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Reading ingredient labels is one of the most underrated, yet important things you can do for you health. Think about how many people go through their lives picking up and eating whatever looks good, without a care in the world about what’s actually inside the foods that they eat. Well, this is the reality for an overwhelming amount of the population…
How Most People Read Labels
As much as many people don’t care to read up on what’s inside the foods that they eat, there are some people that pay a little more attention to the foods that go into their bodies. When a lot of people try to read labels, instead of focusing on the potentially harmful ingredients they may be exposing themselves too, they instead look at other things such as the calorie content, protein, content, sugar content, etc. While this isn’t to say some of those things aren’t important, because they are, there are also other things to look at. The protein content or the calorie content of something doesn’t matter if the food is made up of crappy ingredients. No matter how much protein it may have, it is NOT good for you if it’s made up of weird ingredients that you can’t pronounce.
Any Food That Requires Enhancing By The Use Of Chemical Substances Should In No Way Be Considered A Food.
What Happens If You Don’t Read Labels
While there’s a long explanation of the ingredients you expose yourself to and what these ingredients could potentially do to your health, a better way to understand what happens when people don’t pay attention to the foods that they eat, is to look at the general health of the majority of the population. Worldwide obesity rates have more than DOUBLED since 1990. This is a result of the consumption of fake, ultra-processed foods, and the ingredients they possess.
Fancy Marketing
As much as food quality may seem bad (which it is), it’s not like these large corporations don’t recognize that, because they do. The way around this is to market their foods in the best light as much as possible. This involves things such as having household names publicly endorse their product, showing funny/cool commercials, touching on how incredibly delicious their product is, and also making sure the FRONT of the box looks as nice as possible, so that way people don’t look at the BACK of the box.
What To Look For When Reading Labels
When you’re reading ingredient information, always look for clean and organic ingredients. This means that ALL ingredients are clean and organic. Sometimes there may be foods that contain some organic ingredients, but also some questionable ingredients as well. Legally speaking, a product only needs 70% of their ingredients to be organic in order to label themselves as “organic”, so always be mindful of this and play close attention.
What To Look OUT For When Reading Labels
A good general rule of thumb for somebody looking to learn how to read labels, is to just stay away from ingredients you don’t recognize. While there are ingredients that seem like they may be bad, either because it’s a long or unfamiliar word, they can sometimes be perfectly safe and naturally-occurring. But to keep things safe and simple, stay away from those ingredients until you’ve expanded your ingredient-reading knowledge. It’s better to be safe than sorry. All in all, it’s always advised to stay away from GMO ingredients, dyes, additives, preservatives, and synthetic vitamins/minerals.
Closing
The art of reading ingredients is something everybody should familiarize themselves with. If you don’t know what’s going into your body, you can’t maintain the optimal health you’re meant to have. Through trial and error, eventually you’ll know EXACTLY what’s going into your body, as well as knowing how to look for and look out for certain ingredients!