If you’re anything like me, you probably walk through a grocery store, or even a health food store, and think you are buying healthy packaged items. Things that say organic or natural on the box make you feel safe throwing it in your cart. I thought I was certain I was eating as healthy as possible—until I learned more about reading ingredient labels!
Audio/Podcast version:
Most people know about high fructose corn syrup being bad for you, which is no longer a secret anymore. Most food companies don’t even use that anymore. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t evil surprises lurking inside!
There are a few ingredients that go by more than one name, so unless you study and memorize these, you might never know what you are really eating when you think you have made smart choices. Check out the chart below for some examples.
Other Names For Unhealthy Ingredients
INGREDIENT | ALSO KNOWN AS |
Sucralose | Splenda, chemical-laden fake sugar |
Yeast extract | Msg |
Dextrose | Processed sugar |
Hydrolyzed protein | Msg |
Mono and diglycerides | Trans fat |
Natural flavors | Chemically processed leaving very little (if any) natural substances |
Great Resource To Learn About Food Labels
My favorite resource for learning about ingredient labels is a channel on YouTube ran by a guy named Bobby Parrish. Turns out, his channel has almost one million subscribers and he is kind of a big deal! He makes videos where he films himself going into grocery stores reading ingredient labels on these supposedly healthy items.
He tries to save you money too, so he goes to stores like Aldi, Trader Joes, Costco, and Walmart. This is where I was shocked at how much I thought I knew about label reading. Even in some expensive healthy foods, there are horrible ingredients that cause many health issues.
Here are a few of his videos to give you an idea of the ingredients to look for.
He also has a book, which is a collection of all the information he has shared in his YouTube videos. (Affiliate link below)
Related articles:
Four Things All Healthy Foods Have In Common
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