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Forget “Fat free”, “Natural” or “Made with real fruit.” Food packages are covered in claims that make you think you’re buying something healthy, but many of those labels are useless to you, the consumer. Here’s how to tell the few helpful labels from their confusing brethren.
100% Whole Grain
Look for: The 100% Whole Grain stamp from the Whole Grains Council
Why: White flour and white rice are missing parts of the original grain (specifically, the bran and the “germ”). Whole grains give you a lot more fiber, and more of certain vitamins and minerals, than their refined counterparts. Foods with the 100% Whole Grain stamp have a full serving of whole grains in each serving of the product.
Caveats: Compare the entire ingredients list before buying, though: sometimes whole grain breads have more sugar (or honey or corn syrup) than their white-flour counterparts. Also, white flours also have more of certain nutrients, because they’re required to be added. This includes folate, a crucially important nutrient for women who might become pregnant.
Not to be confused with: “Multigrain” isn’t the same thing: it means multiple grains, which may or may not be whole. “Made with whole grains” is iffy because there may only be a tiny amount of whole grain per serving. And if you’re looking for whole-wheat bread, beware of the lone word “wheat.” If it’s not “whole wheat,” it’s just another word for refined white flour.
Grass fed
Look for: “Grass fed” or “forage fed” on beef, dairy, bison, and lamb.
Why: Animals that eat grass make healthier fats in their milk and in their meat. The alternative is feeding these animals grain, which makes them grow faster (making grain-fed meat cheaper). Grain feeding is associated with some major health and environmental issues: industrially farmed corn, antibiotic resistance, and spreading of certain harmful bacteria.
Caveats: Grass-fed animals may not be on pasture year-round, especially in areas with cold winters. Meanwhile, chickens and pigs don’t eat grass, so they don’t have an equivalent term.
Not to be confused with: “Pastured” or “pasture-raised” hint that the animal spent time on a grassy field, but these words don’t have a precise legal definition. For chickens and pigs, there really isn’t a more accurate term, so if you’re looking for truly pastured eggs, find out what the producer means: some (like Organic Valley) will explain on their web site.
No Antibiotics
Look for: “Raised without antibiotics” or “No antibiotics administered.” The USDA Organic label also ensures that antibiotics weren’t used.
Why: Meat animals often get antibiotics in their feed, which makes them grow faster for reasons scientists still don’t quite understand. Farm antibiotics have a huge role in creating and sustaining antibiotic resistance, a real and growing problem. Cooking food will kill the bacteria, so the risk to you is small if you use good food handling techniques—but nobody’s perfect.
This is also a public health issue that might find its way back to you: farm workers can be infected with resistant bacteria (and pass them on to other humans), and resistant bacteria can be spread through manure and water runoff. Buying antibiotic-free meat helps encourage farmers and regulators to move away from using antibiotics in livestock. McDonald’s and Costco, for example, are restricting the use of antibiotics in their meat.
Caveats: This label doesn’t tell you anything else about how the animal was raised. Also, it’s sort of irrelevant on egg packages, because laying hens aren’t typically given antibiotics.
Animal Welfare Certifications
Look for: Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane, or American Humane Certified (among others)
Why: This one is more for the health of the animals, and only indirectly for you. For example, chickens raised under these certifications get more space to move around. But many of the certifications prohibit antibiotics or require pasture access, which can affect your health too (for the reasons described above).
Caveats: Each certification is different. This page compares several popular certifications, plus the animal welfare components of USDA Organic, and here is a detailed chart put together by the people who run the Certified Humane program.
Not to be confused with: Each other.
Organic
Look for: Organic, USDA Organic, 100% Organic
Why: Although it’s well known and easy to make fun of (oh, you only feed your toddler organic lentils?), you shouldn’t assume, as some do, that the organic label is completely useless. The term has a very precise definition, and inspections ensure that farmers are complying with the rules that let them use the label.
Food that qualifies as organic ranges from truly sustainable farms to industrial mega-farms that happen to meet the minimum requirements. Some of the requirements are definite good news. For example:
- Synthetic fertilizers can’t be used on organically grown crops (or crops grown as feed for organically raised animals). Synthetic fertilizers are widely used in industrial agriculture, but are pretty bad for the environment.
- Animals are subject to some minimum welfare requirements, so if you can’t find animal products certified by one of the seals mentioned above, but still want to buy that meat, dairy, or eggs, organic is a good second choice.
- Antibiotics aren’t allowed for animals, so it’s another way to ensure you’re not contributing to antibiotic resistance.
Caveats: The benefits of organic food aren’t for you personally; they’re mainly for the environment, animals, and farm workers’ health. That means you don’t need to fear non-organic food. It won’t dose you with harmful levels of pesticides (even if you eat it every day) and it isn’t more nutritious. It’s better for your health to eat any fruits and veggies at all than to pass some of them up because they’re not organic.
Organic means a lot of other things too, and they all apply as a package deal. Organic food can’t be irradiated even though irradiation is totally safe (no, it doesn’t make food radioactive). It can’t include genetically modified crops, even though GMO objections are largely 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. (A group of organic food companies made a funny video lampooning the “natural” label, and it’s pretty much spot on.)
Why This List Is So Short
Foods that boast their health on the front of the package are usually foods that aren’t very healthy to begin with. You’re better off knowing which foods fit your diet, and when in doubt, flip the package over to check what matters to you, such as the macronutrients on the Nutrition Facts label.
With that in mind, I’d like to nominate a few labels for honorable mentions: good ideas behind them, but packages trumpeting these claims should be viewed with suspicion.
“High in” or “excellent source of”: When paired with the name of a vitamin or other nutrient, this label means you’ll get at least 20% of the daily recommended value in one serving. Other phrases like “contains” or “good source of” don’t mean the same thing. The caveat, of course, is that most things with this label are otherwise junk food. For example, these cookies are an “excellent source of” calcium and iron.
Zero grams trans fat: Everybody agrees trans fat seems to be bad for you, but there isn’t a single clear label that will help you avoid it. Paradoxically, anything boasting zero grams trans fat is almost guaranteed to have trans fat in it—just less than half a gram per serving, since that lets the manufacturer round down to zero. (To make things more confusing, some animal products, like butter, contain a small amount of trans fat naturally. This type of trans fat is probably fine for our health, maybe even beneficial.) What to do instead? Flip the package over and look for “partially hydrogenated” in the ingredients list.
There are tons of healthy-sounding labels on food these days, but most of the rest are misleading or arguably meaningless. Think I missed a good one? Let me know in the comments.
Vitals is a new blog from Lifehacker all about health and fitness. Follow us on Twitter here.
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