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10 Common
Tool me once..."
BY BONNIE LIEBMAN

t's easy to make mistakes when it comes to buying food. (Even the most seasoned nutrition mavens, who should know better, occasionally screw up.)

Maybe you didn't notice that the reduced-fat peanut butter has as many calories as (and more sugar than) the regular. Or that you typically fill your bowl with not one, but two 200-calorie servings of cereal. Or that you would never touch Wonder bread but can't resist a crusty (white flour) baguette. It's not just that we're too harried or rushed to pay attention to details while shopping. Often the food industry uses (sometimes subtle) tricks to make a sale. Selling is its job, after all. Here are 10 food goofs you need never make again.

1. It says it's fat free.

It's there, right next to the coffee in virtually every office and many kitchens: a fatfree coffee creamer like Nestl's Original I at Free Coffee-mate. According to the label, it's "cholesterol free," "lactose free," "gluten-free," and has "0 g trans fat." According to the Nutrition Facts on the back, it has only 10 calories and no fat, cholesterol, sodium, or sugar. What a deal! With all those rosy promises, who could blame you for not checking the ingredients. If you did, you might wonder how a food that consists largely of corn syrup solids and oils (partially hydrogenated coconut or palm kernel or hydrogenated soybean) 2.1 avoid high-fructose could have no sugar or fat. corn syrup. In fact. Original Fat Free Coffee-mate has both. It's just that "Now, new research at Oregon the serving size on the Nutrition Health & Science University demFacts label is only one (level) teaonstrates that the brainwhich spoon. The sugar and fat round serves as a master control for body down to zero because a weightreacts differently teaspoon of Coffee-mate Two tablespoons have more calories to fructose compared w i t h has less than half a gram than two tablespoons of half and half.

of each. That's the Food and Drug Administration's magic rule. Of course, many people use far more than a level teaspoon of powdered creamer to whiten even a small cup of coffee. Most folks simply turn over the container and pour. In fact, the directions say "Pour or spoon Coffee-mate into prepared coffee, tea, or cocoa. Stir and enjoy!" If you enjoy, say, two tablespoons (six teaspoons) of Original Fat Free Coffeemate in your 12 oz. mug of coffee, you're up to 50 calories and 1.6 grams of saturated fat (according to a 2008 memo from Nestl). Two tablespoons of ordinary half and half have 40 calories and 2 grams of sat fat. Oops.

another common sweetener, glucose," said the OHSU press release in February. "High fructose corn syrup has become the sweetener most commonly added to processed foods," it noted, adding that "Many dietary experts believe this increase directly correlates to the nation's growing obesity epidemic." No wonder shoppers are confused. Even some institutions of higher education don't seem to know that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) isn't pure fructose. In fact, HFCS is, on average, roughly half fructose and half glucose. (It's "high" in fructose compared to ordinary corn syrup, which is pure glucose.) Ordinary table sugar? Half fructose and half glucose. So if anyone wants to say that fructose caused the obesity epidemic, regular sugar deserves just as much blame. As do evaporated cane juice and honey (which are also half fructose), brown rice syrup, agave nectar, barley malt syrup, and juice concentrates. A smattering of foods actually contain pure (crystalline) fructose. But they're often foods like Vitaminwater, Kashi GOLEAN Crunchy! Protein & Fiber Bars, and Weight Watchers Yogurt. Go figure. What's more, some people who avoid HFCS also avoid foods that raise blood sugar levelsthat is, foods with a high glycmie index. Guess what? Fructose has a low glycmie index. Glucose has the highest. (Table sugar and HFCS are in the middle.) Bottom People who avoid high-fructose corn line: Fructose syrup might buy these bars and other raises harmfoods that contain pure fructose. ful triglycrides more
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than other sugars do (see Nutrition Action, }an./eh. 2010, cover story). But most sweeteners are about half fructose and half glucose, so it's smart to minimize all sugars, not just HFCS.

labels. And post Soup. A can of Campbell's Condensed ers (if your store Soup is supposed to make 2V2 one-cup has them) often servings. And its Select Harvest microgive numbers for waveable bowls are supposed to serve two. a puny 3 oz. You and your gerbil, perhaps. serving of beef Why don't labels simply say "20% fat"? Cereal. For denser cereals (like granla, or pork that's Adding "80% lean" sells more meat. been trimmed Grape-Nuts, and muesli), the serving size 3.1 look for the most by scalpel-wielding technicians. is just V2 cup (half a baseball). Double it servings of fruits or vegetables. Ground beef, pork, turkey, or chicken and you're up to about 400 calories. packages usually do have Nutrition Facts, "A full serving of vegetables in every Nuts or dried fruit, just '4 cup. Golf which are supposed to keep people from bowl," promises Chef Boyardee, whose ads ball, anyone? being misled by claims like "80% Lean/ show parents desperately trying to keep 20% Fat." their kids from finding out. 6. If it has vitamins, it must The fattiest ground beef you can buy is Each serving of the salt-laden white70% lean. Even ground beef that's 85% flour pasta has a serving of vegetables bebe good for me. lean has 5 grams of saturated fata quarter cause it contains a half cup of "tomatoes" It started 40 years ago with breakfast of a day's worthin a 3 oz. cooked serving. (tomato pure plus water, actually). Big cereals ("fortified with 8 vitamins Why don't labels simply say "15% Fat" deal. Yet labels or ads touting the number and iron"). Wonder Bread ("helps or "20% Fat"? Because those claims of servings of fruit or vegetables must be build strong bodies 12 ways!"), and wouldn't sell as much meat. impressing some consumers, because the sugary kids drinks like Hi-C and The industry doesn't mind slapping claims are proliferating. SunnyD ("100% vitamin C"). some Nutrition Facts on the package Take Bolthouse Farms beverages (which Now vitamins are also being added because most people don't look past the are often found in the produce aisle). to cereal bars, energy and "85% Lean." Don't let that fool you. "3% servings fruit per bottle," says the granla bars, and sugary label of the 15 oz. Blue Goodness Fruit drinks for adults. Smoothie. (Goof alert: the label's Nutri5. My ice cream has just And we keep falling tion Facts apply to just half the bottle, so 150 calories. for it. don't think that you're The perfect example: spending 170 calories Your ice cream has just 150 calories. Your Glacau Vitaminwater. to get those 3% servhummus has just 70. And your beef eye of Without vitamins, the ings. You're really round has just 180. Not too bad...if that's line of "nutrient enspending 340.) what you actually eat. hanced water beverages" The catch: the The serving sizes on the Nutrition Facts would be, well, water. label pictures the labelswhich are largely set by the Food (Of course. Vitamin"goodness" in each and Drug Administrationare unrealwater's owner, Cocabottle: 31 blueberistically small for many foods. And that Cola, has that market ries, 1 'A blackbermakes the calories, saturated fat, sodium, covered with ries, 1 banana, sugar, and other nutrients look unrealistiDasani.) A sprinkling of vitamins 3y4 apples, and cally good. For example: sugar water seem healthy With flavors 14 lemon. Ice cream. The !/2 cup (4 oz.) serving like Power-C, Impressive? Not is equal to two golf balls. Have you seen Focus, Revive, XXX (antioxidants). once you realize those single-serving cups sold by Edy's Defense, and stur-D, you'd think that that the or Dreyer's? They're % cup (6 oz.), which Vitaminwater was offering more than For 340 calories, you get beverage is water plus less than a penny's worth of is 1V2 servings. "3% servings of fruit" that's mostly apple C and B vitamins that most of us don't mostly apple juice concentrate. juice from Meat, poultry seafood. A serving is need more of. concentrate, 4 ounces raw, which is about 3 ounces after And it does offer more...about 130 calobanana pure, and blueberry juice from cooking. That's the size of a deck of cards. ries' worth of sugar per 20 oz. bottle. concentrate. The "goodness" of 3% apples, for example, is what you'd get in the same Hummus. Only 50 to 70 calories in amount of any apple juice concentrate. 7. It's okay to judge a food 2 Tbs...a golf ball's worth. Looking for fruits and vegetables? Buy by its reputation. Pasta. The calories them whole (fresh or frozen), not as (about 200) on Face it. We think of some foods as ingredients in juices, tomato sauce, chips, healthyor at least acceptableeven crackers, or other processed foods. the box apply to though they're no better than foods 2 ounces of unwe would never touch. A few 4.1 only buy lean meat. cooked pasta. That examples: cooks up to around Think you're buying lean meat or poultry? 1 cuproughly the size Chocolate soy milk. Would It's hard to know, since many packages of of a baseball. you drink a glass of ordinary fresh beef or pork have no Nutrition Facts A y2-cup serving makes regular ice chocolate milk? Never. A glass of cream look low in calories. Silk Chocolate Soymilk? Maybe.

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A cup of low-fat chocolate milk has 160 calories and 6 teaspoons of sugar (roughly half of which is the naturally occurring lactose in the milk). Chocolate Silk has 140 calories and 5 teaspoons of sugar per cup (about half of it added). Muffins. No way you'd ever eat doughnuts. Muffins, on the other hand.... Yet at Dunkin' Donuts, a yeast doughnut like a Chocolate Frosted has 270 calories, 3 teaspoons of sugar, and 7 grams of saturated fat. (A cake doughnut is worse.) A Dunkin' Chocolate

Omega-3. Contains the omega-3 fats in fish oil (EPA and DHA), the omega-3 fat in flax, soy, and canola oil (ALA), or both. The evidence is much stronger that EPA and DHA lower the risk of heart disease, but most "omega-3" foods have only ALA. High fiber Contains at least 5 grams of fiber per serving. The fiber can be either the intact kind in whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fruit or the isolated kind (like inulin, polydextrose, maltodextrin, oat fiber, or wheat fiber). There isn't much evidence that isolated fiber helps keep you regular or lowers your risk of disease,

virtuous for ordering a salad that they don't notice the calories in the croutons (170), tortilla or wonton strips (140), cheese (100), bacon (60), Don't forget to count the toppings on and salad frozen yogurt and salads. dressing (100 to 300). And that's without the bread that comes with the salad...which doesn't count, of course.

We think of the doughnut as junk food, but the muffin is worse.

like the intact fiber in wheat bran can. Natural, it has never been defined, unless the word appears on a food that contains meat or poultry. Then it means that the food's ingredients are not artificial (like most food dyes) and are only minimally processed.

10. All organic foods are good for you.

Recently, University of Michigan researchers showed 114 sfudents a label from either ordinary Oreos or (fictitious) Oreos "made Pita chips. Tortilla chips are junk food with organic flour and sugar." Then the to most people. Pita chips seem so much researchers asked: "Compared to other healthier. cookie brands, do you think that 1 serving Yet an ounce of pita chips like New York of these Oreo cookies contains fewer caloStyle Sea Salt (about 10 chips) has 140 ries or more calories?" Sure enough, the calories and 350 milligrams of sodium. An students were more likely to think that the ounce of Tostitos Restaurant Style Tortilla organic Oreos had fewer calories.' Chips has 140 calories and 115 mg of soCalories don't count if you eat standIn a second experiment, students were dium. An ounce of Nacho Cheese Doritos ing up, you eat off someone else's plate, asked about Susie, a hypothetical 20-yearhas 150 calories and 180 mg of sodium. you're just straightening the edges of a pie old sorority member who was trying to Do you eat white bread? No way. How or cake, the refrigerator door is still open, lose weight. "Would it be ok for her to about a crusty French baguette? Hmmm. or you eat really quickly. Or so we'd like skip her usual three-mile run after dinner to believe. to spend more time on schoolwork?" the But even reality-oriented shoppers students were asked. sometimes fool themselves. A case in The participants were more likely to "Natural." "Made with Real Fruit." You point: toppings for frozen yogurt. say "yes" when told that Susie's dinner see those and similar words on labels all Let's say you start with just 200 to 300 (roasted vegetables over brown rice) had the time. What you may not realize is calories' worth of frozen yogurt. (That's finished with a small bowl of organic ice that they're part of a code that the food a medium or regular at places like Red cream or an organic cookie than if the industry and the FDA have agreed on. Mango, Pinkberry, or TCBY.) desserts were not described as organic. Sometimes, the label explains the code in But then the toppings call out. ForHow many people buy Organic Newmanliny type. Most of the time, you're just supget the chocolate chips (80 calories per O's when they'd never buy Oreos, Whole posed to know. Here's a decoder: scoop), the gummy bears (80), and the Foods 365 Organic Cheese Crackers instead Oreo pieces (60). Even the Made with whole grain. Only some of of Cheez-Its, "healthy" toppings like grathe grain is whole. (Why don't labels say or Nature's nla (60 calories), nuts (100), Path Organic "Made with refined and whole grains"?) and "yogurt" chips (100) pile Frosted Made with real fruit. Made with a little on the calories. Toaster Pasfruit (and it's probably mostly grape, apple, Ever watch people add toptries but not or pear juice anyway). pings to their frozen yogurt Pop-Tarts? from a pay-byAn organic Naturally flathe-ounce exfood (or its Organic junk may not harm the environment, vored. Whether tras bar? Their but it can still harm you. ingredients) it's naturally or waistlines is grown artificially flamight be better off with a without pesticides, antibiotics, or growth vored, you get 200-calorie single scoop of hormones. That's admirable, but it doesn't little or none of chocolate ice cream from automatically make it a health food.*' what the flavoring the local Ben & Jerry's. It's not just frozen yomakes you t h i n k is ^ judgment and Decision Making 5:144, 2010. "Made with real blueberries and natural gurt. Some people feel so in the food. fruit flavors" is code for "hardly any

Chip Muffin? Try 610 calories, 14 teaspoons of sugar, and 7 grams of sat fat.

9. Calories don't count if..

8.1 didn't get the memo.

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