When you do your food shopping do you understand the labels or wonder what they mean? When you see a red label do you know it is higher in sugar/fat/salt but not realise how high? At the moment the latest news is about reducing sugar but are you finding it difficult to decide what is too much and do you find food labels confusing?
If so then our good old NHS has the perfect app that you just scan a label when you are shopping and hey presto all the info is there which is great news as you can make an informed decision (as opposed to a confused guess!).
This video runs through the sequences that you can swipe through once you have scanned an item. You will be able to see the sugar/fat and salt content of the entire package, a *recommended portion size and 100g size.
The App visually represents sugar content as cubes is a great way of making grams make sense in the real world.
Essentially approximately 4g of sugar is equal to 1 sugar cube/teaspoon.
There are 25 cubes/teaspoons in 100g of sugar.
*Pay careful attention to the portion sizing as the manufacturer’s portion size may be vastly different to yours. If this is the case then it may be worth experimenting by weighing your portion and comparing it to the 100g amount.
After you have got over the shock of seeing how much sugar there is in this example of Kellogg’s Pop TartsFrosted Chocotastic pack take a look at the amount of saturated fat there is. Scary!
This saturated fat is the stuff that clogs up your arteries and it doesn’t include fat in the form of palm oil which makes up the remainder of fat in this product.Whilst we are on the subject of scary things, the salt is pretty shocking too and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t think of sprinkling your food with that amount.
To keep it real I’ve taken a photo of what 30g looks like. The dish is not huge and the cereal did look rather forlorn!
30g is not a massive amount of cereal and if this is all you ate for your brekkie (113 calories) plus milk you would no doubt be feeling pretty hungry quickly. Whilst having a bit of a reality check, let’s be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that the amount we pour is more likely to be nearer the 100g mark which is 4.3 cubes of sugar or 17g
All-in-all, trying to find out what we are eating and the effects it has on our bodies is confusing. Have a look through the links below for further information. If this blog raises your label awareness and you download the App I believe your life and children’s lives will be healthier for it. It costs nothing.
Happy Shopping!
Download the App here (iTunes) FOOD SCANNER iTUNES – or here: FOOD SCANNER ANDROID
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