What's In My Food?

By Author: Carl Juneau
Total Articles: 3764
Comment this article

Another important source of information is the ingredients list. They're listed by quantity, so the first few ones make up most of the food.

Can you guess what this food is?

Oat bran, rice, sugar, oat clusters...cereal. The list is taken from a popular commercial brand.
Did one thing strike you? Sugar, yes. Comes in 3rd, which means that you've got more added sugar than oat clusters in that box. It's common practice among commercial brands: tons of added sugar.

Another trick they try to hide this sugar is by breaking it up into "different" sugars: sugar, fructose, glucose, glucose-fructose, high fructose corn syrup, and corn syrup. They like to do this so they can put an ingredient, like oats, that sounds better than sugar first. In fact, if you add all the sugars together, it may constitute the majority of the food product.

Try to avoid products with long ingredient lists. My favorite is orange juice with this list: orange juice concentrate. The purer the food is, the better. Preservatives, chemicals, and added sugars are the main culprits of long ingredients lists due to their complex ...
... names and sometimes appearing in more than one form.

ACTION STEP 5
Take a look at your two favorite foods again. Review their ingredient lists and see how "pure" their ingredients are - look for hidden sugars and see if it really belongs in your food.

ACTION STEP 5
Find the 5 foods that have the most unnecessarily added sugar. Try to substitute these foods with added-sugar free versions or one with better ingredients.