Here’s how to decrypt the labels of food products and make the right choice at the supermarket for your health, by defeating the traps of manufacturers.
The shopping guide, analyzed and rated 800 food products sold in supermarkets. Radius by radius, you visually identify which products to choose. But we also give you dozens of tips to decipher the labels and identify the products you can eat, and those that are best avoided. Here are for example 6 tips for choosing better. A visit to https://www.leafoflifewellness.org/ makes the whole process perfect now. You can visit this wellness center and get the right products there.
- Know where your priorities are
How to choose between similar foods in appearance? Read the label and choose in order:
The product that is made with “natural” ingredients that you may have at home (flour rather than modified starch, eggs rather than egg yolk or egg whites, whole milk rather than milk powder or milk protein , sugar rather than glucose syrup, etc.)The one with the shortest list of ingredients (the one with the least dyes, flavors, stabilizers, gelling agents)
- The one that contains the least added sugar (sucrose, glucose, fructose, invert sugar, glucose-fructose syrup)
- The one whose fats are of better quality : olive or rapeseed preferably
- The least caloric
- The one with the most fiber (whole grains rather than refined, higher fruit or vegetable content)
- The one that does not contain the additives you want to avoid
- Locate the position of the ingredients in the list
The position of the ingredient in the list is important. Thus, almost all products contain glucose-fructose syrup. Locate it on the label: if it is number 2 in the product A, prefer the product B in which it is number 7.
- But do not be fooled
Since the main ingredient must appear first, there is a strong temptation for the manufacturer to change the composition of the product to make the first ingredient look better for health than the second.
Thus, in the case of a cake where the first ingredient is sugar, the manufacturer can replace part of the sugar with glucose-fructose syrup. Result: the flour appears first. To get an idea of the added sugar content of such a product, we should therefore identify in the list all sugars present: sugar, glucose-fructose syrup, dextrose, maltodextrin, honey, fructose, lactose, etc.
- Beware of lighter products
To replace the greases often removed from these products, manufacturers do not hesitate to use multiple additives and various ingredients such as starches that give consistency to the products but are sometimes even worse for the line than the fats that they replace.
- Beware of fake good properties
The addition of vitamins or minerals is aberrant when the product is obviously bad for health, for example too sweet. Be careful with the details that divert attention from the bad qualities of a product, or that, to consume magnesium, make you swallow more calories. Same thing is for ultra-processed products that highlight the fact that they are organic, such as chicken nuggets. Organic or not, they must be considered as foods to consume only occasionally.
- Vitamins and minerals: yes, but..
Some foods enriched with vitamins and minerals may be interesting. But beware: very often, the presence of added vitamins and minerals is a sign of a mediocre product, which the manufacturer tries to present in a better light. In addition, you have to be careful with the micronutrients that are added:
- Vitamin D: Vitamin D fortified foods provide very small amounts, which are of little interest for health
- Iron: many foods (including breakfast cereals) are fortified with iron. This iron is likely to react with other nutrients and damage cells and tissues. It is better to give a child a food that naturally contains iron such as meat or fish.
- As for men but also menopausal women, iron fortified foods is useless because the needs are low and covered by the normal diet.