Your Health Starts in the Shopping Cart: Nutrition Labeling

perform one tolimeHealthy and balanced training is essential to obtain good results at a competitive level as well as to enjoy a good state of health and above all, maintain it over time. But, obviously, to carry out a correct diet, we have to choose a series of alimemoments in the supermarket that allow us to carry out this style oflimentation.

It could therefore be said that the diet starts at the supermarket. But do we know how to buy correctly? For it it is important to know how to read a label properly and to be able to compare it with other options, choosing the most appropriate for our needs.

Below we will present some “tips” to keep in mind at this delicate moment:

1) Read the ingredient list:

Yes, that orange juice has no orange in it!! Or, the bread I buy has everything except flour!! Does it ring a bell? It is quite recurrent, therefore more important than looking at calories or other parameters is cater to product ingredients, which by law They are ordered from greater to lesser presence in the alimento. Ex: Water, orange, pulp and sugar. The main ingredient is water and the least present is sugar.

2) Light, zero, enriched in __, or endorsed by:

the industry tolimentaria wants to sell and to do so she tries to convince the customer of how wonderful her products are. Light does not mean healthier, but rather that it has at least 30% fewer calories than the normal version and zero that does not have sugar.. A priori this seems healthy, but it is usually at the cost of introducing many "undesirable ingredients" such as emulsifiers, sweeteners, preservatives, flavorings, etc.
Another industry strategylimentaria is enrich thelimeunhealthy snacks with nutrients like calcium, iron, or vitamins. That is, I divert your attention from the label of that hyper-sugar shake by putting in the foreground that it has a lot of calcium.
In addition, in this same line they usually obtain endorsements of dubious credibility by official bodies, like those cookies full of saturated fat and recommended by the "X" Association.

3) Carbohydrates and fats:

Neither of the 2 is bad, on the contrary, they are basic in a correct diet. The danger comes when most of those carbohydrates are ADDED sugars and the fats are SATURATED / TRANS.
Clarification: a commercial juice contains sugar but its ingredients are fruit, pulp and water: it is healthy (although it is always better to make it at home, or above all, choose a piece of fruit instead of the juice). That is, it is intrinsic sugarlimento, it has not been added artificially, so it is not harmful. However a soft drink takes added (harmful) sugar, not naturally present in the alimento.

4) Caloric value:

It is important, but less so than the ingredients or the quality of the food.liment. That is, a zero soda does not provide calories and a piece of fruit does. Do you think it is healthier? Obviously not, therefore It's not about counting calories, but about paying attention to what nutrients and ingredients provide you with those calories..

5) Salt:

We will choose the options with the least amount of salt, especially in hypertensive patients. If we consumelimenatural elements we should not worry too much, since most of the salt we consume comes from processed products, for example of that super healthy puree that you just have to heat in the microwave.

6) Fiber:

It is an important nutrient in thelimeDaily nutrition but with adequate consumption of fruits and vegetables should be more than enough. Except for special fiber needs, it is not necessary to consumelimeWhole-grain or high-fiber foods if you eat a proper diet. Also ... Did you know that an excess of fiber hinders the absorption of calcium and iron?
We hope we have made you aware of the importance of reading well what we buy since in the long run it can make the difference between health and illness, between lowering your marks or leaving at a supply station, between the healthy growth of your children or the presence of pathologies in childhood. .

Text to 42K of :

Ismael Martinez Garcia

Dietitian-nutritionist

Dietitian - Nutritionist from the University of Valencia. Master in Nutrition in performance in endurance/ultra-resistance sports from the Spanish Academy of Nutrition. Collegiate number CV00678 in the College of Dietitians and Nutritionists of the Valencian Community
Diet Valencia

Other entries by Ismael Martínez García

• What to eat after a race
• Gastrointestinal problems, risk factors and solutions
• The risk of dehydration in running