How many of you reading this want to lose weight?

Okay, hands up, how many know what you need to do?

I’m guessing most of you. Usually it revolves around eating less and exercising more.

Eating less sounds easier than it actually is. So many foods appear to be healthy or at least reasonable in moderation, yet are full of sugars, carbohydrates or fat. Part of losing weight is watching what we eat, and watching what we eat means “reading labels”.

I’m a label reader. It’s not that I need to lose weight, but I do care about synthetic dyes and colourings in my food. Being a drug chemist, I understand all too well what damage certain bright food colourings can do to your body’s cells. A number of them are suspected to cause cancer, plus I just don’t see any reason why we need to colour our food. Why don’t we just get used to the colour that it normally is?

When you start reading labels, other alarm bells start to ring. I’m going to pick Snapple for the first example, as they have a good image in the market place and are generally thought to be a healthier drink option, but it could be any of the numerous drinks and products out there.

Snapple’s slogan, Made from the best stuff on earth®, is well known. The Kiwi Strawberry Juice Drink is made from ‘all natural’ ingredients, and sounds pretty healthy. The label tells a different story. Each ‘serving’ contains 28g of carbs, 26g of which are sugars. Now, a teaspoon of sugar is about 4g, so each serving has just less than 7 teaspoons of sugar.

The main source of these is the addition of high fructose corn syrup, which, through a process that I don’t understand, has been classified as being ‘natural’. I always think of natural as something I can grow or pick. Apparently not; it includes other things that can be extracted and refined to make cheap substitutes for those things that I can grow or pick. High-fructose corn syrup is basically a cheap sugar substitute.

But that’s not the real killer. One 8 fl oz bottle of this drink has two, yes, two, servings. How they get this past the Food and Drug Administration is a mystery because I can’t imagine anyone drinking only half a bottle, and leaving the rest for another day. If you drink the whole amount, then you have just consumed two servings, 52g, or 13 teaspoons, of sugar.

A healthy option?

Hardly.

Another health-promoting drink company is Tropicana. Their non-refrigerated “100% Juice Ruby Red Grapefruit” does not contain 100% grapefruit juice, despite the implication. It has white grape juice and apple juice, as well as the grapefruit, plus pectin, citric acid, vitamin C, ‘natural flavour’ and carmine.
Carmine is a red colour found in a number of products including yoghurts and drinks and most commonly is made by extracting a red dye from boiled insects. That’s right, boiled insects. This is why it is classed as a ‘natural’ ingredient. Vegetarians need to stay clear, yet it appears on labels without warning or explanation. The drink also contains a single serving that has 42g of carbs, of which 37g are from sugar.

Still think you are being healthy?

Our health is our own responsibility, and often, we are what we eat. Paying attention to labels is an easy way to balance your diet. It might add another twenty minutes to your food shopping, but it could drop twenty pounds off your weight.

Bon appetit!