Check Your Ingredients

It's important to know what you're putting in your body, and the best way to get an accurate picture of what you're consuming is to read food labels & check out the ingredients.  Food manufacturers are required to list all ingredients on the label. They are listed in order of the ingredients used in the greatest amount first, followed in descending order by those in smaller amounts. Here's what you should look for when checking the ingredient list: The fewer the items the better. If the list of ingredients is short, it is less likely that the product is full of additives, preservatives or artificial ingredients. Look for names of foods you recognize. You know what onion, carrot and lentil mean. Do you know what, "sorbitan monostearate" is? If you can't pronounce it, it's probably not good for you. Avoid artificial ingredients. If you see the word "artificial," steer clear. If you see any numbers on the ingredient list, most likely it contains artificial colors. Limit sweeteners. Limit natural sweeteners such as: sucrose (sugar), glucose, fructose, sorbitol, mannitol, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and avoid artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K), neotame. Look for whole grains. "Wheat" and "Enriched Wheat" are processed. If you want the whole grain, the ingredient label needs to say "whole wheat." Try to get a variety of whole grains, including oats, brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat and millet. Avoid "fake" fibers. Food manufactures add isolated fibers to their products, simply so that they can claim that their products contain many grams of fiber. Isolated (or "fake") fibers include: inulin (from chicory root), maltodextrin, oat fiber, polydextrose. However these "fake" fibers do not provide the same health benefits as you would get from eating a whole food (fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, whole grains).