• 2012
    Mar 30
    3:00 PM

    Five Types of Foods that “Fool” You

    Sunday is April Fool's Day, and it's not just your jokester friends that you have to worry about. Some of your favorite foods may actually be pulling your leg by labels or reputations that will fool you. Don't be taken for a ride! Here's my list...

    ...of foods that as a dietitian, I see people being fooled by everyday. shorten grocery.jpg

    • Juices: Are you drinking blueberry, pomegranate or acai berry juice for their antioxidant benefits? Well, that's great, but first you better make sure the product you're buying actually contains those juices. Many products labeled as pomegranate-blueberry or cranberry-pomegranate actually are mostly made of other juices like apple juice. So check the ingredient list. If it's labeled as pomegranate but has apple juice listed first on the ingredient list, you'll know it's mainly apple juice, not pomegranate juice.
    • Foods labeled as "natural": The Food and Drug Administration does not regulate use of this term, so it can "mean" almost anything the manufacture wants it to mean. So don't let the "natural" label on something make or break your decision about buying it. Instead, flip the package over and check out the trusty nutrition facts panel and ingredient list. Use the information you gather there as your deciding factor.
    • Healthy-sounding menu options: You would think that a salad with grilled chicken would be healthier than a cheeseburger, but this is not the case on all menus. Some restaurant salads are topped with everything from bacon to creamy dressings and can actually have more fat and calories than a juicy burger! Don't just rely on how the name of the dish sounds on the menu. Instead, look up nutrition information on the restaurant's website before you go out so that you can make an informed choice.
    • Scary-sounding ingredients: Many times I hear people say that if a food contains something on the ingredient list that they can't pronounce or recognize, they won't buy it. However, just because an ingredient is a big, scary-sounding word, doesn't mean it's bad. For example, if you see ascorbic acid in the ingredient list that simply is another name for Vitamin C. Egg yolks are often referred to as lechithin on an ingredient list and another name for Vitamin E is Alpha Tocopherol. So keep reading those ingredient lists, and if you see an ingredient you don't recognize, look it up before you determine if it is something you want your food to contain or not.
    • Foods that are labeled with "made with...": Many foods may say they are made with real fruit, real cheese, or whole grains, but what does that really mean? Well, it may mean the product has very little of these very ingredients. For example, foods don't have to contain a specific amount of whole grains to be able use "made with whole grains" on the label. So even if the product is 80% white flour and only 20% whole grain flour, it could still be boasting that it is made with whole grains. Just another reason why it's important to ignore the marketing on the front of the package and take a look at what ingredients are really most prevalent (the ones listed first) in the product!

    Now, these foods can't fool you anymore!


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