Healthy Eating

Healthy Eating

The ABC’s Of Alphabet Soup

How to read the new food labels and the rules that go with them

The government says its new food labeling regulations were established to cut consumer confusion about nutrition. But all of those coded abbreviations and numbers on the new labels can add hp to aggravation for many consumers who are just trying to figure out what they should be eating.

Don’t despair. Decoding the nutritional information on your cereal box or soup can is simple once you understand the logic behind the label. Let these tips be your guide.

First, forget about Recommended Daily Allowances and U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances. (Who really knew the difference, anyway?). They are still considered sound guidelines for a healthy diet but they are no longer listed on the labels required by the federal government.

The new version of the Recommended Daily Allowance is the Daily Value, or DV. There are two kinds of DVs, although you can’t tell by looking. The difference is that the first group is a recommended maximum, and the second group is a recommended minimum. The first group includes things that most people have no trouble finding in their diets: worrisome things like saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium, as well as good things like fiber, protein, and carbohydrates. The second group includes the vitamins and minerals that many Americans just don’t seem to get in their diets in sufficient quantities.

For the first group, the label might indicate that one serving of caned macaroni and cheese contains 300 milligramns of sodium. The next column – the DV – puts that serving into nutritional context. In this case, one serving equals 13 percent of the DV for sodium. Eat eight cans and you’ve had your sodium for the day.

Daily Values for cholesterol, sodium, and potassium are the same for everyone, regardless of individual calorie needs, but in some cases the DV may not be entirely accurate. That’s because the DVs in this first group assume a diet of 2,000 calories a day – about the amount needed by a woman in her 20s. But differences in age and activity require different caloric intakes. To get a more specific reading, you have to figure our how many calories you need every day and do the math in the store.

The second group of Daily Values does not change at all. Everybody needs vitamins and minerals.

The amounts are based on dietary guidelines set up by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the 1970s.

Although Daily Values have been established for all vitamins, only calcium, iron, vitamin A and vitamin C are listed, because those are the vitamins and minerals most lacking in the American diet.

Of course, manufacturers can voluntarily list other vitamins if they want to, and they usually do.

As you peruse food labels, remember this : FDA officials stress that the new Daily Values are not intended to be taken as rigid nutritional requirements for a daily diet. Instead, consumers should use them as reference points to help them evaluate their dietary needs.

Pigeons in Toronto. Photo by Elena.

Butter Vs. Margarine

Margarine is marginally better than butter – but it isn’t great

Nutrition researcher Martijn Katan called butter “the cow’s revenge”. Made from animal fat, its high saturated fat content raises blood cholesterol levels and increases the risk of heart disease. It should only be used occasionally.

Margarine is better, but only relatively. Although it comes from vegetable oils rather than animal fats, the hydrogenation process used to turn it into a solid creates trans-fatty acids, a hybrid that has been found in recent tests to elevate low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (the so-called “bad” cholesterol) to the same extent as saturated fats. What’s more, trans-fatty acids appear to lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol (“good” cholesterol), thereby limiting one of the body’s best natural defenses against heart disease.

Even so, margarine remains healthier than butter because it contains no dietary cholesterol and has a lower overall percentage od cholesterol-raising fats. Tub or squeeze varieties are the healthiest because they are the least hydrogenated and so have the least trans-fatty acids.

Healthiest may not seem so desirable if you’re using soft margarine to bake cookies. To keep fat content down, these spreads substitute water for fat. But cookie makers have discovered that the more watery spreads make cookies spread while baking and five them a flabby texture and bland taste. To avoid such untoward results, the fat content should be 60 percent or higher, say baking experts. Check the package for percentage fat.

Saturated fat slows down the elimination of cholesterol in your bloodstream, and that can lead to heal disease. Satflower oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, olive oil, regular soft margarine, peanut oil, cottonseed oil contain less fat, and vegetarian shortening, lard, salted butter or unsalted butter contain more fat.

Healthy eating is essential for your health. Illustration by Elena.