Ingredient List

There is a lot of important information listed on food packaging labels (and also a lot of bogus too). The front of food packaging usually has health claims, some that are very misleading. The back of the label consists of nutrition facts full of tons of information and numbers. Many people get so caught up in reading and decoding these numbers that they forget to look at the most important part of a packaged food label....The Ingredient List!!

Though reading the nutrition facts for serving size, servings per container, calories, protein, fat, sodium, etc... is very informative, it does not truly tell you what is in the food. The ingredient list on the other hand, does! This is why the one thing to make sure to read on the food label is the ingredient list!

The ingredients are listed in descending order by weight, therefore the first ingredient is usually the majority of the food(for example, if the energy bar has sugar as the first ingredient, there is more sugar than another ingredient listed). However, companies know how to trick consumers by using ingredients like sugar in different forms to make them less weight. For example, if sugar is in the form of high fructose corn syrup, cane juice and sugar, it can all be listed separately by weight(and most likely will not make top of the ingredient list). This is why it is important to read past the first ingredient. Make reading ingredient lists a habit and gain full control of what YOU are eating!

Tips:
-Always make sure to read at least the first 5 ingredients 
-Avoid food items with lists full of ingredients you can't read or you don't know what they are
-The majority of the items listed should be whole foods, NOT chemicals
-Ingredient lists should not be very long, if they are, most likely it is a highly processed food
-Some of the best foods have no labels, like fruits and veggies!