RMS Topic: LABEL READING 101 Please do NOT fall for this 100% whole grain marketing CRAP (=calorie rich and processed...not profanity)! Just knowing they are Fig Newtons should be enough but look just at the nutrition facts, and if necessary (though you shouldnt have to because it will become obvious by the nutrition facts) look at the ingredients list in the third picture. Regarding the nutrition facts, any food that doesnt meet at least two of the four important following RMS label reading guidelines below is unlikely, extremely unlikely, to ever be a healthy choice on a regular basis. Now, just because a foods label meets two out of the four doesnt guarantee that it is healthy. But, if a food meets three out of the four, then its odds are significantly improved & if it meets four out of four, it means it is most likely a very healthy food to eat on regular basis – though there are always some exceptions to the rule). Of course, anything that happens once in a while and is eaten with our eyes open and honest with ourselves, is okay. So, lets go through the four RMS label reading criteria one by one and youll find this food meets only one. And, again, if at least two are not met there is almost no chance that its going to be a healthy food on a regular basis, other than possibly very small amounts on a regular basis. But its tough to control these addictive drug-like/imitation food-like low protein, low fiber & high calorie/sodium density products: 1. Calorie density guideline says that a truly low calorie density – get to full on less calories – food should have a serving size (meaning its weight in grams, which in this labels case shows 29g) larger than the calories. In this case the opposite is true and in fact the calories or more than triple the serving size! Thats packing a lot of calories in a small space! To give you a concrete understanding, I eat about 1500 g of food a day. If I ate 50 servings of this food (~1500g) I would be eating 5000 cal a day in order to feel full! NO THANKS! 2. Now the sodium guideline which is very similar except for your comparing the milligrams of sodium to the weight of the food. In this case at 100 mg of sodium, the sodium is also triple the serving size weight (29g) making it high sodium density as well as high calorie density! So much for the marketing healthy pitch! Notably, the RMS definition of medium calorie density is when the calories are between 1–2 times the serving weight in grams. And when the calories are more than double and up to quadruple the serving size, then it is high calorie density. And dont forget, when the calories are more than quadruple the serving size, you are dealing with a very high calorie density food. The same levels of low, medium, high and very high apply to sodium density as well. When you see foods that are not in the low calorie and/or sodium density zone and you honestly understand that they are difficult for you to control, the answer is not to try and create on create willpower. The answer to make them rare is to get them out of your house or work (or any common environment whether it be car or otherwise). You can still have them, philosophically and technically speaking, but you will have them a lot less if they are no longer in your face tempting you all the time. 3. Regarding protein content, generally speaking – foods that have grams of protein multiplied by 10 equal a higher number than their calories may be considered keep you fuller longer foods. This food, or should I say drug, doesnt come close. And, as long as the fiber is real intact, not processed, fiber – I think its reasonable to add the protein and fiber grams together, then multiply them by 10 and see if they are together higher than the caloric content. But as you can see from this label the fiber grams & the protein grams are so low that you can multiply them times TWENTY and theyre still going to be less than the calories! This means that this is a very calorie dense food packed with either carbs and/or fat (Because it doesnt come anywhere near meeting the protein guideline that means that theres virtually no serious protein and since the calorie density guideline shows it is very high and calorie density, the calories are all coming from either sugar/starch and/or fat – and generally speaking it makes little difference, its all a bunch of nonessential processed or refined calories (yes, even though it says 100% whole-grain, it is basically finally milled, highly processed flour with only a slight advantage over finally milled highly processed white flour) that will have some type of negative metabolic effect if over eaten – and you can forget about this food sustaining fullness or being high-fiber like the marketing term whole-grain implies. 4. Lastly, the only criteria out of the four RMS label reading guidelines that this food meets is being low in saturated fat. I generally recommend less than 10 g of saturated fat daily to help facilitate cholesterol control. This usually means we will end up with much than 5% of total calories from saturated fat which is in line with what Pritikin recommends. Saturated fat is totally nonessential. Our bodies can make as much saturated fat as they need and, unfortunately, over the holidays much of the extra sugar and starch we eat will be converted to body fat. And much of it to saturated fat, which will affect our cholesterol as badly as saturated fat eaten from foods, which mostly comes from land animal fat. Though there are a number of vegan saturated fat sources like palm oil, cocoa butter and coconut oil which are not that great for our bodies as the marketing ploys will try to convince us they are. And THAT is where REALITY MEETS SCIENCE on 4 critical label reading guidelines for health, wellness, weight management and disease prevention! RMS #RealityMeetsScience TM
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 23:44:48 +0000
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