Paige Harris Low-fat, high fiber, whole-grain, what? How to decipher the crazy healthspeak on food packaging to take back control of your food choices.
Food is the best medicine.
It balances hormones, optimizes protein networks, reduces inflammation, optimizes gut flora, is the basis for every cell in our bodies.
So why aren’t we eating it?
More specifically, why are we eating food-like products and expecting our bodies to recognize them as real food? A lot of it has to do with the industry; ‘food’ makers try to create more addictive foods to make us, the consumers, eat (and buy) more of them. Think about it: when’s the last time you saw a commercial for a head of broccoli or some grass-fed beef?
That’s because real, whole foods don’t need a label. They are what they say they are.
As a general rule, if there are health claims on the label, it’s probably not too healthy. You can probably find the following health halo buzzwords on products in supermarkets all over the world, but that sure doesn’t make them healthy. Next time you go grocery shopping, try and spot these buzzwords on the ‘food’ packaging.
Whole-Grain
What you think it means: The grain contains the bran, germ, and endosperm in their entirety. The product is fiber-rich, lowers your risk of diabetes, and is heart-healthy.
What it really means: Per the FDA regulation, the product must contain at least 51 percent of whole grains by weight. “Whole grains” refer to any mixture of bran, endosperm and germ in the proportions you see in an intact grain. However, industries process these grains to separate the three parts and grind them up before incorporating them into foods.
In other words, not all whole grains are as healthy as they seem.
Take whole wheat bread for example. Schwebel’s Soft 100% Whole Wheat bread, to be exact. If you head to the website, you’ll see the following ingredient list:
The packaging says the product is “Whole Wheat,” but “whole wheat flour” is the first ingredient listed. This is a buzzword. Wheat flour is simply white flour with a few whole-grain flakes in it. And the manufacturers still add corn syrup and honey into what should be a hearty bread.
Whole grains like brown rice can also be harder to digest for some people. That’s because the body has to do more work to break down the grain. This does result in a less rapid spike in blood sugar, though, meaning that your body won’t have to release as much insulin to digest it as say, a piece of cake. However, all grains, even whole ones, spike blood sugar.
Whole grain also doesn’t mean that the food is lower in calorie. In fact, in most cases, whole grain varieties of cereals and breads contain more calories than their ‘white’ counterparts.
This doesn’t mean that you should avoid whole grains at all costs. Weird grains, like millet, buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, and black rice are all great places to start if you’re craving something carb-y.
High-Fiber
What you think it means: The food contains a good portion of the daily recommended amount of fiber. This fiber feeds the bacteria in our guts, which helps them reduce inflammation in our guts and across bodies. In fact, in a study that followed more than 1,600 adults for a decade, those who ate the most fiber were 80% more likely to not have hypertension, diabetes, depression, and disability when compared to low-fiber consumers.
What it really means: Fiber should provide you a host of benefits — but sometimes it doesn’t. Fiber found naturally in fruits and vegetables and fiber added into products during creation are two very different things.
One of the biggest fiber additives is chicory root fiber, a soluble, prebiotic fiber that helps to feed the probiotic bacteria in our guts. It’s packed full of inulin — a carbohydrate fiber that’s naturally found in bananas, onions, whole wheat, and many other foods.
However, there’s a big difference between foods that contain inulin naturally and those that have it added in — like Fiber One Oats & Peanut Butter bars, for example.
The first ingredient here is chicory root extract, meaning that the bar contains more of this ingredient than any other. (Each bar contains 9g of fiber, about twice the amount of 1 cup of steamed broccoli!)
While that may seem great in theory, the excess fiber in these processed foods can lead to gas, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, and constipation — not what you’re looking for when consuming a tiny bar. And when you consider the four mentions of added sugars as well as canola and palm kernel oils, this Fiber One bar isn’t passing any health tests.
Once again, this doesn’t mean that I never enjoy a bar like this from time to time, but I do treat it for what it is — a sugary treat, not a healthy snack.
Low-Fat
What you think it means: The food product either had low fat content to begin with or the fats have been processed out, making the food more heart-healthy and less calorically dense, therefore better for you.
What it really means: The food was either low in fat to begin with (pretzels are my favorite example here — they’re just flour!! OF COURSE THEY’RE FAT FREE!! But I digress…) or has been processed so that the fats in it are no longer there. Food manufacturers then added sugars and/or thickening agents to make the food more palatable, and re-added vitamins into it that were lost during processing. The product may also be full of inflammation-inducing fats, like those found in canola, safflower, corn, sunflower, soybean, rapeseed, vegetable, rice bran, and cottonseed oils. (Avoid these!)
The myth that saturated fats cause heart disease started with Ancel Keys’ 1953 study. In it, Keys studied the fat intake and heart disease rates of the populations of six countries (the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Italy, and Japan). He concluded that since Americans ate the most fat and had the highest mortality rate due to heart disease, the two had to be related — and thus started the low-fat revolution.
(Keep in mind that the study actually compared 22 countries. The link between saturated fats and heart disease was not significant when they analyzed the data — a fact that Keys simply glossed over.)
(Also keep in mind factors such as the French Paradox; the French tend to eat more cheese and butter than most populations, and yet they still have low rates of heart disease and obesity.)
It’s important to treat the fat-heart hypothesis for what it is: a hypothesis. No researcher ever found this hypothesis to be true. In fact, multiple studies have shown that compounds found in animal and dairy products have a positive effect on health. A study published in Circulation in 2016 found that people with high concentrations of dairy fat in the blood were 30-40% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, for example.
Manufacturers pump low-fat foods FULL of sweeteners and thickening agents to make them taste even remotely palatable. Peanut butter is one of the largest offenders here.
Skippy’s Reduced-Fat Creamy Peanut Butter contains a minimum of EIGHT ingredients (not counting the number of inflammatory oils that may be found in it), and 4 grams of sugar.
Trader Joe’s Organic Creamy Unsalted Peanut Butter contains one ingredient, peanuts, and the 1 gram of sugar naturally found in them.
And guess what: The TJ’s brand only has 10 more calories per serving. Want to burn 10 calories? Jump rope for a minute. It’s worth it.
Your body needs fat. It makes up 60% of our brains, helps our body process vitamins A, D, E, and K, regulates hormones, protects our organs, and helps power our cells. Dietary fat intake is highly correlated with a high capacity for executive planning. Fats help us plan, make decisions, and exert self-control. We shouldn’t be afraid of fat — we should be afraid of the fat substitutes.
Lastly, eating fatty foods high in cholesterol does not increase your bad cholesterol. It actually helps balance cholesterol levels, leading to lower rates of heart disease.
These are just three of the many health-halo buzzwords that are found on food packages across the nation and abroad. Don’t be fooled! If you want to make sure that you’re eating something healthful, the ingredients list is the first place to look. And best case scenario? Stick to foods that have NO label — they’ll always be what they say they are!
—You can find resources here.
