Is Your Food Healthy?

Singapore Correspondent

Edited by: James M. Kelly
Health food is everywhere now but how healthy is the food you are choosing from the supermarket? With so many products labelling to be low-fat, sugar-free, zero trans fat, no additives or made with whole grains one would suggest that everything is health, nutritional and safe from preservatives but you must turn the box over and take a closer look to get the real information on the ingredients.

Natalie Goh, a consultant dietician at Peaches & Pear Nutrition Consultancy helps us decipher ingredients lists with a few simply hints and tips. She explains how the ingredients list is the best way to identify hidden ingredients.

Simply start by looking out for a few keywords, like ‘hydrogenated’ or ‘partially hydrogenated’ this means that the product contains trans-fat, which is an unsaturated fat, made by the chemical process of hydrogenation, liquid oil is turned into solid fat by the addition of hydrogen.

Sodium is another important word to look out for. Ingredients with the chemical name sodium, contribute to the overall salt content of the product. While to figure out the sugar content, the giveaway words are those ending with the letters -ose. Sucrose, fructose, glucose, dextrose and maltose are all sugar.

Another important factor is to always check the ingredient list to determine if the sugar is natural or added. For example, a cereal that contains dried fruit is likely to contain more natural sugar than one without added fruit. If both have the same sugar content, the one with fruit may be a healthier choice as it probably has less added sugar.

Sounds simple enough – but there is still so much more to know.

Nehal Kamdar, a dietitian at Raffles Hospital explains how some ingredients may be disguised under alternative names. For instance, fat may be listed as shortening, milk solids, nuts or chocolate.

Innocuous-sounding names like yeast extracts, hydrolised proteins and baking powder actually indicate hidden salt. Sugar too can be masked by descriptions such as modified carbohydrate, polysaccharides, molasses, sorbitol, syrup, icing and fruit juice concentrate.

Kamdar explains how if you see some of these names in the first three items in the ingredient list, the product may contain unhealthy levels of fat, salt or sugar. She also adds not to be fooled into to thinking that if an ingredient is not listed, it is completely absent from the food.

This is because the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an international food regulatory body, allows food manufacturers to exclude ingredients that are present in very small amounts.
Local food regulations set by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) and the Health Promotion Board (HPB) follow FDA standards very closely.

For instance, trans-fat does not have to be listed if the total fat content of the food product is less than 0.5g per serving, and it does not claim to be free of fat, fatty acids or cholesterol.

There are times when nutritional values cannot be verified. Items are required to only carry a nutritional information panel when there are nutritional claims made.
Hence, the only clues you can get are from the ingredient list.

If we look at a bread product claiming to be made with 70 per cent whole grains we immediately believe that wholgrain is the main ingredient true? Not necessarily, if the first item listed has the word ‘whole’, it is likely that the bread is indeed mostly wholegrain. This is because ingredients are listed in order of decreasing weight. But if there are several grain ingredients and the first ingredient is not a wholegrain, the situation gets more complex.

For example, the ingredient list may read: enriched white flour, whole wheat, whole oat flour and whole cornmeal. From this ingredient list you will not be able to tell if your bread is 70 percent or 7 percent actual wholegrain.