Five Ways Food Labels Try to Trick You

 

Making foods appear to be good for you when they are not seems like a pretty underhanded thing to do, especially when it is something you are going to be eating. But it is routine for food packaging to make all sorts of misleading claims that, while perhaps not technically a lie or illegal, do skate right up to the edge. And there is no reason for doing this other than to trick you into buying something you might otherwise pass by.

Here are five common ways food companies deliberately try to mislead you.

Sugar Free

First of all, legally, sugar free does not mean free of sugar. Sugar-free products may have less than 0.5 grams of sugars per serving, which is not really a lot. This doesn’t mean a product has fewer calories than the regular version though, it may have more. These products often contain sugar alcohols, which are lower in calories (roughly 2 calories per gram, compared to 4 per gram for sugar), but compare labels to see if the sugar-free version is any better than the regular version in total calories. (Common sugar alcohols are mannitol, xylitol, or sorbitol). And don't forget that the information on the label will be per serving, and companies still get very creative with serving sizes.

Weasel Words

Food packaging is often prominently plastered with words that sound healthy and good for you but actually mean nothing. Nutritious, wholesome, natural, boosts, supports and similar come-ons have no legal meaning. Basically they mean whatever the food manufacturer wants them to mean. An especially egregious example is the artificial sweetener aspartame. As consumers began to avoid products containing it, the manufacturer simply changed the name. To Amino-sweet Natural Sweetener. Same aspartame but now it was "natural". Ignore any words of this type on the front of the package and read the labels.

Made with...

Made with real fruit! Made with vegetables! Made with whole grains! You might pick up a package assuming that you were getting real fruit, vegetables or whole grain. You'd often be very wrong. While legally there must be some of an ingredient in the food to claim it is "made with", there is no legal definition for the amount required. "Made with" very often means "Made with very, very little". How can you tell? Again, read the label. The farther down an ingredient is on the list, the less of it is contained in the package.

Uncured

As people began to catch on to how bad the nitrates and nitrites in processed meats really were for them, they began to buy less of it. Shortly after, "uncured" and "no nitrates" claims began showing up on the packaging. Except there were still plenty of nitrates and nitrites in the meat. Now they came from celery powder and sea salt - healthy sounding ingredients. But it doesn't matter where the nitrates come from, its still a slab of salty cured meat.

Wheat Flour

If the first ingredient on a package is wheat flour you might be tempted to assume that it is a healthy whole grain product. Resist the temptation. Wheat flour is just a way to disguise the fact that you are getting processed white flour. Sure it comes from wheat. So what? Another trick is the multigrain label. This just means that the processed flour originated as more than one type of grain. Its no better for you. What to do? You guessed it! Read the label. If it says "whole wheat flour" it contains at least some whole grain flour. Agan, the farther down the ingredient list, the less you are getting. If it says "100% whole wheat" that is the one you want.

When you buy food, you are on your own. Assume you are being lied to by the packaging (or at least being deliberately mislead). As the Sergeant used to say at roll call on the '80s police drama Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there!"