Wellness Weekly

By Sandy Considine

A short introduction about myself and why I am writing articles about food.

My name is Sandy Considine, I am a graduate from the Institute of Integrated Nutrition with 800 hours of nutritional training. I have always been interested in the food we consume, the nutritional value of food and why it is important to educate ourselves as to what we are eating and the impact on our health it creates. All food is not created equally nor is it processed equally. So, I am going to try to simplify the meaning of terms used in packaging, labeling and advertising to help you better understand what it means for you and your health.

The concentration with my articles will be centralized around plant-based, gluten free and anti-inflammatory foods with recipes and education to help you make better choices and to help you improve your health, especially those with autoimmune disease, those who are wanting to eliminate meat but don’t know how to do it and those just wanting to learn something new and want to gradually make a change in their diet.

I personally am Celiac; I can not consume wheat/rye/barley and a ton of other ingredients with names I had to learn that were made from wheat. And I have been plant-based for 30 years. Yup, the struggles on what to eat are real and I have faced them all. So, I want to help those who struggle also. Please feel free to email on what you what to know about for a future article at sandra.considine@yahoo.com.

This first article is about how to read a food label. Sounds boring, right? You have no time to read a label or even know how to decipher it. It is daunting with all the percentages, unfamiliar terms and a myriad of numbers. But be assured that reading a food label is the best way to improve your health. If you want to reduce sugar, increase fiber, lower carbohydrates or see what the ingredients are. Maybe you are eating a bioengineered ingredient, let’s hope not. But a label will tell you plus lots more. Mastering how to read a label will empower you as a consumer to make better decisions aligned with your health goals. Soon enough you will be a pro. You will read that label and do some basic calculations or just read the ingredients and that will determine whether that product goes in the cart or back on the shelf.

A label contains nutrients such as cholesterol, total fat, carbohydrates, sodium, sugar, protein, vitamins and minerals. Also of course, ingredients. The labels below are of a can of Campbell’s tomato soup and a package of Hot Cocoa mix.

Most important is serving size. People think the label is for the whole can or package…It Is Not. Tomato soup is 2.5 servings. That means 90 calories is now 225, the 18 carbohydrates now become 45, the 10 grams of sugar is now 25 grams. (An important note on sugar is that 4 grams of sugar is equal to 1 teaspoon…. read that again and always remember that 4 grams is one teaspoon) Your whole can of tomato soup (if you consume the whole can) is just over 6 teaspoons of sugar. Do a visual and measure out 6 teaspoons of sugar, it will be a valuable piece of information that will stick in your head.

Also, this can of tomato soup contains wheat flour, who would have thought. That means if you are sensitive to wheat or are a Celiac like me you cannot eat this can of soup.

The Hot Cocoa mix is one envelope. For me sugar is the most important. It contains 28 grams. Divide 28 by 4. This one package of delicious hot cocoa packs a whopping 7 teaspoons of sugar in one cup.
Please read your label, be informed and stay healthy!