Grocery shopping part: top 10 tips for reading food labels

In an ideal world, our grocery cart is filled with an abundant amount of local organic fruits and vegetables, raw nuts, seeds and grains, maybe some wild alaskan salmon and organic animal protein. But when reality sets in, we hit the shelves looking for quick fix solutions. Packaged goods certainly have their place, but only if they contain healthy, nutritional ingredients. With so much marketing hype in supermarkets, television ads and packaging, how do you fend for yourself? Educate yourself with these 10 tips for reading food labels:

Top 10 Tips for Reading Food Labels

1. Ingredients on a label are listed from highest to lowest by weight. Items listed first are main ingredients; items listed last would be least.

2. Avoid ingredients you can’t pronounce or recognize which are likely unhealthy such as artificial preservatives, flavorings, etc.

3. Divide grams of sugar by 4 to get the amount in teaspoons per serving. Four grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon. Most soda has about 40 grams of sugar; divided by 4 is ten teaspoons. Most fat-free, "diet" foods are also loaded with sugar.

4. Avoid foods with high levels of sodium (watch out for frozen foods, soups and sauces which can contain 700mg-3000mg). The daily recommended limit is 2300mg.

5. Look for foods with 2 grams of fiber per 100 calories. Aim for 25-40 grams of fiber a day.

6. Purchase foods that contain as few ingredients as possible.

7. Sugar or words ending in “ose”: Sucrose, fructose, etc all mean sugar (there are more than 40 different names for sugar). Look for less than 5 grams per serving.

8. Items might have several types of sugar, cane juice, sucrose, fructose, honey, etc which may not be toward the top of the ingredient list but if added together might be high.

9. “Enriched” or “wheat” flour: means white flour, which has been stripped of fiber. Look for “whole wheat” as the first ingredient.

10. Avoid foods labeled with high fructose corn syrup, trans fat ( Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils also means trans fats), high levels of saturated fats, sodium nitrate (found in processed meats) and artificial sweeteners.