Familiar Food Fumbles

 

The food industry can use sneaky tactics to make a sale at the grocery store. With these common food fumbles, you will never let yourself be tricked again!

1. Servings of Fruits or Vegetables: Sometimes if a beverage label reads "3 servings of fruit per bottle," it may be misleading because  it may only apply to just half the bottle. You would have to double your calories to consume those 3 servings of fruit. Try to buy fresh fruits and vegetables to get your daily servings in.

2. Lean Meat: Even a fatty selection of ground beef can be 70% lean. Labels should just state the percentage of fat they contain, but those claims wouldn't sell as much.

3. What if it just has 150 Calories?: Serving sizes on food labels can be unrealistically small. By having small amounts of calories for small servings, it makes the calories, saturated fat, sodium, sugar, and other nutrients look unrealistically good. You may be consuming more calories with what you think is a normal serving.

4. Organic Food: An organic food is grown without pesticides. The word "organic" can be appealing to a consumer, but contrary to what many believe, organic foods are not automatically health foods. 

5. Good Reputation, Good Food?: Sometimes certain foods can deceive us into thinking they are healthy, when really they are no better than foods we shun from our daily diet. For example, some would never eat a doughnut, but rather a muffin. Muffins almost always have more calories and sugar than the average doughnut! 


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Adapted from: www.cspinet.org