Yesterday I was shopping for the ingredients to make a recipe I'd seen on Facebook. I wanted to try and make a healthier version, so I was trying to choose a "tortilla style nacho cheese chip" that would bring a little extra nutrition to the recipe.
I don't often buy chips, so I was taking my time to compare labels and as per my usual shopping experience, I became highly frustrated. I grabbed a bag of "VEGGIE" nacho cheese chips to check out the nutrition facts. As I looked at the macronutrients, I was not impressed, so I grabbed the leading brand nacho cheese chips and sure enough the nutrition facts were almost identical yet the veggie chips were $1.00+ more and the marketing design of the bag gave the appearance of what I am going to just call "health".
While this infuriates me as a consumer, as a health coach, it was a reminder of the single most important skill a client can learn: to read nutrition labels. When able to look at a label, and make an empowered choice, this gives someone the ability to make a choice based off their food values and the nutritional content of the food rather than what the marketing is hoping to pitch to the consumer. This is my number one motivator as a health coach, to help clients make empowered food choices so they aren't misled by marketing schemes.
I see it so many times and I have also been there. A client is trying their hardest to make changes. They are choosing what they believe are healthy options and putting in all the effort, but aren't seeing changes. It leads to frustration and often times, eventually letting go of the goal. However, looking at these labels clearly shows, that it isn't as cut and dry as choosing something that looks like a healthier option.
That isn't on the individual, because often times, we are not taught that skill. If we look at the bigger picture, most generations prior did not have as many processed foods and reading a label wasn't as much of a necessity. Also, prior generations lived much less sedentary lifestyles so weight did not increase as quickly. In our current society & food culture, empowering ourselves to make educated food choices is a necessity.
So now that I've gotten that rant out, let's talk about what we are looking for. My number one question for choosing options, is this food filling? Here is a breakdown of the questions I ask myself to determine that:
Is the food nutritionally sound?
How are the ingredients?
Is there a healthy balance of fat & protein?
What type of fat is in the food?
Are the carbs made up of sugars or protein?
Are the sugars naturally occurring or added?
Will the serving size be adequate to feel satisfying?
As you can see, I don't really look at the calories. Why? Calories do not give a clear picture.
Let's look at the labels for 3 different types of tortilla style nacho cheese chips:
As you can see from these options, all of the calories are very similar. The veggie option & leading brand option have almost identical macronutrients. The leading brand has a serving size of 12 chips vs 11 chips so the increase in carbohydrates could be accounted by that additional chip.
Looking at the last option, a protein nacho cheese chip, there are very similar calories however there is lower fat, lower carbohydrates and much higher protein for a larger serving size. This option is going to be much more satisfying rather than having 3 servings of a lower protein brand, 1 serving is often sufficient due to the increased protein content. This is going to be more filling.
Here's a table of the the main nutrients, to give an even more defined picture:
Learning to read labels in a way that is easy to understand and feels good to you is a key skill to both losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle long term. It gives you the power to determine what is a good choice for you without diet culture and marketing schemes. During coaching sessions, we focus on learning how to read a label and applying that to your life in a way that works best for you! If you are interested in learning more, click Coaching at the top of the page!
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