A little advice on food label reading | by Mariella

There’s an old Greek proverb which states, ‘In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king’.

 I beg to differ.

‘In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is mad’, Patrick Woodroffe, makes a heap more sense to me. Once you open your eyes to something, it cannot be unseen. And if those around you have yet to see it, then your discovery casts you apart.

Take labels for example, once you learn how to read food labels on packaging, never again can you conceive of purchasing an item without ferreting through the disorienting bulk of fine print on the back to find the actual list of ingredients to make sure that it doesn’t come with any unwanted buddies and hidden agendas. And once you take the time to google one of those ingredients, it spirals down into this pit of unfathomably harmful side effects; you’d think the ‘they’ are out to dwindle our numbers with all this dodgy stuff hitching a ride along with our daily staples!

Conspiracy theories aside, label reading is an art. And the more you read labels, the more you begin to wonder,’ Are they trying to trick me?’ My husband discovered my favourite blatantly deceitful label to date on the back of a popular chip brand. It listed the flavourants and then in brackets said (MSG free), and further down the list, somewhere below where you stop reading because there’s no MSG so it must be safe, it says ‘anti-caking agent (monosodium glutamate)’ Now this does make one wonder somewhat about the motives of the manufacturers! 

When reading labels you’ll generally find a dizzying array of lists, columns and possibly foreign languages. ‘Nutritional information’ is very different from ‘Ingredients’, but many people see this and think that this is what they are looking for. 

It’s not. 

The nutritional information listed is a breakdown of the macro and micro nutrients present per 100 gms. It does not tell you what they put in the food. You’ll generally find the list of ingredients in much smaller text and hidden at a funny angle at the bottom, side or on the lid, in a corner listed in order of quantity, from most to least. This makes it easier to find the dodgy stuff which often comes in small lethal doses and can be found at the bottom of the list, so I just start reading from the bottom up!

The conclusions I have reached? Assume the worst and if you find something you can’t pronounce, google it before you purchase it. The down side is that you may find your shopping list instantly edited! But you’ll adjust. It just takes a little time and a lot of faith that the attention you are paying to the details will make all the difference in the larger picture of health for you and your family.