Forget Fat free, Natural or Made with real fruit.
Heres how to tell the few helpful labels from their confusing brethren.
Also, white flours also havemoreof certain nutrients, because theyre required to be added.
This includes folate, a crucially important nutrient for women who might become pregnant.
Made with whole grains is iffy because theremay only be a tiny amountof whole grain per serving.
And if youre looking for whole-wheat bread, beware of the lone word wheat.
If its not whole wheat, its just another word for refined white flour.
Why: Animals that eat grassmake healthier fatsin their milk and in their meat.
The alternative is feeding these animals grain, which makes them grow faster (making grain-fed meat cheaper).
Caveats:Grass-fed animals may not be on pasture year-round, especially in areas with cold winters.
Meanwhile, chickens and pigs dont eat grass, so they dont have an equivalent term.
No Antibiotics
Look for:Raised without antibiotics or No antibiotics administered.
The USDA Organic label also ensures that antibiotics werent used.
Farm antibioticshave a huge role in creating and sustaining antibiotic resistance, a real and growing problem.
Caveats: This label doesnt tell you anything else about how the animal was raised.
Also, its sort ofirrelevant on egg packages, because laying hens arent typically given antibiotics.
For example, chickens raised under these certifications get more space to move around.
Not to be confused with: Each other.
), you shouldnt assume,as some do, that the organic label is completely useless.
Some of the requirements are definite good news.
Synthetic fertilizers are widely used in industrial agriculture, but arepretty bad for the environment.
That means you dont need to fear non-organic food.
Organic means a lot of other things too, and they all apply as a package deal.
Organic food cant be irradiated even thoughirradiation is totally safe(no, it doesnt make food radioactive).
It cant include genetically modified crops, even though GMO objections arelargely based on misunderstandings.
So you have to take the good with the sometimes nonsensical.
Not to be confused with: Natural, or any wholesome-sounding word other than organic.
Other phrases like contains or good source of dont mean the same thing.
The caveat, of course, is that most things with this label are otherwise junk food.
For example,these cookiesare an excellent source of calcium and iron.
What to do instead?
Flip the package over and look for partially hydrogenated in the ingredients list.
