Food Labels Can Be Misleading

I was sitting down to breakfast this morning at Mimi's cafe and thought that I would glance through the paper. Typically, when I am in a hurry, like I was this morning I will find a couple of articles that I skim through. Today was different. There were articles on grocery store food labels, menu information at restaraunts, how niacin supplementation was more effective in treating cholesterol than the actual cholesterol medication Zetia (just one study, but wow) and much more. I did not have time to get through all of the health and fitness related articles, but was very impressed that they were seeing some of the spotlight in the Omaha World Herald.

Anyways, I got off track a bit there, because I mainly wanted to discuss one article. The article that I want to discuss a bit today was titled "Lawsuits, New FDA Scrutiny in Grocery Aisles, by Matt McKinney from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. This article says that food manufacturers are being sued for their mileading labeling. The labels in question were typically foods that are labelled as healthy. The FDA is also looking into these allegations and into coming up with a uniform system for labeling.

The point is this... Learn to read labels! Just because the food is a "healthy choice" or claims to lower cholesterol or aid in digestion doesn't mean that the food is healthy or even does what it claims to do. Buyer be ware. These companies are all about the bottom dollar and will take advantage of your lack of understanding what actually is healthy.

If you can walk over to a bag of bread and read the ingredients to decide whether or not the food is good for you, you will be a lot better off than if you go by what ever mr. big bucks, bottom line, 4 houses in the Hamptons, marketing genius tells you on the front of the package. So that's all I have got to say for today. Learn how different foods effect your body and decide which foods to buy based on your understanding of the ingredients, not the promotional material. For more articles on healthy eating go to the DeVetter Fitness Health Resouces Page. http://www.devetterfitness.com/health_resources.html.