Can I Eat Healthy in a World of Processed Foods?
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By Darcia Brewer
No other country has embraced the movement toward processed and packaged food as much as the United States. There's nothing inherently evil about packaged foods. It's the nutritional value in them that counts. However, at some point in the last few decades, many Americans have decided to ignore what they are putting in their mouths. Now they are paying the price, not just with their waistlines, but with their health. The Bay Area Senior Advocates (B.A.S.A.) series on nutrition would like you to know how to avoid the negative aspects of processed and packaged food.
I cringe when I hear the term “processed foods”. It brings to mind frozen dinners, meals in a box and other packaged foods that are chock full of sodium, unhealthy fats and additives. But these types of foods are abundant in grocery store aisles – and so convenient! Gone are the days of long ago, when people ate fresh, unprocessed foods cooked from scratch. So, are we doomed to eat unhealthy now?
No – it is feasible to have the best of both worlds – convenience and healthfulness. The first step is to realize that there actually are some benefits to the processing of foods and that not all processed foods are “bad. “ The goals of processing and packaging foods include: preservation, protection from contamination, extended shelf life, convenience and providing information about the product. Any food that has undergone a “change in character “ is considered a processed food. So, this would include healthy foods like whole wheat bread, applesauce, peanut butter, etc. Processed foods, such as iron-fortified breakfast cereals and calcium-fortified orange juice and soy milk, help provide nutrients that otherwise might be low in the diet.
True, there are some processed foods that are meant strictly as an occasional treat or to be avoided altogether. But, a savvy shopper equipped with a few tools and tips, can make healthy choices from the processed foods available.
Follow these tips, when choosing frozen dinners:
- Generally, it’s best to seek out frozen foods with the shortest list of ingredients.
- Check serving sizes, as some popular lines of frozen meals include two servings per package.
- Try to choose a meal that contains no more than 500-700 mg of sodium.
- Try to choose meals that contain at least 3 g of fiber. More is even better.
- For a complete meal, eat your frozen entrée with a small salad, a piece of fruit and a glass of milk or calcium-fortified soy milk.
If healthfulness has been a top priority for you when grocery shopping, you probably are familiar with “tools, “ such as the Nutrition Facts Panel, which gives statements, claims, health symbols or icons on the packaging about nutrition and health benefits. Even with these tools people struggle to understand and apply the nutrition information they see and hear to the choices they make.
Practice healthy skepticism when reading health claims and food labels on food products and remember these following tips:
- Just because a product is fat-free, it doesn't mean that it is “calorie-free. “ Often times a lower-fat or fat-free version of a food may have nearly the same number of calories.
- To label a product as “light, “ the item only needs to contain one third fewer calories than the regular version.
- To qualify as a “ good source, “ a product must contain only 10% of the recommended Daily Value (DV) for the specified vitamin or mineral, which amounts to not much at all.
- A food that is labeled as “trans-fat free” can still contain up to ½ g of trans fat/serving. So, if I eat four servings of this food, I could potentially be consuming 2 grams of trans fat, which is the recommended limit per day from the American Heart Association. If you want to guarantee that a product is really free of these potentially dangerous fats, look at the ingredient list to make sure that “partially hydrogenated oil” is not present.
Remember, it is the total diet or overall eating pattern that is most important in health. It would be pretty difficult to completely abstain from processed foods today. As with everything, moderation in diet planning is wise. Keep the following in mind:
- Choose a variety of foods from within each of the basic food groups (fruits, vegetables, grains, milk, and meat and beans).
- Choose nutrient-dense foods most often (i.e., foods that provide substantial amounts vitamins and minerals and relatively fewer calories)
- Beware of foods that are disguised as health foods, such as granola or energy bars, pita chips, cereal bars, yogurt-covered raisins, banana chips, sugar-free candy, etc.
Darcia Brewer is a Registered Dietician and Contracted & Nutrition Services Coordinator for Area Agency on Aging of Northwest Michigan