A crash course on reading nutrition labels

Understanding and reading labels on food items is critical to eating clean and staying healthy.  When shopping it is best to stick to the perimeter of the grocery store for the healthiest, freshest food.  But there are times when we do need to shop in the center - where the packaged stuff resides!!  This is when it’s important to read the labels…

Here are 5 steps to quickly decipher a nutrition label:

1.    Go directly to the ingredient list - check for added sugars (many go by names like: dextrose, maltose or fructose)

2.    Avoid products that have additives, preservatives or other chemicals that you don’t recognize and watch out for hydrogenated, modified or fractionated oils - this indicates they have been chemically altered.

3.    Note the order of the ingredients - they are listed in descending order of quantity by weight - SOOOO if sugar is listed as the first or any of the top ingredients you know sugar is the main ingredient and probably should be avoided.

4.    If you can’t easily pronounce an ingredient or it is overly long - then it is likely some sort of chemical and you probably should not put it in your mouth!