THIS ARTICLE IS WHOLESOME AND ALL-NATURAL

Reading food labels is important, but so is knowing how the industry can use these tricks to make their products appear healthier than they are.

• How many times have you seen a product on the grocery shelf labeled “natural,” and taken it to mean it contains healthy, wholesome ingredients? As it turns out, that word means nothing when it comes to food labels–it’s not defined by the FDA, so anyone can slap it on a product, no matter what’s inside.

• Most food labels are required to provide the calorie content. But surprisingly, it’s not wholly accurate. The calorie amount listed on every product you see on the shelf (“healthy” or otherwise) doesn’t account for the level of processing the food product went through, and that affects calorie gain: The more processed a food is, the more calories the consumer will actually get from it.

• Ingredients lists on labels are required to appear in order from most to least predominant. To keep sugar from appearing in the high-profile top spot when it’s the number one ingredient, manufacturers often trick label watchers by dividing their high sugar content up across multiple different ingredients. With more than 60 names for sugar, it can be tough to spot them all. They can range from the easy-to-spot usual suspects like fructose, dextrose and sucrose to more exotic names like barley malt, rice syrup, agave nectar, rapadura and sucanat.