LABELS ===> Are you giving your kids 7 & 1/2 tsp of Sugar for Breakfast?

Are labels really that important?

One word answer... YES!

They tell us what we are eating and how much!!! and sometimes, we honestly have no clue.

Here's some quick information regarding labels and things we all should know about them.





If we look at a label of any food product (in Canada), we should see the following:

It tells us what a serving size is, how many calories are in that serving size and then a break down of the carbohydrates, protein, fat, sugar and sodium, to name a few.

This is VERY important cause you can see the actual break down of the calories, whether the food is higher in Carbohydrates than Protein or if it has a TON of sodium in it for example.

So in this case, we see a serving size is 3/4 of a cup OR 85g if you were using a scale. And that Serving is equal to 310 Calories and only 1.5g of it is from Fat, there is NO Sodium at all, it has 66g of Carbohydrates, and the breakdown of that 66g consists of 8g of Fibre and 3g of Sugar and lastly, there are 11g of Protein.

All good numbers.

The next part of the label reading, is the INGREDIENT LIST!

Something to keep in mind is, the ORDER in which the ingredients appear, is the order of the amount, IN the food item. Meaning, if sugar appears as the first ingredient on the list, that is what it has more of than anything else on that list.

So on this label we have Semolina which is a wheat as the MOST of what is in this product, secondary to that is the oat hull fibre, next chicory root, inulin (a type of fibre) and then vitamins.

If you pull some of the packages in your house, check the labels to see what you have in there...

If you see SUGAR, like in your kid's cereals and foods, something you should be aware of is that, 4g represents 1 teaspoon. So lets say you pull out a box of Lucky Charms, cause that's what your kids like to eat in the morning for breakfast.

It has 10g of sugar on the label (which is 2 & 1/2 tsp of sugar) and MOST kids don't eat a serving... they eat two or three servings, so do the math... 2 servings equals FIVE tsp of sugar for breakfast... 3 servings equals SEVEN & A HALF tsp of sugar for breakfast! That's insane!!! And don't forget the Milk!!! there's sugar in there too.

How many of us moms would actually take a plan, bland cereal and dump 7 & 1/2 tsp of sugar on it and feed it to our kids? NUTS!!!

No wonder we have an epidemic of diabetes and obesity in children!

Here's another eye opener... take a look at the ingredients..

First Ingredient: "Whole Grain Oat Flour".

Second Ingredient: "Marshmallow bits". The brackets are what it contains... "Sugar, modified corn starch, corn syrup, dextrose, gelatin, carbonate, color including tartrazine, sodium hexametaphosphate, artificial flavor).

Third Ingredient: "Low Bran Oat Flour".

Fourth Ingredient: "Sugar AND/OR Golden Sugar" (like they don't know what they put in it?)

Fifth Ingredient: "Corn Syrup"

And we can stop there... the Top 5 Ingredients ARE the most important of most ingredient lists.

Something else to know... if it ends with the word Syrup, its a SUGAR, just in a liquid form, and Corn Syrup is the worst offender!! Its cheap for companies to use and its extremely sweet.

If it ends in "ose"... its a sugar.

And when you are looking at calories and labels... keep this in mind...

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories
Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories

Why is this important?

Which one has more calories? Which one takes more effort to work off, the higher or the lower calories?

You can also use this to break down or understand what calories are from fat, carbs or protein on labels as well, IF it hasn't been included. The % that appears on labels, we can basically ignore it at this point in time... its based on Daily Recommended Averages or Percents.