Don't Believe Everything the Product Packaging Tells You
By law, manufacturers must list the product's ingredients on the packaging. As consumers striving for health, we must read the list and know what's inside the product.
- ד"ר רינה מורדו
- פורסם ט"ז שבט התש"פ

#VALUE!
Today I was shopping at one of the chains, and right by the entrance, in the baskets that greeted me, there were rice cakes coated with yogurt.
It seems like the peak of health, and even diet-friendly, right? It turns out that's far from the truth.
Read this article, and don't be misled.
In the past, we chose food based on considerations such as price, taste, and convenience. In recent years, we select based on calorie value if we want to maintain our figure. But it's time to check the nutritional value, which we discover through food labels.
Anyone who wants to adhere to a healthy diet and know what they're adding to their shopping cart and home, and what they're putting into their and their family's bodies, needs to learn to read food labels.
The food label is essentially the product's identity card.
By law, manufacturers must list the ingredients on the packaging, and we, the consumers, must read the list and know what's inside the product in our pursuit of health.
The problem is that if we're not familiar with the terms, we can get confused and be swayed by color and packaging. They might subconsciously convince us that the product is healthy when it's far from it.
For example, many pastries like breads or crackers are wrapped in oats or flaxseed, painted brown, and convey health. They will also contain the wording "Made from whole grains." But don't be fooled: it's often mostly white flour with a small amount of whole grain flour.
To ensure you're buying a product that truly contains whole wheat, check that it states "100% whole wheat," or examine the ingredient list to see if whole flour appears as one of the first ingredients.
The descending order in which ingredients appear shows the primary ingredient in the product, with the first on the list being the main one, and the last being in the smallest quantity.
If you're looking to buy natural juice, check what's at the top of the list: is it fruit juice, or perhaps water with extracts and color with sugar, and only a small amount of fruit concentrate?
Another seemingly innocent deception is yogurt "with a mild sweetness." If you look at the food label, you'll understand that the difference in calorie count isn't significant.
Look at the label, and check the position of sugar in the food. It will reveal a lot.
Nutritional labeling helps understand the nutritional content of food in terms of calorie value, fat content, proteins, sodium, and other nutritional elements.
Avoid consuming:
* Food products with a long list. The product is less natural and less healthy.
* Foods listed with preservatives, sugars, sweeteners, emulsifiers, vegetable oils, and many E. This burdens your body with many toxins.
* If the product contains hardened fats, skip it, or at least it's important to know what that innocent term means. It's usually palm oil, often used in the food industry, and it clogs arteries.

Optional Labels: Describing Nutritional Content
Manufacturers can add verbal descriptions of nutritional composition or the presence of certain nutritional elements to food labels, with preliminary descriptions such as "Free...", "No...", "Low...", "Very low in...", "Reduced...", "Light", "Diet", etc. What does this truly mean?
Without – The product does not contain the specified substance from the outset.
Free – The substance has been removed from the product during production.
Low Calorie / Diet: A low-calorie solid food will contain no more than 40 calories per 100 grams of food.
Low-calorie soft drink contains no more than 20 calories per 100 ml drink
Low Cholesterol – Contains no more than 30 mg of cholesterol per 100 grams of food.
Low Sodium – Contains no more than 100 mg of sodium per 100 grams of food.
"Gluten-Free" – The product does not contain gluten found in the five grains.
Sit tight, don't fall
Even in salty snacks there's a lot of sugar. Although it’s a salty snack, it's high not only in salt... but also in sugar. Even in seemingly healthy products, there's a lot of sugar. Check the labels.
In Israel, there’s no separation between added sugar and sugar naturally present in a product (in the case of rice cakes, for example, sugar is present in the rice).
Rice also breaks down into sugar. Therefore, divide the total carbohydrates by 4. Look at the amount of carbohydrates on the label: 1 teaspoon of sugar = 4 grams of carbohydrate
If it says, for example, on rice cakes with yogurt coating, that they contain 66.4 grams of carbohydrates, it means there are 16.5 teaspoons of sugar in the product, which will cause triglycerides in the blood to rise, and sugar levels to increase.
One unit has about 77 calories, but honestly, who stops at one?
And in 100 grams of the product, there are 472 calories, so how did you think the product was dietetic?
Don’t believe what they are trying to sell you. Read food labels correctly, look at the ingredients and the nutritional values of the product, and you will know what you are truly adding to your shopping cart and your body.
Want to know more about my method and learn how to really lose weight? Sign up for the Smart Diet workshop at the Jewish Campus.
Dr. Rina Mordo, Ph.D, is a nutrition coach incorporating the subconscious and NLP.