“Is this food healthy?” When it comes to packaged fare on shop shelves, in particular, this is one of the hardest questions for most people to answer, even tougher in the dash to stock up for the holidays. Which is why research showing that price is the guiding light for most us isn’t that surprising. Cheap food is unhealthy, expensive is good. Right?
Wrong, at least as a universal law. Weighing up what’s good for us is tough. There are so many factors to consider, which isn’t helped by conflicting opinions and information. Deciding what is good for you is likely to depend upon your own health, general nutritional requirements, priorities and needs at that time.
All foods carry some risk. Everything can be eaten to excess – . Similarly, all foods can have some benefit, even if it is just as a cheap source of readily available calories. Judging whether a food is “healthy” is a minefield of confusing and contrary messages and everyone struggles, including skilled professionals.
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Could labels on food packaging help? All manufactured food must carry detailed nutritional information on the front of the pack, clearly showing calories and levels of key nutrients such as salt, sugar, fat and saturated fat.
Impractical calculations
So when choosing, all you need to do is remember the percentage levels of all the key nutrients shown in the labels, carefully monitor how much you eat, calculate how much of each nutrient that amount contains, and add these figures together for all items you eat in a day. These totals can then easily be cross referenced against recommended daily amounts (RDAs).
As long as you ensure that you are also eating roughly the right amount of calories, and consuming the correct quantities of micronutrients and fibre, you will probably have something approaching a “healthy” diet. When shopping or cooking for families, simply repeat these calculations separately for all family members, making sure you take into account any health issues and the different requirements of particular life stages.
Just joking, of course. Obviously, performing these calculations every day is impractical. So it is hardly surprising that when deciding what foods are “healthy”, most of us use the only metric that’s easy to compare: price. The problem is we consistently believe that higher priced versions are healthier, even when there is little or no supporting evidence, as a recent by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee showed.
Exotic ingredients
This may also explain why modern wellness trends focus almost solely on exclusive, exotic ingredients. Too often our most healthful ingredients – cheap, easily consumed sources of valuable nutrition like carrots, , bread and cheese – are rejected in favour of seemingly magical, glamorous and more expensive contenders such as quinoa, spirulina and chia seeds.
Although most people take very little time choosing what to eat, they are genuinely interested in how food affects their health – and willing to pay a premium for imagined benefits.
Unfortunately, in the absence of information we can easily understand, we will always tend to make judgements based on the only data we can make sense of. Although we are constantly told that food consumers are driven solely by price, perhaps this is because it is the only easily compared metric available.
Maybe if sensible, relevant, outcome-based information about health, or other important factors such as environmental impact and sustainability, were available on the front of packs, it might be easier to make more informed choices and move beyond the .
