Food Labels: Not Fact, Fiction.
Research Question: How can we demystify food labels?
ABSTRACT: Food labels can be very misleading. Most consumers our age are vulnerable to big business companies without us realizing it. We are told to eat healthier; organic is better (although more expensive) and the less fat the better, but how do we know if the labels on the products we are buying are correct? Is every food that is labeled "all natural" really all natural? In order to find information on our research question, we have decided to interview two women, one who has used food labels to help her lose weight, and a dietitian who's job is to promote healthy lifestyles. The importance of reading food labels can be seen first hand through both interviews and our goal is to show our audience that reading and understanding food labels can change your lifestyles for the better ( and save some $$$). Other goals include finding out what exactly food labels mean, how to interpret them, and how advertisements trick us.
INTRODUCTION: It may seem trivial to most people, but what we eat plays a huge role in our lives. It says a lot about our culture, our economy, and our lifestyle choices. Whether we're conscious of it or not, food affects our body. There is a lot of hype today about what types of food we're eating. There's major controversy surrounding not only fast food's detrimental affect on our health, but also with common foods we buy in the grocery store. There are so many products that they give a sense of allusion that this product is better than that one. When it comes down to it, you can’t trust what you see on the labels.
We will take, for instance, the term "all natural". This term is put there for the consumer to infer that what they’re buying is made from all natural ingredients, and who doesn’t want to eat natural food? The truth is there's no nutritional value to “all-natural”. It isn’t even FDA backed and can mean anything. Companies trick consumers into believing that their product is all natural from the ingredients. The product can initially come from a natural source instead of a synthetic one, however, the way in which it is produced changes the product to “un-natural”.
People assume that if it's all natural it's healthy, when that isn't the case. Wendell Berry discusses in “The Pleasures of Eating” that individuals are ignorant when it comes to what they buy and where they buy it. Berry feels that people think of food as an abstract idea. He says that, “for them, then, food is pretty much an abstract idea — something they do not know or imagine — until it appears on the grocery shelf or on the table”. When we buy these products, we are fooling ourselves into believing we're making the right choices. We believe the products who says, "I'm all natural", ultimately sacrificing our freedom to choose.
That is just one example in a plethora of many. When we buy into these claims, companies continue to hoodwink us, and we let them. Ultimately, the front of the labels are marketing schemes and advertisements. Manufacturers use label lingo to attract consumers to their product. Although some packaging says certain things to get consumers to buy the products, others are only including the information because it’s the law. Recently the government began connecting certain foods to specific health benefits. They are permitted to do so as long as they have scientific evidence. When deciding if a food is actually healthy for you remember tips about nutrition. “Regard less of the words on the label, it's important to choose items that feature fresh, wholesome ingredients and balance total calories, fat, and nutrients” (Conan). Health claims are not always about how to eat more. Researchers have been looking at the use of antibiotics and hormones in chickens, pigs and cattle and the affect they may have on humans. As of today, the United States does not require labels to specify if the animals were treated with either. One thing that is always placed on labels is allergens. Food items containing milk, peanuts, soy, wheat or eggs just include the ingredients on the food label.
As far as reading the nutritional facts panel, this is the most confusing part. To begin reading food labels, you first have to keep in mind how many servings are in the package, and how many servings you’re consuming. You have to look at the big picture of everything you’re eating. The Percent Daily Value is based on the 2,000-2,500 calorie diet. Everything 5% or less is low, and everything 20% or more is high. This is important when calculating how many of each you’re consuming. If you’re only eating half of a serving, the percent is going to be cut in half. If you’re eating double the serving size, all of these percents are going to double. The calories are also important when reading the food labels. Calories give us our energy, and we often meet our calorie count without getting the proper nutrients. If the total amount of calories are 300, but the calories from fat are 250, you’re getting a total of 250/300 calories from fat.
Nutrients you should limit are the total fats (saturated and trans) cholesterol, and sodium. Eating a lot of these nutrients are linked to heart diseases, high blood pressure, and even some cancers (fda.gov). What really strikes us as shocking is that labels can portray their products as something that they’re not. If the total amount of trans fat is less than 0.5 grams, they can be labeled as trans fat free. What! That’s hidden trans fat that people don’t realize that are there. The only way to really know if there’s any trans fat is to read the ingredient list.
Another very misleading label is "made with real fruit". Although some products are, not all are. If you go to buy a product that says that it is made with real fruit, in order to find out if that is true or not, look at the ingredients and see if the fruit of the product is in the first four items listed. If not, then the product does not have any real fruit in it. Products can say "made with real fruit, vegetables, whole grains", etc, but it doesn't say how much of those are in there. There may be some resemblance of fruit in fruit snacks, but they are still loaded with sugar. The same thing goes with calorie-free. As long as there is less than 5g per serving, products can be labeled calorie-free (fda.gov).
How can we break the spell of thoughtless consumerism? Education. Meghan Locantora, Registered Dietitian at ShopRite of Medford Township, works a lot with the community to spread the word about nutrition. When we asked her in our interview about some of the problems with food labels, she stressed that people “don’t know how to interpret the labels.” She gave a great example of this confusion. “Under the ingredients statement there's a lot of things that, you know, it might just not list sugar, maybe it says honey, maybe it says brown rice syrup, maybe it says um, you know., succonot. These are all different words for sugar, but without actually saying sugar. You know, these are all the ways companies get around sweetening their products.” Meghan mentions that people hear “organic” and “all-natural” and thinks it’s more nutritious.
In an interview with Jennifer Boucher, who recently lost weight due to reading labels, the topic of misleading labels was brought up. Jennifer made it clear that people really have no idea what they are eating. “I do look at ingredients, but a lot of the times I can’t pronounce them so I don’t think that’s a good sign. So I guess try to pick items that are healthy and only have limited ingredients”
Although fast food chains, restaurants, and grocery store products may include information regarding ingredients, how do we know that they are telling the truth? We could be unknowingly be eating certain things without really knowing or feeling confident that what they say is in the product really is. In 2010, the FDA was forced to warn seventeen food manufacturers for their labels violating federal laws. The labels were not following FDA regulations and were considered misleading and untruthful. The manufacturers were making claims on their products that were untrue. Some were using the word “healthy”, which was unauthorized (Health Reference Center). Here is Jennifer’s opinion on the use of the word healthy. “How can I tell it’s healthy? Umm, I guess there’s really no way. They honestly could be lying about how many calories are in certain things or the serving size could be wrong”.
While it's mostly adults who need to make a change, as Jenn’s skepticism demonstrates, our project is geared towards young adults. College students who are supposed to be living away from home RESPONSIBLY. Everyone is familiar with the freshman fifteen pounds that haunt students. It's more convenient to buy a four dollar dinner from Burger King than to make a list and plan out your meals for the week. Or maybe most students don't enjoy cooking. Or maybe when they go grocery shopping they buy quick, prepared, over-processed meals. Convenience, America's favorite pastime, is another factor that contributes to our not knowing what we eat. Convenience, especially with college students, is very high on their priority list. Why do it the hard way when there's an easier way? Why sit down and make a thoughtful list when there's frozen dinners already prepared?
College students need to wake up. They are on the verge of becoming adults. After they graduate is when real life begins. After they get a job and have kids, they will be the example. If we are never educated on what we're eating, how we should eat, and how to read labels, the chances are it will be a long time before their children do, if ever. So we want our fellow college students to break free! We want them to realize that in order to be an individual you have to break free from this fast paced, convenient life. To sit back and enjoy food, and life. To make a change you have to start somewhere. We want them to start by seeing just how misleading food labels are. Then they can make their own decisions, but at least they will have all the facts.
AFTERWARD: We investigated food labels to find out why they are so confusing. First, we interviewed participants to get a background about health, nutrition, and basic questions about why it’s important to read food labels. As we learned more and more about food labels and nutritional facts, we ourselves were becoming confused. We weren’t expecting it to be so difficult to understand how to read food labels, but it was. We don’t think it’s any coincidence. Even the butcher at the local supermarket seemed lost when we asked him a question regarding the term ‘all natural’. He answered with “no hormones”. After looking at the package, it was clear that there were no hormones in it, but once we asked him about guide lines for all natural foods, he was clueless. It seems like food labels are there more to confuse then to inform. Nobody can read a food label and instantly understand what they’re reading. Even those who work in the food industry are not sure of what they are supplying to consumers. They have to do research. Even when they do research, like we did, it’s still a confusing process. Why don’t companies want us to know what we’re eating? One of the most plausible answers is that once we know, we won’t want to eat it anymore, or we’ll buy less of it. Either way it’s them losing money, and that’s something they will do anything to stop. This includes putting misleading, practically false advertisements on food labels.
Another important thing we discovered was this sense of hegemony. Usually, hegemony is prominent in culture, media, and politics, but it seems to fit with what we're eating, because after all, food is apart of our culture. Hegemony is when the dominant group applies power over another, yet the weaker group consents to this power. The thing that keeps it all together is that most people don't know it's happening to them. They may think they can't do anything to change the world, or they like the false sense of security that following the crowd gives, or they don't think they're being taken advantage of, in the fact that, they still have choices at the grocery store. As long as we keep buying these products, companies are going to continue to make them. In regards to our initial research question, how can we demystify food labels, we believe you have to spread the word about what’s going on. It's in the hunger for knowledge, not food, that people can learn the truth about what they're eating.
ABSTRACT: Food labels can be very misleading. Most consumers our age are vulnerable to big business companies without us realizing it. We are told to eat healthier; organic is better (although more expensive) and the less fat the better, but how do we know if the labels on the products we are buying are correct? Is every food that is labeled "all natural" really all natural? In order to find information on our research question, we have decided to interview two women, one who has used food labels to help her lose weight, and a dietitian who's job is to promote healthy lifestyles. The importance of reading food labels can be seen first hand through both interviews and our goal is to show our audience that reading and understanding food labels can change your lifestyles for the better ( and save some $$$). Other goals include finding out what exactly food labels mean, how to interpret them, and how advertisements trick us.
INTRODUCTION: It may seem trivial to most people, but what we eat plays a huge role in our lives. It says a lot about our culture, our economy, and our lifestyle choices. Whether we're conscious of it or not, food affects our body. There is a lot of hype today about what types of food we're eating. There's major controversy surrounding not only fast food's detrimental affect on our health, but also with common foods we buy in the grocery store. There are so many products that they give a sense of allusion that this product is better than that one. When it comes down to it, you can’t trust what you see on the labels.
We will take, for instance, the term "all natural". This term is put there for the consumer to infer that what they’re buying is made from all natural ingredients, and who doesn’t want to eat natural food? The truth is there's no nutritional value to “all-natural”. It isn’t even FDA backed and can mean anything. Companies trick consumers into believing that their product is all natural from the ingredients. The product can initially come from a natural source instead of a synthetic one, however, the way in which it is produced changes the product to “un-natural”.
People assume that if it's all natural it's healthy, when that isn't the case. Wendell Berry discusses in “The Pleasures of Eating” that individuals are ignorant when it comes to what they buy and where they buy it. Berry feels that people think of food as an abstract idea. He says that, “for them, then, food is pretty much an abstract idea — something they do not know or imagine — until it appears on the grocery shelf or on the table”. When we buy these products, we are fooling ourselves into believing we're making the right choices. We believe the products who says, "I'm all natural", ultimately sacrificing our freedom to choose.
That is just one example in a plethora of many. When we buy into these claims, companies continue to hoodwink us, and we let them. Ultimately, the front of the labels are marketing schemes and advertisements. Manufacturers use label lingo to attract consumers to their product. Although some packaging says certain things to get consumers to buy the products, others are only including the information because it’s the law. Recently the government began connecting certain foods to specific health benefits. They are permitted to do so as long as they have scientific evidence. When deciding if a food is actually healthy for you remember tips about nutrition. “Regard less of the words on the label, it's important to choose items that feature fresh, wholesome ingredients and balance total calories, fat, and nutrients” (Conan). Health claims are not always about how to eat more. Researchers have been looking at the use of antibiotics and hormones in chickens, pigs and cattle and the affect they may have on humans. As of today, the United States does not require labels to specify if the animals were treated with either. One thing that is always placed on labels is allergens. Food items containing milk, peanuts, soy, wheat or eggs just include the ingredients on the food label.
As far as reading the nutritional facts panel, this is the most confusing part. To begin reading food labels, you first have to keep in mind how many servings are in the package, and how many servings you’re consuming. You have to look at the big picture of everything you’re eating. The Percent Daily Value is based on the 2,000-2,500 calorie diet. Everything 5% or less is low, and everything 20% or more is high. This is important when calculating how many of each you’re consuming. If you’re only eating half of a serving, the percent is going to be cut in half. If you’re eating double the serving size, all of these percents are going to double. The calories are also important when reading the food labels. Calories give us our energy, and we often meet our calorie count without getting the proper nutrients. If the total amount of calories are 300, but the calories from fat are 250, you’re getting a total of 250/300 calories from fat.
Nutrients you should limit are the total fats (saturated and trans) cholesterol, and sodium. Eating a lot of these nutrients are linked to heart diseases, high blood pressure, and even some cancers (fda.gov). What really strikes us as shocking is that labels can portray their products as something that they’re not. If the total amount of trans fat is less than 0.5 grams, they can be labeled as trans fat free. What! That’s hidden trans fat that people don’t realize that are there. The only way to really know if there’s any trans fat is to read the ingredient list.
Another very misleading label is "made with real fruit". Although some products are, not all are. If you go to buy a product that says that it is made with real fruit, in order to find out if that is true or not, look at the ingredients and see if the fruit of the product is in the first four items listed. If not, then the product does not have any real fruit in it. Products can say "made with real fruit, vegetables, whole grains", etc, but it doesn't say how much of those are in there. There may be some resemblance of fruit in fruit snacks, but they are still loaded with sugar. The same thing goes with calorie-free. As long as there is less than 5g per serving, products can be labeled calorie-free (fda.gov).
How can we break the spell of thoughtless consumerism? Education. Meghan Locantora, Registered Dietitian at ShopRite of Medford Township, works a lot with the community to spread the word about nutrition. When we asked her in our interview about some of the problems with food labels, she stressed that people “don’t know how to interpret the labels.” She gave a great example of this confusion. “Under the ingredients statement there's a lot of things that, you know, it might just not list sugar, maybe it says honey, maybe it says brown rice syrup, maybe it says um, you know., succonot. These are all different words for sugar, but without actually saying sugar. You know, these are all the ways companies get around sweetening their products.” Meghan mentions that people hear “organic” and “all-natural” and thinks it’s more nutritious.
In an interview with Jennifer Boucher, who recently lost weight due to reading labels, the topic of misleading labels was brought up. Jennifer made it clear that people really have no idea what they are eating. “I do look at ingredients, but a lot of the times I can’t pronounce them so I don’t think that’s a good sign. So I guess try to pick items that are healthy and only have limited ingredients”
Although fast food chains, restaurants, and grocery store products may include information regarding ingredients, how do we know that they are telling the truth? We could be unknowingly be eating certain things without really knowing or feeling confident that what they say is in the product really is. In 2010, the FDA was forced to warn seventeen food manufacturers for their labels violating federal laws. The labels were not following FDA regulations and were considered misleading and untruthful. The manufacturers were making claims on their products that were untrue. Some were using the word “healthy”, which was unauthorized (Health Reference Center). Here is Jennifer’s opinion on the use of the word healthy. “How can I tell it’s healthy? Umm, I guess there’s really no way. They honestly could be lying about how many calories are in certain things or the serving size could be wrong”.
While it's mostly adults who need to make a change, as Jenn’s skepticism demonstrates, our project is geared towards young adults. College students who are supposed to be living away from home RESPONSIBLY. Everyone is familiar with the freshman fifteen pounds that haunt students. It's more convenient to buy a four dollar dinner from Burger King than to make a list and plan out your meals for the week. Or maybe most students don't enjoy cooking. Or maybe when they go grocery shopping they buy quick, prepared, over-processed meals. Convenience, America's favorite pastime, is another factor that contributes to our not knowing what we eat. Convenience, especially with college students, is very high on their priority list. Why do it the hard way when there's an easier way? Why sit down and make a thoughtful list when there's frozen dinners already prepared?
College students need to wake up. They are on the verge of becoming adults. After they graduate is when real life begins. After they get a job and have kids, they will be the example. If we are never educated on what we're eating, how we should eat, and how to read labels, the chances are it will be a long time before their children do, if ever. So we want our fellow college students to break free! We want them to realize that in order to be an individual you have to break free from this fast paced, convenient life. To sit back and enjoy food, and life. To make a change you have to start somewhere. We want them to start by seeing just how misleading food labels are. Then they can make their own decisions, but at least they will have all the facts.
AFTERWARD: We investigated food labels to find out why they are so confusing. First, we interviewed participants to get a background about health, nutrition, and basic questions about why it’s important to read food labels. As we learned more and more about food labels and nutritional facts, we ourselves were becoming confused. We weren’t expecting it to be so difficult to understand how to read food labels, but it was. We don’t think it’s any coincidence. Even the butcher at the local supermarket seemed lost when we asked him a question regarding the term ‘all natural’. He answered with “no hormones”. After looking at the package, it was clear that there were no hormones in it, but once we asked him about guide lines for all natural foods, he was clueless. It seems like food labels are there more to confuse then to inform. Nobody can read a food label and instantly understand what they’re reading. Even those who work in the food industry are not sure of what they are supplying to consumers. They have to do research. Even when they do research, like we did, it’s still a confusing process. Why don’t companies want us to know what we’re eating? One of the most plausible answers is that once we know, we won’t want to eat it anymore, or we’ll buy less of it. Either way it’s them losing money, and that’s something they will do anything to stop. This includes putting misleading, practically false advertisements on food labels.
Another important thing we discovered was this sense of hegemony. Usually, hegemony is prominent in culture, media, and politics, but it seems to fit with what we're eating, because after all, food is apart of our culture. Hegemony is when the dominant group applies power over another, yet the weaker group consents to this power. The thing that keeps it all together is that most people don't know it's happening to them. They may think they can't do anything to change the world, or they like the false sense of security that following the crowd gives, or they don't think they're being taken advantage of, in the fact that, they still have choices at the grocery store. As long as we keep buying these products, companies are going to continue to make them. In regards to our initial research question, how can we demystify food labels, we believe you have to spread the word about what’s going on. It's in the hunger for knowledge, not food, that people can learn the truth about what they're eating.
