookies contains fewer calo-ries or more calories?" Sure enough, thestudents were more likely to think that thorganic Oreos had fewer calories.'

In a second experiment, students wereasked about Susie, a hypothetical 20-yearold sorority member who was trying tolose weight. "Would it be ok for her toskip her usual three-mile run after dinnerto spend more time on schoolwork?" thestudents were asked.

The participants were more likely tosay "yes" when told that Susie's dinner(roasted vegetables over brown rice) hadfinished with a small bowl of organic icecream or an organic cookie than if thedesserts were not described as organic.

How many people buy Organic NewmaO's when they'd never buy Oreos, WholeFoods 365 Organic Cheese Crackers instea

of Cheez-Itsor Nature'sPath OrganFrostedToaster Pas-tries but noPop-Tarts?

An organfood (or itsingredientsis grown

without pesticides, antibiotics, or growthhormones. That's admirable, but it doesnautomatically make it a health food.*'^ judgment and Decision Making 5:144, 2010.

Organic junk ma y notharm the envi ronment,bu t it can sti l l harm you.


4/4

Copyright of Nutrition Action Health Letter is the property of Center for Science in the Public Interest and its

content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's

express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

liebman, "10 common food goofs"

Documents