How to recognize how healthy food is?

13.04.2023

Food packaging is full of seals, tables and many promises. What is reality and what is ? Here we reveal some keys.

Many people want to eat healthy. That is, at least, what emerges from a report on nutrition from the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Therefore, it is not surprising that food manufacturers label their products with seals, attractive images and statements that suggest to users that they have made a healthy choice by buying a certain product.

However, the number of overweight people and diet-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular diseases, is increasing worldwide, especially in industrialized and emerging countries. That is, in those places where supermarket shelves are full.

What’s going on? Is the information on food packaging misleading? “Often there are no general answers,” says Daniel Wefers, professor of food chemistry at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg.

What does it mean that a food is organic?

The good news is that the foods they carry the “organic” labelThey are really organic. Now, according to Wefers, the real question is what exactly does that mean?

In principle, the word “organic” refers only to the form and method of production. In Germany, there is some laxity in the criteria for labeling a product as organic. For example, the fertilizers and pesticides used or the space they have The animals on the farms vary greatly from one producer to another, and all can carry the organic seal.

On the other hand, the user immediately associates organically grown food with sustainability and environmental protection, as well as a healthier diet. But that correlation “isn’t that simple,” Wefers says.

The power of images

The image of a cow grazing in a green meadow printed on the milk carton and the photo of berries on the wrapper of a fruit bar also reassure us that we have made a good purchase, making us believe that the cow has a nice life and the fruit bar is full of vitamins.

“But if you read the ingredient list carefully, the bar may only contain a small percentage of the advertised fruit,” says Wefers.

The order of ingredients is crucial

The ingredient list provides information regarding how healthy a chocolate hazelnut spread or bar is. First of all, the order in which the ingredients are listed is decisive: “The ingredient that appears first is the one that the product contains in the greatest amount,” Wefers explains.

Hazelnuts are not the main ingredient of the cocoa cream, but the sugar and fat. If the ingredient list says “sugar”, it means table sugar, the so-called sucrose. But sugar is also behind names like lactose or fructose, in fact it hides behind 70 different terms, so it’s hard to determine its total content. The longer the list of ingredients, the more difficult it will be for users to understand what exactly is in the product and in what amount.

The complicated names of additives and a series of numbers beginning with the letter E quickly give us the feeling of being in front of a chemical bomb. However, Wefers reassures us: “Such additives do not make a food bad as peras most are only contained in comparatively small amounts in the product.”

The expert also does not fully understand the concern of some users for an additive such as glutamate. “Glutamate is naturally present in many foods, for example around one percent in Parmesan cheese.” Apart from that there are many additives that are of natural origin.

The best information, in the nutritional table

In the end, it is best to ignore labels such as “no added sugar”, “organic” or “100 percent direct juice”, and focus on other information. “The nutrition table provides the best information on macronutrients,” explains Daniel Wefers.

In it, the total sugar content is given in percentages. In addition, the nutritional table indicates the energy of the product, that is, the kilocalories per 100 grams. Although Daniel Wefer has a hard time making general claims regarding food, one thing is clear to him: “If the fiber content of a food is high, that’s good.” By the way, there is a lot of fiber in vegetables, which does not need images or lists of ingredients to sell itself.

(ms/ers)

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

1. Strawberries

This fruit topped the list of the previous year. Many pesticides are used for its cultivation and also toxic gases before planting. According to the 2023 EWG report, strawberries are more likely to be contaminated with pesticide residues, even following being harvested, rinsed in the field, or washed before eating.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

2. Spinach

A highly recommended nutrient-dense dietary food, spinach has more pesticide residues by weight in its non-organic crops than all other products tested, says the EWG. Three-quarters of the samples tested were contaminated with a neurotoxic insecticide whose use is banned on food crops in Europe, the report says.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

3. Kale, collard greens, and mustard greens

Conventionally grown kale in the US is often contaminated with DCPA, a pesticide considered a possible carcinogen. Although it is no longer used in Europe, in the US it is still used on some crops, such as kale or broccoli. Other green leafy vegetables such as collard greens or mustard greens also have detectable levels of that pesticide.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

4. Peaches or peaches

The EWG reported that 2021 U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed that in 500 conventional fresh peach samples tested, 90 percent had a potential hormone-disrupting pesticide and overall 56 different pesticides.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

5. Pears

The pears analyzed in the study were properly washed before, and despite this, up to 57 pesticides were found in the different samples analyzed. More than the 49 pesticides found in 2016 and much more than the 9 in 2010. Most of the pears observed were grown in the US, not imported from other countries.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

6. Nectarines

At number 6 on this list are nectarines. The most recent data was obtained from more than 46,000 product samples, both imported and domestic.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

7. Apples

The apple is another of the fruits that appears constantly on EWG’s lists. These contain an average of 4.4 pesticide residues, including some in high concentrations.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

8. Grapes

Grapes also retain a large amount of pesticide residue. In the conventional crop products included in the “Dirty Dozen” 2023, 210 pesticides were found.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

9. Peppers

Behind only kale, collard greens and mustard greens, bell and hot peppers had the most pesticides detected, with 101 total.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

10. Cherries

About 90 percent of all cherries tested tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides. This also happened with strawberries, apples, spinach, nectarines and grapes.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

11. Blueberries

The increasingly popular and highly recommended blueberries are new to this year’s list. Although they rank next to last, blueberries still have worrying concentrations of so-called “organophosphate pesticides”, which can damage the human nervous system. These concentrations have decreased in the last decade.

The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides

12. Green beans, beans or green beans

Green beans, like cranberries, made it to this list for the first time. Several green beans tested had residues of the substance acephate, a toxic pesticide, whose use in this food was banned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more than 10 years ago. In general, to reduce exposure to pesticides it is recommended to opt for organic fruits and vegetables.