UNDERSTANDING FOOD LABELS
Cyndi O ’ Meara shares her experience with food labels .
rarely buy food that comes with a
I food label because the more I
learn , the more I choose to buy single ingredient foods from my local farmer ’ s market . On the rare occasion when I do buy packaged foods , it ’ s from trusted companies only .
Reading a food label is like investigative reporting . What are the numbers ? What does ‘ natural ’ really mean ? Is everything that ’ s in the package on the label ? How do they turn a high fat food into a low fat one ? What does ‘ salt reduced ’ mean ? Is ‘ no sugar ’ a good sign ?
The first thing I do when looking at a food label is go straight to the ingredients – I want to know that the food in the package is real and not a bunch of numbers and additives . I also want to know if the food is organic . Glyphosate , a herbicide that was patented in 2010 as a broad spectrum antibiotic , is now being sprayed on some of our crops of seeds , grains and legumes before harvest , which could be causing the increase in gut issues that are now prevalent throughout the population . Organic foods , however , are not sprayed with glyphosate .
The manipulation of food to make it ‘ low fat ’ or ‘ low sugar ’ means that other things have to be added . These could be flavour enhancers like yeast extract ( glutamates ) or artificial sweeteners , which may not be good for our health .
What I have also learned from my food label investigations is that we can be duped into a false sense of security as to what the label says For example , sometimes food manufacturers buy an ingredient like milk protein concentrate ( MPC ) from a food processing company to put into their product . The company they buy the MPC from may add canola oil and / or soy lecithin and in these instances the ingredient does not need to be added to the ingredient list of the food manufacturer , which means that not everything that is contained in the package is listed on its label .
The food industry is adept at making you think a food is real , without it having to actually include too many real ingredients . Lately I ’ ve seen a rise in ‘ clean labelling ’ ingredients , which are essentially renamed additives that sound real but are heavily processed , such as ‘ natural flavour ’, ‘ natural colour ’, ‘ rosemary extract ’, ‘ celery extract ’, ‘ yeast extract ’ and ‘ citrus fibre ’, to name a few . You can learn more about this in my book Changing Habits Changing Lives ( 2018 ).
The new science of nutrigenomics states that the food that we consume not only gives us energy and helps our body rebuild cells , but it also speaks to our genes by upregulating or downregulating . What this means is that with every bite you eat , you ’ re either turning your genes on for health ( upregulating ), or on for sickness ( downregulating ) – the choice is yours .
Through evolution , your body prefers to eat foods sourced from nature , not from a chemical laboratory . Your body has the ability to use natural foods to upregulate genes for health and longevity , so the thousands of additives found in ingredient lists are tested individually , not in a group – we don ’ t really know what this multitude of additives is doing to the health of our bodies .
In summary , we must get back into the kitchen to feed and nourish our family to heal this nation .
Cyndi O ’ Meara Cyndi is a nutritionist , best-selling author , real food advocate , international speaker , filmmaker ( What ’ s With Wheat ?) and the founder of Changing Habits , an online holistic health destination offering wellness products , programs and guides to nourish yourself and your family . To learn more about Cyndi visit www . changinghabits . com . au
OH ! MAGAZINE ( SEPTEMBER 2018 ) 17