Author Topic: Do you read food labels obsessively? (Read 1239 times)

reconquest · « **on:** August 22, 2013, 12:06:50 AM »

Just wondering how common this tendency is among trads.

Frances · « **Reply #1 on:** August 22, 2013, 01:40:28 AM »

:confused1: :ready-to-eat:
Huh?

TCat · « **Reply #2 on:** August 22, 2013, 06:59:17 AM »

I always read the label to see how much fat or sugar is in it. sometimes I might eat something with lots of sugar if I have no energy or didn't sleep or something.

I live on a staple diet of bran flakes, tinned fish and noodles.
It is suprising that fish in brine has hardly any fat, but fish in sunflower oil has about 20 grams of fat. it is nicer in sunflower oil but if youre trying to loose weight it is not worth the 20grms its better to get fish in brine.
:detective:brine is water mixed with salt.

jen51 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 22, 2013, 08:56:51 AM »

I don't know if I'm obsessive about it... but I do pay attention.

I pay far more attention to the ingredient labels than I do the nutrition labels.

ggreg · « **Reply #4 on:** August 22, 2013, 09:27:49 AM »

I would if I lived in the United States. Your food has far more added crap than here.

claudel · « **Reply #5 on:** August 22, 2013, 11:37:27 AM »

Quote from: ggreg

I would if I lived in the United States. Your food has far more added crap than here.

Truer words were never spoken.

Well, actually, here's a small quibble: a sizable amount of Yank food doesn't have crap added to it. Rather, it is 100 percent crap from the word go.

Marlelar · « **Reply #6 on:** August 22, 2013, 02:07:01 PM »

Obsessively? I think label reading is essential in order to avoid HFCS, sugar, MSG, artificial dyes, flavors, and hormones.

Marsha

Marlelar · « **Reply #7 on:** August 22, 2013, 02:10:05 PM »

Quote from: ggreg

I would if I lived in the United States. Your food has far more added crap than here.

I'm curious, what kind of additives do we have that you folks do not? I had assumed that prepared and packaged foods were pretty much the same in any western country.

Which is why I rarely use anything from a box, can, or package.

Marsha

ggreg · « **Reply #8 on:** August 22, 2013, 02:26:07 PM »

Quote from: claudel

Quote from: ggreg
I would if I lived in the United States. Your food has far more added crap than here.

Truer words were never spoken.

Well, actually, here's a small quibble: a sizable amount of Yank food doesn't have crap added to it. Rather, it is 100 percent crap from the word go.

I don't read the labels on those though because they don't come off the shelf in the first place.

ggreg · « **Reply #9 on:** August 22, 2013, 02:29:36 PM »

Quote from: Marlelar

Quote from: ggreg
I would if I lived in the United States. Your food has far more added crap than here.

I'm curious, what kind of additives do we have that you folks do not? I had assumed that prepared and packaged foods were pretty much the same in any western country.

Which is why I rarely use anything from a box, can, or package.

Marsha

Peanut butter is VASTLY different. Ours is Peanuts, Peanut oil, salt and stabilizer.

Your "Skippy" Brand has hydogenated oil, soy, syrup and all kinds of crap in it.

Hydrogenated fats are banded in a lot of food here in the UK, if not all.

Flying to California in a few weeks time and one of my employees out there has asked my to bring two jars of peanut butter with me from the UK. Talk about bringing coals to Newcastle.

Marlelar · « **Reply #10 on:** August 22, 2013, 02:55:50 PM »

The good news is that you can tell your employee that we have many options w/o the additives when it comes to PB. I buy brands in our regular grocery stores that are just peanuts, oil, and salt.

On the other hand we have even more bags, boxes, cans, and pouches full of chemicals that are advertised as "food". I think "Skippy" falls into that category.

What about your fresh foods and meats? Are they treated w/chemicals and raised being fed hormones the way ours are? Fortunately organics and free range are becoming more available here.

I remember reading that the EU had banned the importation of some food we were trying to ship over but I don't remember what it was, maybe some type of GMO.

Marsha

AlligatorDicax · « **Reply #11 on:** August 22, 2013, 09:25:20 PM »

Quote from: Marlelar (Aug 22, 2013, 3:07 pm)

I think label reading is essential in order to avoid HFCS, sugar, MSG, artificial dyes, flavors, and hormones.

I strongly agree.

One of the worst and most pervasive additives being HFCS: "high-fructose corn syrup". It's apparently not only cheaper for manufacturers than traditional cane &c. sugar (e.g.: original Coca-Cola formula), but is also cheaper than the ingredients that really belong in products. It infests numerous U.S. food products in which any form of sugar plainly does not belong, e.g.: peanut butter, mayonnaise, and oil-&-vinegar salad dressings.

Quote from: Marlelar (Aug 22, 2013, 3:10 pm)

I'm curious, what kind of additives do we have that you folks do not? I had assumed that prepared and packaged foods were pretty much the same in any western country.

The U.S.A. allows compounds of the iodine-displacing element bromine, e.g.:
brominated vegetable oils (BVOs) as an "emulsifier" in citrus-themed industrially manufactured "soft drinks" (e.g.: "Mountain Dew").
potassium bromate in "enriched flour", thus in the vast majority of bread (I've read that Pepperidge Farm is among commercially successful exceptions); this ingredient is not even claimed to be a "preservative"; instead, it's used only to improve the physical behavior of dough in industrial baking equipment.

There are undoubtedly quite a few other such additives, but I singled out bromine because it's an issue I encountered this past week.

The most insidious recent U.S. legal development is our federal government accepting a World Trade Organization ruling that labeling products, including food, with country of origin, is discriminatory (or some such word) and thus illegal. As a paying customer of groceries & markets, I strongly believe that I am entitled to discriminate: To know the origin of food, especially imported food, so I can make personal choices, including the option to refuse to purchase food from such notoriously unhealthful sources as China, Mexico, and Vietnam.