Be your own food detective

Hi! We are getting straight to business tonight...

I know I have taught you some key tools (ie. label lingo, prepackaged meal labels) in label reading to help you in choosing your healthy, smart snacks...so now it's time to put them to work. Yes, be your OWN food detetctive- decode your food label and figure out what heck it is that your eating!




Take this jar of pickles for instance...

Smart Snacker vs. Pickles

I like to pick at pickles here and there (who doesn't?) because they are low cal and delicious, of course! Well, the other day I was decoding the label and yes they are in fact low cal (2 spears or slices [in my case] = 10 calories)...

Smart Snacker- 1  Pickles- 0

Come to find out [if I glance down a couple rows and HOLY COW] the sodium reads 420 mg per serving! So yeah yeah do the math; you snack on 5 of those puppies in a sitting [or throughout the day] and how about you've racked up a whopping 2100 mg of sodium!

Smart Snacker- 1 Pickles-1

That smart snacker hates to have a tie :(

I have mentioned sodium quite a bit...check out some of the guidelines set by the American Heart Association to see where you should aim for your daily sodium intakes to be based on your personal needs and conditions.


Have you played detective and decoded a frightening find too? please share :)