Published: August 03, 2007 11:01 pm            

Crack the code: Learn how to read food labels

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — As dietitian Lynn O’Reilly wrapped up her nutrition tour recently at Farmer Brown’s — a small specialty grocery store in Middleton, Mass. — murmurs and hushed comments passed among the dozen women gathered around her.

The tour ended with soups, which store employees make fresh with a low-sodium base and no artificial ingredients.

Even nutritious soups like these, though, have a major drawback, O’Reilly said: They tend to be salty. Low-sodium broth is good, she said, but it’s not the same as no sodium. Soups almost always contain salt.

“If there was one that was unsalted, you wouldn’t want it,” O’Reilly said.

This prompted one woman to whisper to her friend, with a laugh, that she wasn’t sure that there’s any food that is good to eat.

That feeling seemed to be mutual, even among these women who are so devoted to understanding food labels that they spent an hour touring the store with a dietitian.

There’s just too much to think about, Carole Goterch of Lawrence said after taking the tour. Most people know some basic nutrition principles, she said, but when you dig into the details and try to pay attention to exactly what you’re eating, it gets complicated.

“I think, unfortunately, it’s a full-time job,” Goterch said. “Nobody has time to make it a full-time job.”

One woman on the tour said she spends three hours in the grocery store reading labels and trying to figure out what to buy. Her son thinks it’s ridiculous, she said, but she doesn’t have a choice. She has diabetes and her medications aren’t working, so she has to pay attention to what she eats.

Dolores Driscoll of Danvers reads labels because she’s managing medical problems, too. She said she has taken these dietitian-led grocery store tours four or five times and she still doesn’t feel confident about her ability to buy the right foods.

At this particular tour, Driscoll said she asked O’Reilly about the fat content of ground beef that’s labeled “90 percent lean.” Driscoll thought that was pretty good, but O’Reilly pointed out on the label that half the calories still come from fat. In general, no more than a third of a person’s daily calories should come from fat.

“You have to do this program several times before you understand everything,” Driscoll said. “You just keep trying to get it right.”

O’Reilly doesn’t disagree that choosing healthful foods is hard at first. But it does get easier once you find foods that you like and know are nutritious, she said.

“Once they go through the process of analyzing what they eat on a regular basis, they really don’t have to go through this again,” she said.

That’s why O’Reilly does these grocery store tours a couple of times a year, usually one in Gloucester and one in Danvers. The recent tour in Middleton was a special appearance, organized by Beverly Hospital.

“The more educated you are, the more confident you can be about taking good care of yourself,” O’Reilly said. “It’s a very good feeling to know that the way you’re eating is a very healthy way to eat.”



Julie Kirkwood writes for The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass.



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Quick tips

r Eat a variety of foods. Don’t fall into a pattern where you eat exactly the same thing every day. Even if it’s a stellar meal plan in terms of calories and nutrition value, a healthful diet is one with variety. It’s OK to eat a fruit every day at breakfast and a protein every day for lunch, but try to mix in different types of fruit and different proteins.

r Watch out for cheese. Cheese is the No. 1 food that clogs arteries. Whole milk and 2 percent milk rank No. 2. Hamburger is third.

r Watching cholesterol? Rather than struggling with labels, just eat less red meat and poultry. That’s the main source of cholesterol in most people’s diets. One three-ounce serving is about the size of a deck of cards. Limit yourself to no more than two servings a day.

r Fast-food french fries are among the worst things you can eat. If you must have french fries, make them at home. Slice one potato with the skin still on, toss the slices with a small amount of olive oil and bake in a hot oven until crispy.

Source: Lynn O’Reilly, registered dietitian with the Lifestyle Management Institute at Beverly Hospital’s Hunt Center in Danvers.



Is it nutritious? The seven-step label check

1. Serving size — How much do you plan to eat? If the package says there are two servings in a package and you plan to eat the whole package, multiply everything on the label by two.

2. Calories from fat — Avoid foods that have more than a third of the total calories from fat.

3. Total fat — Total fat does not need to be zero; in fact, nutritious foods should have good fat. A nutritious food should not contain more than 2 grams of saturated fat, but the trans fat should be zero.

4. Sodium — Check the column for percent of daily value. If it’s less than 5 percent, this is a healthy choice. If it’s more than 20 percent, steer clear.

5. Dietary fiber — A whole-grain food typically has 2 to 3 grams of fiber per serving. Any less and it’s not as nutritious. Be skeptical, however, of breads that have surprisingly high amounts of fiber, such as 8 grams a slice. This fiber is not natural to the bread and is probably added to make it look more nutritious in the eyes of some diet plans.

6. Sugar — Four grams of sugar equals one teaspoon. If a cup of your child’s cereal has 12 grams of sugar, that’s the same as feeding him or her three teaspoons of sugar.

7. Ingredients — (not shown) Check for partially hydrogenated oils, which could be a sign of hidden trans fats.



Shopping blind: What do you do when food doesn’t have a label?



Produce department

r It’s hard to go wrong here. No matter what you choose, the more fruits and vegetables, the better.

r The deeper and brighter the color, the more nutrients a fruit or vegetable has.

r Green peppers are cheaper than other colors, but buy red or yellow peppers when you can afford to. The nutrition is much higher in peppers that have ripened into a color other than green.

r Avocado contains good fat, but it’s high in calories, so eat it in small portions. An eighth of an avocado is the equivalent of one serving of oil.

r Tomatoes have lots of nutrients raw, but more of the antioxidant lycopene is absorbable if they’re cooked or canned.

r Berries are full of antioxidants. Look for berries grown as close to home as possible. Berries that travel long distances tend to have a lot of pesticides on them.

r Watermelon is an excellent source of lycopene and it’s also a natural diuretic.

r Bananas are nutritious, but they’re more dense than other fruits. Think of one banana as the equivalent of two fruits in terms of calories.

Deli

r Deli meat is processed meat, so nearly everything is going to be high in salt, which is used as a preservative.

r Look for deli foods labeled “low fat” and “low sodium.” These labels have legal definitions and mean what they say.

r The leanest deli meat is generally turkey, followed by lean ham.

r Roast beef is leaner if it’s all one color. If it has a variety of colors or looks marbled, it’s probably high in fat.

r Be cautious of deli meats that are not one pure meat, such as bologna and salami. They tend to have more salt, more chemicals and more fat.

Bakery

r For breads that don’t have a label (and even for labeled breads), look for the phrase “100 percent whole grain.” Don’t be fooled by claims such as “made with whole grain” or “multi-grain” or “seven-grain.” These sound like whole grains but they’re not.

r Sweets at the bakery are probably not nutritious. However, if you want to indulge with one of the unlabeled pies, for example, you can find out roughly how much damage you’re going to do by searching the grocery store for a similar prepackaged pie with a

label.

Salad bar

r Pick the darkest greens available.

r Load up on brightly colored vegetables such as carrots, tomatoes and peppers.

r Pile on the light-colored vegetables, too, such as cucumbers. Nutritionists used to think these were inferior veggies, but scientists are now finding that there are beneficial phytochemicals even in light-colored vegetables that they still don’t fully understand.

r Add fatty items sparingly, such as olives, cheese, crumbled bacon and mayonnaise-based salads.

r If there is soup at the salad bar, it’s likely to contain a lot of salt.

Source: Lynn O’Reilly, registered dietitian with the Lifestyle Management Institute at Beverly Hospital’s Hunt Center in Danvers.

        

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