The Trouble with Food Labels

Since my husband was diagnosed with diabetes, I have been educating myself on how to read food labels.  However, this is often a confusing task because the Food and Drug Administration doesn't even define some of the terms that food products have on them!

The key for my has been figuring out how many carbohydrates are in a serving size of a particular food item. I'm bombarded by labels like "Low Carb, "Sugar Free," and "No Sugar Added." These phrases can be deceiving for many reasons.

First of all, many products spouting low carb claims don't really many less carbs than the regular product. They try to subtract out the fiber and sugar alcohols to get what's called "net carbs." Even the Atkins Diet does this. But to my husband's blood sugar, carbs are carbs and it goes up no matter the fiber or sugar alcohol count. 

Sugar free is another tricky label because most of the time sugar alcohols just replace the carbs. Not only do these still make your blood sugar go up, but they can also give you some bad diarrhea. Yuck.

No sugar added is truthful in saying that additional sugars were not added to the product, but many things have natural sugars that make the carb count high. 

Go to Health.com to read about the 16 most confusing food labels.