Well, welcome to lecture 10. on how to shop and read labels. This is a very important one because what crosses your lips has lasting effects in many ways. And a lot of times if you're out to sell something, you don't get the whole picture. I just recently bought a used car that it was quite obvious. The person or persons that sold it to me did not look underneath it, because within a few thousand a few hundred miles actually had to buy all new tires. So you're not always told everything when you purchase something.

So learning how to shop and read labels is absolutely essential for your long term quest for optimal health. I got to tell you a story first. This happened a few years ago I was presenting in San Francisco for a large group of doctors and on the way home. I happen to sit next to one of the people there was a The audience when I lectured, she recognized me introduce yourself. She was a very well defined articulate, middle aged woman with a metal degree from Harvard. well rounded as our conversation revealed she was involved with a number of things, including being a mom full time medical practice.

She was a researcher. There was no question in my mind talking with her that her IQ is as high as the planes current cruising altitude. I mean, this woman was bright and just really sweet. When we were approached by the stewardess as to our choice of in flight beverage, see quickly stated that her choice would be a healthy choice. And then she pointed me sad because she was sitting next to me. Right.

She therefore, chose an orange juice, thinking it was healthier than her admittedly customary brand of soda pop. Though I thought this would be a great opportunity to find out from an intellect from Harvard. Physician of all things why she considered orange juice a healthy alternative to pop her answer exactly what I expected as vitamins in it, and the label says it's healthy. The rest of our conversation, then focus on food and drink labels, and the absolute need to know the purpose, all the little caveats and how they can be so easily misunderstood. Those labels are not there to give you information. They're there to sell things.

So I the way I look at it if a Harvard trained physician can misinterpret him, so could the rest of us. So let me start and review labels for you. But before I do, I want to cover some simple things, three of them to be exact, on how to shop for your in your quest for optimal health. And the first and foremost is the layout of most stores. I would say almost every food store out there has a very similar layout. And if you think about it, close your eyes and mentally walk Walk into your local grocer.

Take a hard right and just walk on the outside of the store. What do you see? You see the fruits and vegetables the lean meat, the dairy, eggs, milk, fat free yogurt, low calorie cheese, you find the frozen vegetables and frozen lean meats like chicken breasts. You see the beer out there? Oh no, I didn't say that. You see everything else you might desire on the outside there.

If you shop the periphery, the center of the store has all the process calorie dense, high sugar stuff with all the water, air and fiber removed. This stuff will be around to feed the cockroaches after the nukes hit Trust me. In general, it's not the best stuff in the world. Now I'm not criminalizing it. As you've heard me say throughout this whole series. There's no such thing as a bad food.

There's just bad diets. Nor am I saying you can never go in the center aisles for some lucky charms. I happen to love lucky charms. I'm speaking in generalities and the big picture as I hope you recall by now also very wise is to try to buy foods in season no matter where you live in the world, they could be found in season now. Things like Amazon and deliveries and stuff have kind of changed that were much smaller global community with technology, but there's still certain meats and obvious fresh fruits and vegetables from your local farmers that are not only a great benefit to you when but when in season they're much cheaper. And that's very important because the eat healthy is expensive.

And that's a simple way to few save a few bucks. But at the same time, hold fast to the recommendations that all fruits and vegetables are yours to eat enjoy. So while on the topic saving money if you're able to try to buy in bulk and stick to store brand, can and packaged goods are a lot nicer to the wallet than a lot of the big name brand stuff. name brand identicals to be exact. The third thing on when and how to shop is your condition when You go to the food store. Now I'm not going to tell you how to dress or how to do your hair here.

I want to make a few suggestions about your belly. Now make sure it is well fed when you go to the store never go to the store hungry. When you shop with your friend Mr. or Mrs. appetite, you tend to purchase a lot of things that not only did you not need, but they're also things that are usually very chloric, dense sugar and fat filled. These incidentals cost you money as well. I've read a couple articles that suggested savings up to $30 a shopping trip by the simple act of going to the store with a full belly. So again, if you do one of the 12 steps if you plan ahead, you want to plan your meals ahead of time go in buy what you need leave but going with a full belly.

Shop the periphery by the foods and seasons, especially the fresh fruits and vegetables and you will not only save your health but you're going to save a lot of money. So let's kind of dive into labels here. These are absolutely essential if you choose to eat anything that you did not grow yourself, shoot or kill yourself or catch yourself, you have to understand labels. So we're going to go right down this list serving size, serving per container, calories per serving nutrient amounts, nutrient percentages, daily values, and lists of ingredients by weight here. Let's start at the top of the food label we find serving size. Now this is the amount of food that is referenced in the rest of the label.

It's not the amount of food in the package. So after reviewing this, go directly below and find servings per container. You must take servings per container and multiply it by the serving size to find out how much food the package actually contains. That's very important. Because as I've talked about in previous lesson plans in this series, we tend to underestimate how much we eat. So give me let me give an extra Let's say I bought a box of crackers and the serving size is two crackers, and there's 40 servings, the actual amount of food is at crackers.

Now that's a very subtle way to hide the total amount of calories in the box of crackers I just demolished. Those of us obsessive enough to keep track without regards to this little label labels, some subtlety, your total caloric intake would be greatly underestimated that's sort of mentioned we just can't estimate how much wheat everything below this on the label is the amount of substance for that serving size, and you must keep that fact in mind while reviewing the food label. Next on the list as we work our way down is calories per serving. This tells us how many calories are in two crackers, not how many calories are in the package of 80 crackers. This is yet just another way hundreds of calories creep into our diets if we're not aware of it. Now reviewing nutrient amounts per serving and daily percent, or percent daily value, excuse me.

If you're looking at the label, this is the stuff in the middle labels are required to list the amount of fat saturated fat, trans fats, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, including sugar and fiber. And finally, protein. These numbers are also listed in terms of serving size, so you must multiply the value by the number of servings in the container. So for example, if the amount of sugar listed is seven grams, and there are six servings per container, there is actually 42 grams of sugar in the box bottle or whatever stuff they're calling food. Right? The Percent Daily values are based on a 2000 calorie day diet and honestly, are of no use to us.

Really, they aren't. They do nothing more than cause confusion and avoidance of the label reading in my opinion, it's a way to get people not to read them, because that percent sign brings back childhood fears of early arithmetic classes. And if you're not gifted in math, well why the heck are you gonna figure that out? Thank you percentages Good grief, it's difficult to think in percentages as it is. So as you continue down the list, we see the following nutrients listed as percent daily values and they cover vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. These two are likely of no use to you, unless you need medication for your OCD some labels, then list the ingredients by weight in the container.

So the first item listed is the most abundant item. Now this is especially important when the first ingredient was such as high fructose corn syrup, if you know what I'm saying. So look at that first thing. Listen, if it's a word you cannot pronounce, or it seems like a chemical name, or it's some form of sugar, that's probably a container or a box. You want to put right back up on the shelf. Now we need to talk about how smart marketers are.

If you have a now a deeper understanding on how to decipher what's been for you and your family while wandering through the grocery store, you got to understand this caveat you must get past the claims on the front because most of them are very eye catching. It will take the next few slides to briefly review some of the more popular buzzwords used to encourage you to purchase a product and what they really mean much to all of us shoppers chagrin, we will still apply mathematics to determine the actual amount of stuff being sold to us and therefore, how much my family and I are going to eat. And most people are aware that calories have something to do with health. So the food industry will broadcast sales pitches that include words like low calorie, which means 40 calories or less per serving. Recall, if you will, the need for some math, I mentioned that serving size times number of servings in the package to determine what that claim really means.

So I'll give you another example. If a food item has 40 calories per serving, and it's called low calorie because of that, and there are 10 servings per day entertainers, we have a 400 calorie food item. Wait a minute, where's our low calorie advertising anymore? It's gone. Another one is reduced calories. I love that one.

That simply means that the number of calories in this container is 25% less than the original container. So they may have two packages one is regular and strength one is reduced calories. That's only that's good unless the original product was 1000 calories to begin with right kind of by 25% still means you're getting a lot of calories. calorie free. Guess what calorie free means it still has calories usually around five calories or less per serving. First grade math should be applied here that make you realize that calorie free does not mean zero.

Some other things I have to apologize for it looks like I left a curse word up on my slides there the word Fat Fat for some reason was feared and dreaded word in the English language. Thoughts visuals and connotation is wordy. No explanation is use most certainly, you know what, what thoughts and images come to mind when I say the word fat? Well, the food industry banks on that the instant they mentioned low fat or no fat, they have purposely implied that this product is not only safe, but healthy for you. You then reflexively buy it in droves and eat it at with the piece of knowledge that you're going to once again, eat something safe without comprehension of any health harm or weight issues. So I'm going to avoid telling you all the benefits of fat because we already cover that in a previous lesson.

So I'm going to stick with labels here when the food advert industry advertises low fat, it means three grams or less of fat per serving. If there are 10 servings per container, you have 30 grams of fat. Now let's bring calories into it. Remember, there's nine calories per gram of fat so this low fat container has 200 and 70 calories of fat. Simply put, low fat does not mean low calorie. Not to mention the fact that calories from all the added sugar to make up for the lack of taste due to the removal of fat are also involved, but are not included in the above count calculation I just gave you.

When a food container says no fat or fat free, it has to have 0.5 grams of fat or less per serving. Once again, simple math dictates that that's not really fat free. Sugar happens to be listed the same way if it's sugar free. In my head, it must have 0.5 grams of sugar or less to be considered sugar free. But again, that does not mean zero sugar. I got to interrupt my little presentation here and tell a great story.

This is this I love this one. As we're talking about the dangers and the need to expose and interpret these labels. It was a nuisance A few years ago that brought to class example this misinterpretation. It seems a crazy creamy hazelnut spread called natella settled a lawsuit brought against him by a mother who was misled by the fact that hazelnut delight, claimed it was part of a nutritious breakfast. When this inquisitive Mother Mother, learned that the creamy spread was as healthy as playing and traffic, likely by reading and understanding the label if I may, she went after the natella company maker Ferraro and walked away to the tune of $3 million. So why am I telling you the story?

It's not to encourage lawsuits by any means, but rather reiterate the importance of understanding what's written on the box, jar bag or container of the things about to cross your lips. This story demonstrates the fact that these companies are in the business to sell you products. Not watch your back front or mid line. You know what I mean? of a stranger walked up to you and your child on the street and handed your kid would have appeared to be food, one that he claimed was safe. Would you let your child eat it?

I didn't think so. Now I will continue to review our labels with similar pitches such as high end healthy good source of and hopefully I'll have not have anything to say about a nutritious breakfast next Sunday morning with natella. So anyway, back to Kappa captivating labels, more catchy words, some of the more classic sales pitches you read on cereal boxes, for example, one of my favorites is healthy. Okay, if someone says it's healthy for some reason, we think oh, it must be good for you. It's healthy. Now for a package to claim it's healthy.

It must be low in fat, trans fat, saturated fat and cholesterol has to be low in sodium with at least 10% daily values with for vitamin A, vitamin C iron, calcium, protein and fiber. And as I told you in the last couple slides, this really means nothing. It's a marketing pitch nothing more. A good source of fun follows the same suit. It states the so called food provides at least 10% of the daily value of a particular vitamin or nutrient per serving. The catch high end tends intends that food provides at least 20% of the daily value of a particular vitamin or nutrient per serving.

The one I get the biggest chuckle from is the term light. If you see the word light and bright, bold colors on our food, we immediately assume that it means not heavy, or what does not heavy mean it means thin, or maybe inconsequential. So immediately our brains go Oh, it's light. That means I'll be lighter. I'm thinner, we put all those words together, our brains have an amazing way to change the meaning by based on the word and I think that marketing gurus out there know this very well. So this of course, frees us to get a lot of this.

Whatever light food it may be, because we feel it's safer for us. However, what it means is the food is actually one third, the calories are the original, or one half the fat or the original, or the sodium is cut by 50% compared to the original product, or, and this one is going to blow you away, it could simply imply it's a lighter texture color than the original. That's right. If your eyebrows just went to the top of your head, they change the color of the product and planted visions of slender in your head by calling it light. Pretty smart. Finally, in this short series on labels, let's talk about supplement labels.

Because some labels we take something to be healthy, right? It's supplements our diet, we want them to be healthy. It's very important to understand those and let me just give you a little background on supplements. They got really their big break in 1994 when President Clinton at the time passed the free and fair supplement act, but besides giving some recommendations first Safety that act helped to define supplements as a product intended to supplement the diet, not replace a diet the supplement and that it has one or more of the following must have a vitamin mineral in it an herb or other botanical and amino acid or another ingredient intended to again supplement the diet by increasing the total dairy dairy intake of that particular item. It also stated, it is a dietary supplement must be in the form of a tablet, capsule or liquid. It may not stimulate or simulate excuse me simulate a food or represent a total meal.

That being said let's review from top to bottom a typical supplement label. There are some familiar areas with food labels included serving size, units of measure in milligrams or micrograms and international units are IU. They have a percent daily value that's a double Asterix in place to the Have the daily value means that the daily value for those ingredients has not been established. So if you see that double asterisks, they just don't know. Some unique components of supplement labels include other ingredients. This list contains substances that do not directly contribute to the nutrients daily value that could be in it usually as a preservative, or other and others we don't know.

There's also a section that says note and OTP. The notes section usually serves to warn consumers of potential adverse effects. Most people are aware of supplements are not under the Eagle Eye of the FDA and unlike pharmaceutical based products, you really never hear a problem about them until there's a problem and find there's usually a directions in the supplement label. And that is occasionally misunderstood how the tablet capsule or liquid is to be used. So I'll leave that one to your imagination what happens there so really, if not is half the battle than the fight to lose weight and maintain health you cannot accomplish that without understanding what crosses your lips, I would really encourage you to review and watch this presentation a couple times again and again while you're holding a can or a box or something with the label on it, so you can really dig into it and understand it so you know how to quickly glance at a label next time you shop in the right condition.

Remember shopping the periphery, shopping in season and shopping while your stomach is full. So, till next time, we are going to hopefully again, review this presentation one more time. review it closely and listen to it because it really will provide you with some powerful information and tools for when you shop. Next we're going to cover the difficult task of surviving holidays parties and office goods