Written By: Kriti Saraswat | Published : June 17, 2014 3:43 PM IST
Are you someone who eats a lot of packaged food? And in your endeavour to eat something healthy, do you often buy products labelled 'healthy', 'fat-free', 'low-cal', etc? If yes, you will be shocked to know that not all products claiming to be healthy variants are in fact that nutritious. They can be just as bad as any other junk food but their packaging and marketing gimmicks can fool you into thinking that you are eating something healthy.
In the study conducted at the Jack Valenti School of Communication at UH titled Truth, Lies, and Packaging: How Food Marketing Creates a False Sense of Health, a total of 318 participants were asked to analyse the health aspects of certain products and determine if they were actually healthy for them. Using an online survey, Northup's team showed participants the labels of the products claiming to be healthy as well as versions that had the buzzwords removed using Photoshop. They were asked to rate how healthy they thought each product was.
'Each time a participant saw one of the triggering words on a label, they would identify it as healthier than the other image without the word,' said Northup. He says this is an example of how advertising can mislead consumers and that it also indicates a common lack of understanding of the information provided by nutrition labels.
Tips to read food labels correctly
Ritika Samaddar, chief dietician at Max Healthcare, points out the trap most of us fall into while reading a food label. 'You will find the serving information listed right at the top of the nutrition facts label in any product. This is where the people are misled, because they assume the information given is for the entire product and they end up happily finishing it,' says Samaddar.
Explaining this, Samaddar said: 'Take your regular 'namkeen bhujia' packet. It says in a serving there are 56 calories and per serving is equal to one tablespoon or 20 grams. But if you are eating the entire packet, which is 400g, you will end up eating 1,120 calories!'
According to nutritionist Naini Setalvad, 'Packaged foods available contain a lot of sodium which is different from salt. They usually mention the sodium content on the label, in order to get the salt content, multiply 2.5 to that figure and see how high it is.
'The sugar-free/low-cal sweets available contain artificial sweetness which can be harmful in the long run. Another problem with sugar-free products is that they contain a lot of white flour as well as fats. The only safe artificial sweetener is sucralose so look for one made of that.'
So before buying any food product, check the food label carefully. These products contain a lot of fat, salt and artificial ingredients, you need to carefully check the amount of fat, sodium, sugar per serving and also for ingredients which you may be allergic to.
With inputs from AFP/IANS
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