An old adage says “We eat with our eyes”. That’s why food manufacturers pay special attention to the images on processed food packages. A new website called Food in Real Life does a great job at exposing the real world version of the product versus what you think you’ll get. (thanks consumerist, for the hat tip)
What you need to know:
Freshly cooked food looks fresh, and tastes fresh. When something is prepared for a long shelf life, there’s no way it can look so good. Or taste as good as it looks. That’s where additives, artificial and natural flavors, and plenty of salt come in handy.
No thanks, we’ll prepare our own food.
What to do at the supermarket:
Our suggestion is to invest the time in learning to prepare food at home. It’s less convenient, it takes time, but at the end of the day, it’s cheaper, healthier, and can become a family bonding activity.
Once upon a time, people ate real food. Food that grew or was raised near their homes, and then prepared at the home. It may have been bland and boring to eat the same food over and over, and it certainly demanded a lot of work, but people intimately knew what was on their plate.
Then came trade and technology and progress and lots of great things happened in the world, including access to new foods and spices and flavors. Refrigerators and freezer and microwave ovens and TV Dinners followed. And fast food, and food science with additives and preservatives and busy families that forgot what it means to prepare a meal by cooking it from scratch.
For a while, the abundance led to great things. People were not hungry anymore. They lived longer. They could spend time on other things rather than food preparation.
But as a society we took things too far.
And the results of abandoning our kitchens are evident all around us. The “food” we consume today is making us live shorter lives than we potentially could. We are consuming too many food-like products and too little real food. So we try to educate ourselves on nutrition and nutrients and what to eat and what not to eat. We buy diet books and diet products.
And in the last few years, we are buying more and more functional foods. Manufacturers don’t want us to stop buying their products, and so the big trend is dressing up these pretend foods with a healthy image. This is done by adding vitamins to soft drinks, calcium to ice cream, and various other fortifications that create a health halo for products that are mere snacks.
The industry calls these products “nutraceuticals” or “functional foods.” Critics say they could lead people to consume too much of certain nutrients, plus too many calories and fats.
New York University food scientist Marion Nestle calls them “calorie distractors.”
“Functional foods are about marketing, not health,” she said. “They delude people into thinking that these things are healthy,” and they often eat more than is wise, she said.
What to do at the supermarket:
Don’t get fooled or confused by slick packaging and health claims. The more you cook and prepare meals at home, the healthier you’ll eat. The less processed your raw materials, the more nutritious your meals. And the more water you drink instead of all the vitamin/energy/soft drinks, the better off your wallet and your body will be.
Very healthy! Or at least that’s what new research, sponsored by ConAgra, has shown. Here’s the press release:
ConAgra Foods announced today new research that shows people who ate Healthy Choice(R) really did get healthier. Participants in the 24-week study, on average, lost 18 pounds – all as fat – trimmed their waistlines by about three inches, and lowered their cholesterol by 12 points. Leading cardiologist Dr. James Rippe, founder and director of the Rippe Lifestyle Institute, led the research team that conducted the study, which was presented during the 2009 Experimental Biology Conference April 18-22 in New Orleans, La.
Excuse us while we scratch our heads. How can The Rippe Institute conduct a truly objective study when it is being heftily paid by a company with a vested interest in a specific outcome?
Reading into the study, the people eating Helthy Choice got healthier because they were forced to excercise, eat only fruits, vegetables, lean meat and dairy, and whole grains. Oh, and one Healthy Choice meal once a day. How can the weight loss be attributed specifically to the frozen meal?
This press release is part of a huge rebranding of the Healthy Choice empire, including the introduction of new products, reformulation of some existing lines, and new packaging. ConAgra is estimated to be spending close to $100 million on this effort, including National TV Ads starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and web activities.
What you need to know:
While frozen dinners have made some headway over the past few years in terms of nutritional content, they still lag far behind home made food on several fronts:
1. high levels of salt – in the clip above, Julia Louis Dreyfus is stuffing herself silly with Sweet Asian Potstickers containing 600mg of sodium. That’s a quarter of the daily maximum value.
2. high levels of sugar – 19 grams or 4 teaspoonfuls. Hey, is this dessert?
3. too many ingredients* – here’s what’s inside the Sweet Asian Potstickers:
To be fair, most of the list above is actually understandable, and there are no freaky additives or preservatives in this dish. So when the food scientists want to, they can dish out healthy fare…
* We could not find the ingredient information on the Healthy Choice website. The customer support group did reply promptly to our email, though.
What to do at the supermarket:
If you really really can’t prepare your own food, and must grab something from the Frozen Dinner Aisle, take a look at health brands such as Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine first. The brand does not automatically promise you’ll get a nutritious dish, but it improves the chances.
Proceed to check the ingredient list, scanning for unpronounceable chemicals, and then look at the sodium count. It should be in the neighborhood of 400-500mg or less. The sugar count should be lower than 12 grams. Usually the calorie count will be decent, because manufacturers know that’s the only number most people look at.
Shocking but true - the average American eats 6 frozen meals a month.
The first TV dinner appeared in 1953 under the Swanson brand as a solution for busy moms who had begun joining the workforce and could no longer spend hours in the kitchen preparing daily meals. The dinner included turkey, corn bread and gravy, buttered peas and sweet potatoes. It cost $0.98.
This was the beginning of a revolution. Combining an entree and two sides in a three part aluminum container that could be heated, eaten from, and then discarded proved to be a great convenience for consumers.
Imagine your great great grandmother stepping into a supermarket today. How many products would she recognize? Aside from the produce, meats, some bread and dairy, what would she think of all the packaged foods? What about cardboard boxes, plastic trays in huge freezers, and cans as far as the eye can see? Frozen pizzas, 50 kinds of potato chips, an entire aisle for breakfast cereal, Instant this, instant that?
What would granny say? Heaven or hell? Treat or trick?
Granny could say that this is an absolute god send. Finally she can detach herself from the kitchen. Instead of cooking 4 hours a day, she is now free to start a career, engage in hobbies, and spend more quality time with her children. Coming home from work, she’ll pop the frozen “meat n’ potatoes” meal into the microwave, infatuated with an oven that prepares food in 2:30 minutes.
But then would come the taste test. Would this meal pass? After all, granny has eaten home cooked fare all her life?
Taking a closer look at the package of her “breakfast cereal”, would granny read the ingredient list and nutrition label? What would she think are high fructose corn syrup, yellow 5, BHT? Would she understand how vital omega-3 is to her well-being? Or would she just dig for the plastic toy at the bottom of the bag?
The comforts of our modern life are fabulous. A supermarket stocked with 40,000 food items from every corner of the world is an amazing achievement for humanity. Being able to choose from so many eating options with such ease would seem inconceivable just 100 years ago. The food industry should be commended for constantly growing the selection of products we can buy and providing us with such convenience.
However, many of the items in the supermarket are not what granny would call “real food”. And there’s a price our body is paying when we mindlessly fill our carts and mouths with overly processed foodstuff that she wouldn’t recognize.
So next time at the grocery store, take a look at what you’re buying. When you reach for the sugary cereals, frozen meals, and snacks, take a minute to see what’s inside the box. Perhaps a better, healthier choice is on the shelf nearby. Try to find products less processed, with fewer ingredients. Buy fresh and process the food yourself, in the kitchen, the old fashioned way.
Yes, you’ll have to spend time preparing your dinner. No, it’s not as convenient as heating up a ready meal. But it’s healthier and tastier (beginners – find someone to help you cook). Will you notice a difference in your wellness this week or next? Probably not. But let’s meet again in 20 years…
PS – Happy Halloween everyone. Enjoy the bounty of tonight’s neighborhood follies, and be thankful for the abundance, variety and choice we are offered in this great country. (Hmm…That’s also a good ending for the upcoming Thanksgiving post.)
1. Before going to the supermarket, make a shopping list. And then stick to it. Market research shows that 1 in 2 products in our shopping carts are an impulse buy. Many times these are not items we really need. Supermarkets are designed to lure us to into buying more more more in the 24 minutes we spend on average roaming the aisles. The enticements during our seven minute wait at the checkout counter are also unnecessary most times, yet expensive at all times.
2. Stop buying soft drinks! Hard to imagine, but you really are paying a lot of money for carbonated water mixed with food coloring and heaps of high fructose corn syrup. On average every man woman and child consumes over 50 GALLONS of soft drinks annually. A family of 4 switching to tap water can save over $500 a year! Go ahead, drink a glass of water and watch your piggy bank swell with pride. I this is too drastic, at least switch to 100% fruit juice.
3. Drastically cut down on sugary, salty, and fatty snacks. Limit yourself to 2 or 3 items per grocery trip. If your children protest, practice a revenue share model with them – for every dollar in grocery bills saved, they keep 50 cents.
4. Switch from brand name products to store brands. Whether frozen foods, dairy, staples, or canned goods, a store brand is usually just as tasty and nutritious, but costs 10-25% less.
5. Use coupons. Wisely. Don’t buy a year’s worth of canned prunes to save a dollar when the last time you had prunes was at your grandma’s birthday in 1993.
6. Shop less. Plan your shopping trips for once a week at most. Those short trips to the grocer for one item usually end up with many more items in your shopping bag.
7. Eat more homemade food, even out of the home. Prepare sandwiches for lunch; or bring leftovers in a Tupperware dish to heat in the office microwave.
8. Don’t throw away food. Bananas gotten too mushy? Toss into the blender, add milk honey, and ice cubes to get a wonderful smoothie. Stale bread? Check out some bread pudding recipes.
9. Go meatless a day or two a week. To some this may sound like an abomination, but statistically, vegetarians are healthier and live longer. For protein on your off days, try different types of beans, tofu, lentils, quinoa, and grains, with plenty of vegetables and fruits. Add nuts and seeds to salads, sauces and desserts.
10. Learn to cook. Cooking is NOT heating a canned soup or nuking a TV Dinner in the microwave. Really cook. you’ll be surprised how easy it is to prepare healthier and cheaper a tomato based pasta sauce when you do it yourself. Have the kids join and help you. There’s no shortage of recipe websites today, some include video tutorials.
NEW! Choose a better breakfast with CerealScan™ mobile app! Scan a cereal box barcode. See what's really inside. Select healthier alternatives. more info...
Healthify your supermarket choices.
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