Tag Archives | ingredients label

If Cooking Spray Is Made With Oil How Can It Be Calorie Free?

By on September 20, 2011 in Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts, Shopping, Cooking, Baking

There are five different kinds of cooking spray in my kitchen cabinet:  Butter flavor, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Baking, and Professional for high heat cooking.    All say they are for non-stick cooking or baking.  Some say they are for fat-free cooking and baking. The nutrition labels for all five call a serving size a spritz [...]

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Don’t Let An “Organic” Label Pull The Wool Over Your Eyes

By on May 19, 2011 in Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts, Food for Fun and Thought, Shopping, Cooking, Baking

Even though “organic” refers to a method of production rather than nutritional content, an “organic” label can make you believe that food is healthier and tastier. A Cornell University study was designed to test what’s called the “halo effect,” or the theory that people are influenced by how something is described.   The Study The [...]

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A Primer On Reduced, Low, Light, And Free!

By on April 7, 2011 in Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts, Manage Your Weight, Shopping, Cooking, Baking

Do you have a clue what the difference is between reduced fat, low fat, light, and fat free.  You practically have to walk around with a cheat sheet — or an app — to figure out if something actually lives up to the promise on the product’s label. The same thing is true on menus, [...]

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Does The Label On The Front Of The Food Package Tell You The Whole Truth?

By on March 11, 2011 in Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts, Shopping, Cooking, Baking

I was recently helping a client learn how to interpret nutrition and ingredients labels of food products.  He clearly wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of spending the extra time to read labels. It does take time.  But, you don’t have to do it for everything.  It’s particularly important to get a feeling for products that [...]

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How To Figure Out The Carbs On Nutrition Labels

By on March 1, 2011 in Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts, Shopping, Cooking, Baking

Trying to interpret the carbohydrates on nutrition facts labels can be downright confusing.  There’s a number for total carbohydrates but then there are subheadings for dietary fiber, sugars, and sometimes insoluble fiber, sugar alcohols, and other carbohydrates. What Does Everything Mean? Total Carbohydrate, shown in grams, is first. It gives you the total number of [...]

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How Much Do Americans Love Sugar? This Much: 475 Extra Calories A Day

By on December 10, 2010 in Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts, Manage Your Weight, Restaurants, Diners, Fast Food, Shopping, Cooking, Baking, Snacking, Noshing, Tasting, Takeout, Prepared Food, Junk Food

The season of sugar plum fairies, ribbon candy, and sparkly cookies (and even fruit cake)  is upon us.  For about the past ten years we’ve been warned about watching how much sugar we’re eating and we still haven’t really listened. According to the American Heart Association’s nutrition committee, Americans average 475 calories from added sugars [...]

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Are There Veggies In Your Veggie Burger?

By on November 9, 2010 in Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts, Manage Your Weight, Restaurants, Diners, Fast Food, Shopping, Cooking, Baking, Takeout, Prepared Food, Junk Food

I had a Portobello mushroom burger the other day.  The burger was a whole Portobello cap – not ground up stuff that always leaves me wondering what exactly is making up the brown burger shaped thing that I’m eating. Don’t get me wrong – I like veggie burgers – I just don’t like unidentified mixtures [...]

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