I've never bothered to read the labels of food I've bought before but now I'm on the lookout for how many grams of saturated fat are in each product, and I've been totally shocked by what I've found so far. I had no idea that a Weight Watchers single portion quiche (on special offer at Co-op, so thought I'd check it out) would have so much fat in it (and the carton proclaims that as it has no crust it's lower in fat - goodness, what was the fat content before then?) Or that Quorn products (of which our Co-op has a woefully poor selection) would be higher in fat (only a little bit, but still) than Cauldron veggie sausages, and Quorn pride themselves on being a low fat product.
Having drawn a near blank in the Co-op, I thought I'd take my hunt for low-fat foods into the health food shop. Now that was a nasty surprise as all the vegetarian meat and cheese substitutes - eg Cheatin' Ham, Cheatin' Pastrami and Sheese (fake cheese) are loaded with saturated fats. Not what I was expecting to find at all.
Nor did I know that low-fat or fat-free yogurts are all stuffed with aspartame, which is horrible stuff, terribly bad for your innards, and gives me an instant migraine. Thank goodness for Rachels Organic low-fat vanilla yogurt which is, very sensibly, made with organic sugar. The delicious M&S fat-free yogurts are likewise quite high calorie,being full of sugar,but are fat-free and a nice alternative to fresh fruit as a dessert.
It's not surprising that my gall bladder has been grumbling of late with all the saturated fats I've been chucking down my neck - and much of it was without me realising too. I can see me fast becoming a bit of a food-label bore but, honestly, I had no idea what was in some of the food I've been eating!!
It does get addictive reading labels. But, what an eyeopener it is especially when you start comparing similar products.
Posted by: sharie | 02/01/2011 at 08:51 PM
It would be nice not to have to do it but everyday food items are so full of rubbish and often dangerous rubbish at that.
Perhaps more of us should make our feelings known. Time to letter bomb the big food companies!
Posted by: Maureen | 02/01/2011 at 11:55 PM
I can't have aspartame for exactly the same reason as you, but have you seen how many items have the stuff in?? It's crazy..
Posted by: outofourtownieminds | 02/02/2011 at 08:41 AM
It can certainly been quite an eye opener, can't it? The ingredient lists of many things make me shudder as well - so many chemically sounding things that I've never even heard of!
Posted by: Caroilne | 02/03/2011 at 12:30 PM