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The technique to choose the healthiest products in the supermarket faster
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The order in which the ingredients appear or knowing how to differentiate between added and natural sugar is key to choosing the healthiest
The packaging of a product hides more than meets the eye: although our eyes go alone to the great claims of packaging, it is in the small print where it is what we must look at. “Reading” food labels is not difficult, but many times, in the middle of a crowded supermarket, we do not stop to take a good look and we ended up buying “blindly”. It is therefore important to know some quick and easy tricks to, in just a glance, identify the healthiest products what to put in our shopping cart.
Nutritionist Laura I. Arranz explains that in the list of ingredients “We found very valuable information on the components that are part of the formula of the food.” The professional says that we should look at three things when looking at the list of ingredients of a food:
What to look at in the ingredient list
1. The order of the ingredients: It is important to look at the way they appear, since they will always be placed from greater quantity in the product to smaller. “For example, in a product with added sugar, it is not the same that the sugar is in first or second place or that it is in last place after all the other ingredients,” exemplifies the nutritionist.
2.Percentages of some ingredients: With some ingredients, the percentage that is completed in the food is indicated in parentheses. «This is only mandatory for those ingredients key to value the product, for example, in some cereals with chocolate the percentage of this will be indicated, or in some cookies with sesame », points out Laura I. Arranz. He also comments that these percentages help us to have an idea of the amount of other ingredients, depending on whether they are before or after on the list. “They are clues that help us learn more about the product,” he says.
3. Amount of additives: Finally, it is important to look at the additives in a product. “They are safe, but the less the better!”, Explains the nutritionist and continues pointing out that, to identify them in the list of ingredients, it is not enough to look at the numbers followed by a letter “E”, as they are sometimes mentioned with their name without reference to E number “When we see the words” preservative “,” emulsifier “,” stabilizer “,” sweetener “or” antioxidant “, for example, what will follow are the names of certain additives, whether expressed with your E number or not ”, explains Laura I. Arranz.
What to look at in the nutritional table
On the other hand, apart from looking at the list of ingredients, we must pay attention to the information that the nutritional table of a product, where it shows us the amount of energy and nutrients that the food is going to provide us with. When it comes to “reading” this table, the nutritionist explains that we must pay particular attention to four points:
1. Energy value: It is important to observe the calories in a product, but always in a “relative way and only to compare between some processed foods”, with the aim of choosing which ones fewer calories have. “It is not what matters most, because there are very high calorie foods that are very very healthy like nuts”, warns Laura I. Arranz.
2. Sugars: The nutritional table tells us the total amount of sugars in the product, both those that come from added sugar, like those that come naturally. If a product does not have added sugars, we will find this in the nutritional table, but not in the list of ingredients. «There are many foods that naturally have sugars and that is not a problem, like vegetable drinks or packaged vegetables “, says the professional.
3. Saturated fat: The nutritionist explains that this is an important value, since “saturated fats are the ones that we must reduce in our diet to avoid increase the risk of cardiovascular disease or gain weight. As a general rule, he recommends always choosing products that have less saturated fat.
4th floor: As in the case of sugar, in the nutritional table we find the sum of the amount of salt that may have been added to the product, as well as the amount it may have naturally. “There will be products without added salt in which we will see a certain amount of salt in the nutritional information, but that is due to the sodium that the product naturally contains, “he explains.
Finally, Laura I. Arranz explains that, in the nutritional table we will also find information on the amount of protein in a product, as well as, although it is not mandatory, some labels show the amount of fiber or polyunsaturated fats, especially omega- 3. “In these cases and in general, the more fiber and more omega-3 a product has compared to another within its category, the better,” he concludes.