{"id":30217,"date":"2024-09-18T15:25:38","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T13:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/save-us.life\/?p=30217"},"modified":"2024-09-23T12:21:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T10:21:17","slug":"how-to-understand-a-food-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/save-us.life\/zh\/archives\/30217","title":{"rendered":"How to understand a food label"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few decades ago, shopping was dangerous. There were many scandals and the most important ones concerned flour where mixtures were classic and gave fatal accidents. The cans, packets and containers had no ingredient labels, let alone nutritional information. With no obligation to tell people what was in their products or what it meant for their health, manufacturers inserted all sorts of unpleasant substances.

Food manufacturers sprinkled copper sulfate \u2013 a garden pesticide that can burn the skin \u2013 into canned vegetables to make them look greener. To extend shelf life, some manufacturers even added formaldehyde or borax \u2013 a laundry detergent \u2013 to meat and dairy products. In France and northern Europe, arsenic was used to color green candies, while lead was added to red or yellow candies, as well as to color cheese.

Forcing stricter labeling rules on a reluctant food industry took decades of lobbying and research. To bolster his case, one American scientist even set up a controlled experiment feeding meals of contaminated food to a group of willing young men \u2013 Blum\u2019s \u201cpoison squad\u201d \u2013 to demonstrate that such foods could harm their health. Many healthy volunteers in the squad became ill, a consequence that U.S. lawmakers could no longer ignore.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Top<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, processed foods are packaged with an abundance of information about their contents. But that doesn\u2019t mean that this labeling is always easy to decipher. If you look closely at a package or box, you\u2019ll find various chemicals, codes, weights and percentages, while on the front are health statements and claims that are not as simple as they seem. There are tips for deciphering a food label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, it is clear that food regulations differ from country to country. It would therefore take more than a single article to describe the labeling conventions of each country. The United Nations\/WHO Codex Alimentarius provides an international set of labeling standards, but this \u201cfood code\u201d is voluntary and is applied in different ways around the world. For nutrition labeling, most of the world\u2019s major economies make it mandatory, including the U.S., India, China, Japan, Australia and members of the EU. But for some, it is voluntary, unless a health claim is made, as in Turkey, Singapore or South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tracing



Overall, most labels include a list of ingredients and information on the nutritional value of the product: calories, fats, sugars, salt, etc. In recent decades, manufacturers have also begun to add health and wellness benefits, knowing that this helps sell their products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The manufacturers are clever and they don\u2019t indicate on the front that the ingredients are ranked from most predominant to least predominant by weight. So far, so obvious, you might say. But it does lead to some labelling tricks. For example, if you take a closer look at the label of a hazelnut spread, beyond the images of nuts on the front, you\u2019ll notice that the first (and therefore most important) ingredient is actually sugar, often followed by oil. The same pattern can be seen with breakfast cereals: even if a box says \u201cwhole wheat\u201d in big letters on the front, the ingredients often list sugar as second. Some brands of frosted flakes, for example, contain 37g of sugar per 100g of cereal. That\u2019s about the same proportion as in a chocolate chip cookie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"hershey-bar-different-size-warning\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the EU-27, manufacturers prefer a system of short codes to describe additives called \u201cE-numbers\u201d, which have acquired a controversial \u2013 and sometimes undeserved \u2013 reputation over the years as dangerous and mysterious chemicals. Some, like the artificial coloring E122 found in cakes and candies, can have harmful effects on children prone to hyperactivity. But others are good for you, or at least harmless: E300 is vitamin C, E948 is oxygen and E160c is paprika.

In North America there is no such coding, and these additives are described by their chemical name. Thus, on a U.S. label, you will read \u201csodium caseinate\u201d, rather than \u201cE469\u201d. At first glance, this seems clearer, but even this convention is a bit obtuse as to what the product actually is: sodium caseinate is used in foods such as sausages or bread, and is the main ingredient in coffee creamer, but neither its E-number nor its chemical name tells you that it is a protein derived from milk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"nutrition

There is another difference between countries when it comes to sodium: North America lists the sodium content of their products (especially on nutrition labels, which we will discuss later), while the EU-27 lists salt. Salt may be one type of sodium, but sodium is a category that also includes the caseinate additive just mentioned, as well as other ingredients such as baking soda.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, a mixed structure-function statement is intentionally vague, such as \u201ccalcium strengthens bones. The key to these claims is that they do not (and cannot) make specific promises to improve health, and should be considered only as marketing language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are typographical and fine print manners, many manufacturers \u2013 in the U.S. and around the world \u2013 attempt to amplify the health benefits and mitigate the drawbacks. In a recent study of breakfast cereals in Australia, for example, 83% of children\u2019s cereals carried a nutritional or health claim, such as \u201chigh fiber\u201d or \u201clow salt,\u201d while the majority were rated as overall poor health or nutrition. Other notable examples found on supermarket shelves include \u201clow-fat\u201d yogurts that should instead be labeled \u201chigh sugar\u201d.

There is no safe country in the world, so it is best to do some research on what you see on a label. While it may appear to be comprehensive and detailed, there are often more health claims, ingredients or nutritional information than what is actually on the package. Food labeling has come a long way since the days when milk contained formaldehyde and candy contained arsenic, but that doesn\u2019t mean a label tells you everything.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few decades ago, shopping was dangerous. There were many scandals and the most important ones concerned flour where mixtures were classic and gave fatal accidents. The cans, packets and containers had no ingredient labels, let alone nutritional information. With no obligation to tell people what was in their products or what it meant for […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to understand a food label - Save Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/save-us.life\/zh\/archives\/30217\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"zh_CN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to understand a food label - Save Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few decades ago, shopping was dangerous. There were many scandals and the most important ones concerned flour where mixtures were classic and gave fatal accidents. The cans, packets and containers had no ingredient labels, let alone nutritional information. 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