Food Labels – What Does They Really Tell About

Manufacturers are in business because they want to make profit out off the items they sell to the consumer. Until the last twenty years or so, manufacturer’s weren’t held accountable for their procedure, or the preservatives they put into your food.

Introduction of the Food Labels in the Market

Then with the health revolution, and suddenly everyone wanted to know what was in their food, and if what healthy for them to consume. In fact, had the consumer been conscious of the level of sugar being added to manufactured cereals during the early part of the 20 th century.

They might have refused to purchase or eat something so poor in nutrition and high in tooth decay. As soon as the manufacturers began to deal with that condition, along came the claims of “fat free” and “reduced fat” and the manufacturers were forced to prove their claims.

The Food and Drug Administration made it as a rule that if they were going to claim those facts, they must label so that proof could be established. But are the labels really true and accurate? Or do the labels simply tell us what we want to hear.

Do you believe the Food Labels?

Are these labels are accurate about the fat content? Well, let me ask you, when was the last time you took your bottle of ranch dressing and had it examined for fat content? Exactly. You the consumer aren’t going to analyze anything.

You’re going to believe whatever those label states as fact. The Food and Drug Administration regulate food labeling and accuracy, but that doesn’t always keep everyone honest, or true to a simple process of determining what the product you’re buying contains.

Food Labels – Be cautious about them.

Many times, the product will provide two or three servings per package. The obvious take, on the consumer’s part, when buying a snack cake or candy bar, is that the single package should constitute a single serving.

This is not the case many times. The producer in order to appeal to the consumers sense of sight, makes it appear as though the contents of the package would be a single serving, simply by the way the package is sold.

In reality, the serving size is half the package or one third of the package. This is dishonesty times two. Naturally, as you read the calorie content, you don’t stop to check the serving information, because a product sold for a single serve consumer, should naturally be a single serving, right? Wrong.

This is where we must carefully watch our food labels, read between the lines, and check the fine print. Quite often, we only see what we want to see. We don’t notice that we’re being mislead until much later, or sometimes not at all. To a consumer because of weight issues, he is just concerned with the calorie content, this is not a life threatening situation.

For the diabetic patient, the improper reading of the package ingredients can mean the difference between normal healthy functioning, and a dramatic increase or drop in blood sugar levels. As you can see, the producer’s who are regulated do their very own best to benefits, not the consumer.