Don’t you like it when you see, say, a candy product that is labeled “50 percent less fat”? First… 50 percent less than what? Second, it’s candy!

Over the years, as certain dietary concerns became the latest trends (think low-fat, low-carb, etc.), food manufacturers have tried to keep up the best they can while still selling a palatable food product. Maybe the best example is after the low-carb craze really took hold. While it’s died down a little, and research has come out to show that whole grains are a necessary part of a healthy diet, people are still carb-conscious.

Food manufacturers do a dance of deception around the labeling regulations, usually staying within the law, but still doing a good job of misleading consumers.
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The nation’s largest supermarket chain, Kroger, has rolled out the NuVal nutrition scoring system to 23 Lexington, Kentucky stores to help shoppers make healthier food choices. The scoring system gives each food a score, from 1 to 100. Foods with high scores are more nutritious, foods with low scores are less. Shoppers also have the added confidence that the ranking system is provided by a third party, not food or beverage producers. NuVal was developed by nutrition and medical experts from top health organizations and universities.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the NuVal scores is how poorly some of the “health” foods ranked against regular snacks. For example, Garden of Eatin’ no salt added blue corn chips actually score better than an Odwalla Fruit smoothie: the chips earn a score of 52 while the smoothie gets a 49.  Fresh fruits and vegetables get scores near to 100.

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The Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest has requested that the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Company drop the words “all-natural” from their labels. Ben & Jerry’s agreed to the label change on Monday, declaring that they would no longer battle over the definition of “all natural“. Ben & Jerry’s spokesman Sean Greenwood said that the change would happen gradually and hopes that it will help consumers make a more informed decision.

Ben & Jerry’s is not changing the recipes that make their best selling ice cream, which sometimes contain corn syrup, hydrogenated oils or other substances that are not natural. The CPSI has stated that the company should not use the term “all natural” unless it is truly all natural, with only naturally occurring ingredients. Ben & Jerry’s has agreed, and will no longer label their ice cream as such.
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If you bring along your calculator and dictionary to the grocery store in order to decode food nutrition labels, your trip just got a little lighter and hopefully a lot healthier.

Registered dietitian Bonnie Taub-Dix did all health conscious consumers a tremendous favor with her latest book, Read It Before You Eat It: How to Decode Food Labels and Make the Healthiest Choice Every Time. This book, which is compact enough to place in your purse, serves as a guide to help you navigate your way through the mysterious and challenging world of food label reading.

Recent studies have shown that being a wise consumer plays a significant role in choosing between a seemingly healthy health food and a genuinely healthy health food. And accurately reading food labels not only determines what we put into our grocery carts, but it also greatly impacts our health.
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Coming soon to a theater near you… mandatory calorie counts on the items you buy at their concession stands. Not only are those snacks overpriced, they have gargantuan calorie counts. Some of us may be aware of this fact, but when the numbers are staring you in the face, it may finally hit everyone how much those snacks are really costing us!

According to the Wall Street Journal, as part of the health-care reform enacted in March, the FDA will require not just movie theaters, but convenience stores and airplanes, among other places, to fully disclose calorie counts for foods that they provide in order to help consumers make wiser decisions about the foods they eat.
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