FitSugar -- Healthy, happy you.

Label Able: Mono- and Diglycerides

FitSugar — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:00:00 -0700

Reading ingredient labels has become a form of entertainment for me, weird I know, but I see a lot of ingredients I have never heard of, let alone can pronounce. I came across an ingredient so bizarre that it requires a hyphen: mono- and diglycerides. This food combination is considered one ingredient and can be found in beverages, ice cream, gum, whipped toppings, margarine, bread, and other baked goods. Just like partially hydrogenated oils, they're everywhere, and that's what makes me suspect.

To find out if they are healthy or harmful

Meet Alpha Tocopherol, aka Vitamin E

FitSugar — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:30:00 -0700

If you eat processed foods, you eat food additives. There really is no way around that fact. Some additives are benign and might even be considered beneficial, while others you might just want to avoid. I recently came across the ingredients alpha tocopherol and wanted to know which side of the line it fell on. Here's what I learned.

Alpha tocopherol is a form of vitamin E that is added to oils to increase their vitamin E content and to prevent the oil from going rancid. It is found naturally in wheat germ oil, leafy greens, and egg yolks. You will find it most commonly added to vegetable oils like sunflower, corn and soybean or in nut butters.

So, although the name sounds intimidating, alpha tocopherol is A-OK to eat.

Source

Label Able: Malic Acid?

FitSugar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:00:00 -0700

Another day of food shopping, another weird ingredient. What in the world is malic acid? I found it on the label of Dannon Fruit on the Bottom yogurt.

It doesn't sound healthy to me, but I may just be thinking this because it also contains high-fructose corn syrup – an ingredient I don't like to find in my yogurt. To find out, just

Should You Avoid Modified Corn Starch?

FitSugar — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:30:00 -0700

When I was checking out all the yogurts at the grocery store to do the yogurt breakdown, in the list of ingredients on many of the containers, I saw modified corn starch. Although it sounds super unappetizing and something I wouldn't want to eat anyway, I'm wondering, is it something that's unhealthy?

To find out

What Exactly Is Maltodextrin?

FitSugar — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:00:00 -0700

You know I love my Cascadian Farm Oats & Honey Granola. I trust this company, and know the food is organic, but what's with the maltodextrin in the list of ingredients? It doesn't sound very natural, so what is it?

If you're curious to know then

Label Able: Carmine

FitSugar — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:30:00 -0700

As I was researching ingredients for the yogurt breakdown, the word carmine was on a few containers. Any idea what this is? You may not want to know.

It's actually a bright-red pigment that's obtained from female scaly insects such as the cochineal. It's used in food, artificial flowers, paints, makeup, and ink. Nice. Just what I wanted to be eating. I'm sorry, but last I checked, the strawberries in my yogurt were red, too. So why do they need to add insect pigment to make it even pinker? I guess they figure it will be more appealing to consumers. I'm sure they'd pass it up though, if they knew what was really in their yogurt. No thanks. I'll stick to foods that are naturally colored.

Fit's Tip: If you're creeped out about consuming pigment made from an insect then you should know that carmine is also called Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470 or E120.

Should You Avoid Carrageenan?

FitSugar — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 09:30:00 -0800

If you're a label reader, and let me tell you I sure am, you might have noticed carrageenan listed as one of the ingredients. When I first saw it listed on a Ben and Jerry's pint (yes, ice cream is OK when eaten in moderation), it brought up a couple of questions for me – What exactly is carrageenan and is it something I should avoid?

Carrageenan is actually extracted from red seaweed, and the name comes from a type of seaweed found growing on the coast of Ireland. It's used as a food additive and sometimes is referred to as kelp extract. It helps to stabilize, thicken, or emulsify dairy products, reprocessed meats (like sausages or beef jerky), dog food, toothpaste, pudding, salad dressings, and even shoe polish.

Carrageenan is a safe ingredient and should not be confused with poligeenan. This is a chemically degraded derivative of carrageenan, which is used for industrial (non-food) purposes. It was improperly named "degraded carrageenan" for a while which gave the true carrageenan a bad name. Research indicates that poligeenan creates unfavorable health effects, but food-grade carrageenan has no known toxicity or carcinogenicity, and is recognized as safe by the FDA.

So go ahead and enjoy foods made with carrageenan, especially Ben & Jerry's (in moderation of course).