The Health Truth About Your Favorite Foods

You're a smart, health-minded woman, but guess what? You may be unknowingly downing beetle juice, sneaky sugars and heart-stopping fats. Research by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) shows that many women don't even look at the labels on our favorite items, and even when we do take a peek, too many things still slip past us. "We've found that people tend to spot-read' labels at the store: They look at one piece of information and then make their choice," says Brian Wansink, Ph.D., director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University. "So a woman might see low fat' and think, Great!—not realizing it's high in calories. Or she may feel good about buying a frozen dinner that's trans fat-free,' but it's loaded with saturated fat." Even the savviest of us can be confused by ingredients lists that read like hieroglyphics. So Glamour investigated. We found out what's really in the foods women buy most, and how we can all shop—and eat—smarter.

There's a bug in your YOGURT!

Yes, there really may be an insect in your breakfast—not the critter itself but a dye made from the ground-up eggs and abdomen of the cochineal beetle (a smaller bug than the one lurking below). Often called carmine in ingredients lists, it's what gives some yogurts their lovely pink hue. Gross, yes, but not necessarily dangerous—though it can trigger severe allergic reactions in rare cases. A yogurt ingredient of more concern to experts: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Surprisingly, HFCS, a highly refined sugar that's in soda, candy and other foods, shows up in a lot of brands, even "light" ones with artificial sweeteners. "In my mind, HFCS makes this health food into kind of a junk food," says dietitian Ellie Krieger, R.D.

EAT SMARTER: Check ingredients for HFCS and "-ose" words like fructose, sucrose and glucose—all code words for sugar. Even better: "Buy plain yogurt and add honey and fruit," says Krieger. "Chances are you still won't add all the sugar or calories foodmakers do."

There's a truckload of salt in your BAKED POTATO CHIPS!

Different types of sodium pop up in the ingredients of one popular brand of baked potato chips eight times. "Nearly all of us get too much salt," says Michael Jacobson, Ph.D., director of the nutrition watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)—and 77 percent of it comes from processed, packaged foods. An occasional chipfest won't kill a healthy woman like you, but high-salt diets have been linked to hypertension and osteoporosis.

EAT SMARTER: "The amount of sodium in a food shouldn't be higher than the number of calories," says Krieger, author of The Food You Crave. "So if a serving of chips is 150 calories, it should have 150 milligrams of sodium or less."

There's a jet-fuel additive in your FROZEN PIZZA!

One popular brand of frozen pizza Glamour bought had a mind-numbingly long list of more than 50 ingredients—many of them unpronounceable. Two of those ingredients, waxy preservatives called butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), can also be found in eyeshadows, rubber, jet fuel and embalming fluid. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says BHA is "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen," based on animal studies. Still, as long as BHA remains below certain levels, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it's "generally recognized as safe." (Jacobson isn't convinced.) As if that isn't reason enough to go for something more natural, the ueber-processed pizza also has 30 more calories per slice than an organic-style pie we checked out (which, by the way, had just 13 blessedly simple ingredients, including wheat flour, tomatoes, part-skim mozzarella and extra-virgin olive oil). "The number of ingredients of any food is a sign of the level of processing," says Marion Nestle, Ph.D., a nutrition professor at New York University and author of What to Eat. "All those additives, preservatives, texturizers and flavors are put in there to hide what's been taken out during manufacturing—namely, a lot of the actual nutritional value like fiber, vitamins and minerals. What's added back is mostly unnecessary salt, fat and sugar."

EAT SMARTER: The fewer the ingredients—and the more pronounceable they are—the healthier a food is likely to be, says Nestle.

There's harmful trans fat in your microwave POPCORN!

Many people assume that foodmakers stopped using heart-damaging trans fat years ago, after the National Academy of Sciences ruled it unsafe in any amount and the FDA started requiring that it be listed on labels. Not true. In fact, a CSPI survey found varying amounts of trans fat still exist in more than 150 supermarket foods, including frozen dinners and packaged sweets. One brand of butter-flavored microwave popcorn has a whopping 5 grams per serving (that's 15 grams a bag).

EAT SMARTER: Always check the trans fat listing on the nutrition facts panel. You should also check the ingredients for "hydrogenated" oils—code for trans fats—since the FDA allows companies to claim their products have zero grams of trans fat if they contain less than half a gram per serving—which is still lousy for you.

There's bone-leaching acid in your soda!

Phosphoric acid is used to preserve freshness and prevent bacterial growth in both diet and regular colas (not in clear or fruit sodas). But according to a large body of medical research, it also has the annoying side effect of sucking out little bits of calcium from your bones, increasing the risk of osteoporosis as you get older.

EAT SMARTER: The acid in one 12-ounce can of soda a day probably isn't enough to harm your bones, says Krieger. But don't go overboard. A Tufts University study found that women who drank more than three cans of cola daily had up to 5 percent lower bone mineral density than those who consistently sipped less than one serving a day.

There are hidden calories in your cereal!

"To lots of women, cereal equals diet food," says Krieger, and so they eat it for breakfast, for dessert and for snacks, thinking it's nothing. But look at the serving sizes. One common organic vanilla-flavored flakes variety has 200 calories for 3/4 cup. Most women eat at least one full cup of cereal for breakfast, plus a 90-calorie cup of skim milk, says Krieger. That equals 356 calories without fruit, toast, coffee or anything else—a perfectly reasonable breakfast, but more than many women want in a snack.

EAT SMARTER: Before digging in, take a peek at the serving sizes of cereal and calculate how many calories you'll actually eat. And don't assume "certified organic" products will be better for you, says Nestle. Those organic vanilla flakes, for example, have nearly twice as much sugar per serving as a similar nonorganic brand.

There's half a day's worth of fat in your "lean" meat!

The word lean can play a nutritional Jedi mind trick on us: "People see that word and equate it with skinny' and low calorie,'" says Wansink. But when ground beef is marked "80 percent lean," that means the other 20 percent is fat. So a "lean" 8-ounce burger has almost 45 fat grams, 17 of it the saturated, artery-clogging kind. That's more than half of the average woman's recommended daily fat intake and three quarters of the day's limit of saturated fat.

EAT SMARTER: Look for ground beef or turkey marked at least "90 percent lean," which officially qualifies it as low in fat, says Krieger. When shopping for other meats, look for the words round and loin—they tend to be less fatty and therefore lower in calories and healthier than other cuts.

There's dangerous fat in your ENERGY BAR!

Some energy bars have as much unhealthy saturated fat as a candy bar! A full-size Snickers has 5 grams and one popular "nutrition" bar we found has 4.5 grams. Yes, many energy or nutrition bars have added vitamins, minerals and protein that keep you fueled, but "in the end, having one is really no different than taking a multivitamin and eating a candy bar," says Krieger.

LABEL-READING TIP: Ignore the health halo around energy bars, says Wansink, and be sure to check the calorie and fat content before you grab and go. A healthy snack bar should have fewer than 200 calories and no more than 2 grams of saturated fat, says Krieger.

Should You Eat That?

To really know, forget the front of the box and find this info on the nutrition facts panel:

1. Check calories and serving size. "They're the most important bits of info on the entire label," says Nestle. You've got to do the math: Multiply the number of servings you're going to have by the number of calories per serving shown on the label (e.g., you'll get 2.5 servings of soda from one 20-ounce bottle).

2. Eyeball the ingredients list. If it reads like War and Peace, skip that food. Odds are it's highly processed, loaded with salt and has enough preservatives to mummify your cat. "Many packaged items have been monkeyed with so much they're almost nonfoods. They're cosmetics!" says Nestle.

3. Look at the fiber content—even if the front of the package says "Made With Whole Grains!" (It could be made with barely any.) Truly healthy whole-grain breads should have at least 3 grams of fiber per slice; cereals should have 4 grams per serving or more, says Krieger.

4. Calculate healthy fats. Subtract the grams of trans fat and saturated fat from the total fat in a food. What's left is the good unsaturated fats, and there should be more good than bad. So, if a food has 10 grams total fat, 1 gram saturated and zero trans, 9 grams come from healthy fats—a nice pick!

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