Read Your Food Labels!

For optimum health, as well as weight loss, it's important to know what you're putting in your body.

The best way to get an accurate picture of what you're consuming is to read your food labels.

Here are the most important things to look for when reading a food label:

• Serving Size & Calories: Look for the serving size on the label and then figure out how many servings you are consuming. Remember that many packaged items may appear to be one serving, but will actually be 2 or 2.5 servings. So, if you eat the entire package, you'll need to multiply the calories per serving by 2 or 2.5.

• Nutrients to Limit: Below the calories, you'll find the nutrients that most of us already get too much of. You want to look for very low numbers for Saturated Fat, Trans Fat, Cholesterol & Sodium.

• Nutrients to Get Enough of: Use the Nutrition Facts label not only to limit the nutrients you want to cut back on, but also to increase the nutrients you need to consume in greater amounts. These include: fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron.

• Ingredients List: Food manufacturers are required to list all ingredients on the label. The ingredients are listed in order of predominance, with the ingredients used in the greatest amount first, followed in descending order by those in smaller amounts. You should always check the ingredient list to see what is in your food. Here are a couple points to keep in mind:

• 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 the names of food you recognize. You know what "onion" means, you know what "carrot" means, you know what "lentil" means. Do you know what, "sorbitan monostearate" is? If you can't pronounce it, it's probably not good for you.

• Avoid artificial ingredients & colors: If you see the word "artificial," steer clear. If you see any numbers on the ingredient list, it is probably contains artificial colors such as "FD&C Green No. 3."

• Limit sweeteners & avoid artificial sweeteners: Sucrose (sugar), glucose, fructose, sorbitol, mannitol, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, saccharin, aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K), neotame

• Look for whole grains. Look for the word "whole". "Wheat" and "Enriched Wheat" are processed. If you want the whole grain, the ingredient label needs to say "whole wheat."

• Avoid "fake" fibers. Many food products add isolated fibers to their products, simply so that they can claim that their products contains many grams of fiber. However, isolated fiber does not have the same benefits in the body as the "intact" fiber that you would get from eating a whole food (fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, whole grains). If you see that a product contains a lot of fiber, check the ingredient list to see where the fiber comes from. It is "fake" fiber if it contains: inulin, maltodextrin, oat fiber, polydextrose.