Fara 4 February 2009 General Health, Healthy Foods 75 views No Comment/Trackback Print This Post  Email This Post

(Rate!)

 Loading ...

Planning for a meal: Understanding food labels

Just like the sayings, most things are easier said than done. Moreover, the hardest part yet on getting through a healthy eating plan program is to choose the right food for you and your family, especially when you are out shopping for your groceries.

Planning for a meal: Understanding food labels when you go shopping

Choosing the right ingredients for each of your meals is the key most important part of a healthy eating plan. It can be tricky trying to shop for products such as dairy products, meats, poultry, fish and other kinds of produces. Why is that so? Because there are so many claims and types of labels, for instance foods labeled as natural, organic, and a number of other things on them until you don’t know what is the right one anymore. Therefore, the main question would be – what’s the difference anyway? Going through this part may need some of your time and effort to learn and understand certain specific names mean in order to help you decide which food to buy and avoid any marketing ploy.

The Organic label

The organic ingredient of and organic food must at least made up of 95% of a particular food where there will be a limited number and amount of additives used. Sometimes, they’re not used at all, such as in a hydroponic technique. Natural food? You can get them anywhere, namely fruits and vegetables, they are all natural, but what you really need is probably organic ones. There are a few key aspects when it comes to the production of organic food, for example; restricted use of artificial fertilizer and pesticides, high quality breed choices, animal welfare emphasis, soil health and many more.

Basically, there are two main benefits that you can see roughly. First, you will be in support of better environment because there won’t be any chemicals introduced to nature than can create hazardous effect to health, and secondly, you will be able to avoid yourself from any chemical intake through the food you eat thus resulting to better health.

Did you know that chemicals and toxin in the food we consumed because most cases of cancer? Therefore, eating organic food is a way to fight off cancer. It contains higher ascorbic acid and beta carotene which are both known for cancer prevention.

The letdown of organic foods is perhaps its price. Most organic foods can be a little too expensive for its category. It’ll be hard if you’re trying to make ends meet. What you can do is skipping over organic fruits and vegetables that you can peel like oranges and bananas. This is because once you discarded the peel; you’ll throw away the chemicals too. If you are going to go organic, choose organic items such as apples and pear where you eat the peel as well. Just make sure you rinse the foods before eating or cooking them.

The ‘No hormones’ label

Other names of this label include ‘No hormones administered’, ‘hormone free’ and ‘no synthetic hormone’. There are no specific organizations that independently endorse this claim, rather most of the time; it is being used by producers and manufacturers for their own interest. However, since most animals naturally produce hormones on their own existence, this claim can be seen as a diversion of the truth. For animals, and even for human beings, hormones are the element if the body that helps in regulating the organs, cells and internal organs growth including the brain, stimulating the immune system as well as a few more other vital functions of the body.

In this case, what can be tolerated is probably the term ‘no synthetic hormone’ and ‘no hormones administered’. What it really means is that there are no hormones given unnaturally to the animals in their lifetime, which is usually to increase growth and milk production. Regardless of hormones, however, the milk and meat is safe for a person and not a violation of an animal’s rights. The USDA has defined the label for use on meat and already prohibits the use of artificial hormones in hogs and poultry production.

Caged or penned label for animal products

This is especially for meat, hogs and poultry products and foods and products with this label indicate whether the animal was caged or penned. It’s not something that affects the quality or nutritional value of the meat but it’s more of animal rights issue. So it’s not much of health related issue. The products with non-caged or penned label may be a bit more expensive, but if you want to make a human decision, that is the way to go.

Reading the label and making healthy choices can sometimes be difficult, but learning how to do so can help you make the best choices for you diet. This is only few of many methods on how to read food labels but with the current dynamic nature of the information world, learning is actually much easier than it was before for you to create the suitable and flexible healthy eating plan. You choose to make it simple or otherwise. The choice is in your hand.

 Related posts:

1. Natural Toxins in Food – Not A Reason for Unhealthy Eating
2. Nutritious whole meal – Whole grains Benefits
3. Benefits of Salmon: From Protein to Omega-3 Fatty Acids