Our country is great for a lot of reasons, but our food labeling system certainly isn’t one of them. The sad truth is that so much of what you see on packaged material is designed to trick you, no matter how earnest the font happens to be.
There are a few claims on packages out there that sound nice, but should prompt further investigation. Here are seven classic ones.
Gluten-Free
Are you paying extra for something that’s gluten-free? It’s possible that it never really needed gluten to begin with; lots of things don’t. Make sure you’re not falling for a fancy price tag, and certainly don’t be fooled into thinking that gluten-free food is automatically healthier than other stuff.
Wheat and Grain
Words like “multi-grain” or “made with wheat” may appear on the box, but that’s not really the thing you’re looking for. If you want to eat something that’s entirely wheat or grain-based, you need to look for the magic number: 100. When something is 100% wheat or 100% whole grain, you can rest-assured. Otherwise, “multi-grain” and “made with wheat” can be misleading.
Made With Real Fruit and Veggies
You barely have to include real fruit or vegetables to get over this extremely low bar. Let’s put it this way: If something is 2% real fruit juice, that counts as having been made with real fruit. See the issue here?
Lightly Sweetened
These are, unfortunately, just words, and don’t have much to do with the actual sugar content. This falls under the same category as “bold flavor” or “new and improved.” More of an opinion than an actual nutritional fact, really.
Fat-Free
It feels like this one should be simple, right? Wrong! “Fat-free” can actually contain up to 0.5% fat per serving, believe it or not. Read the nutrition facts closely for real answers.
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Keto
A lot of less healthy products will try to pass themselves off for healthy choices simply by slapping the word “keto” in front of your face. While ”keto” generally goes along with no added sugars or carbs, but that’s where it stops. Anything else is fair game.
Made With Real Sea Salt
So something’s made with real sea salt. So what? Sea salt and table salt have the same amount of sodium. Don’t pay extra for something that may not accomplish what you want it to accomplish.
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