Why Read Ingredient Labels? – Juggling Real Food and Real Life

I was just talking to my friend Debbie today about the ingredient label on her yogurt.  She was asking my opinion on the ingredients I saw.  We noticed that there was not any artificial colors (score!), we could pronounce all of the ingredients, but there was some sugar in it.  That lead us to a conversation about sugar.  As you know I prefer to use honey and real maple syrup as my sweeteners.  See here for more info on that.  However, sugar is sugar is sugar.  Our real objective is to watch our overall sugar.

Simple Real Food Label for Sour Cream

Debbie and I talked about how knowledge is power.  You can eat whatever you want, but wouldn’t it be nice to actually know what you are eating?  If you have started reading labels this week you probably know what I am talking about.  My husband and I are amazed every time we go to the grocery store by what ingredients are put into the foods we buy.  Especially………….the sugar………..it is not unusual to see sugar, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup all in one package.  Wow!  That is a lot of sugar.  My husband and I call that the “Trifecta”.  We literally shout it out at the grocery store.  “Hey, I’ve got a Trifecta over here.”  Yes, we are grocery store geeks.  I rush over and we gasp at the insane amount of sugar that is being forced upon us.

Another story…………..I very often eat Sunday dinner with my parents.  I always give them the heads-up on what the next week’s challenge is going to be.  Since this week was reading food labels, we went to the pantry to take a look.  My Mother was shocked to see that her kidney beans which she thought were simply kidney beans also contained water (not worried about that), sugar, corn syrup, salt, calcium chloride, and disodium something for color.

Kidney bean label with extra ingredients added

Again, you can eat whatever you want, but it’s nice to know what you are eating.  The next time she is at the store, she can look at the kidney bean labels and find one that just has kidney beans in it.

These are simple changes you can make without changing your recipes or having to fight with your kids over new foods.  Simply substitute what you are already buying, for better ingredients.  Your body will be so much better off because of the change.

Let me know what label surprises you have found this week.  I love to hear them.  You know…………grocery store geek.  Just leave me a comment below.  If you are reading this through the email, remember you need to go to jugglingrealfoodandreallife.com to access the entire site and leave a comment.

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