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Low Fat Bread and Gluten Free Potato Chips
jgnatca
Posts: 14,464 Member
in Debate Club
I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
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Replies
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I home school my kids and they know how to read nutritional labels, know what macros/micros are, know how CICO works etc. My son is also on an ADHD med, so calories/his weight is something we talk about regularly, on top of going in every few weeks for weigh-ins at the pediatrician's office. His pediatrician has been very upfront with him as well about his weight, why he needs to eat more calories, even when he doesn't feel hungry etc.
eta: for clarification, my son is 10 and is underweight. He's always been 'small' (failure to thrive as a baby etc), and has struggled to stay at the 10% mark on the growth chart. We've figured it's because of his ADHD-he simply forgets to eat, even if it's right in front of him. On top of that the ADHD med is an appetite suppressant. Getting the kid to eat is like a part time job for me
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In the US, I think we'd benefit greatly from some sort of life skills class requirement that would encompass things like basic finance, reading contracts, reading ingredients lists and nutrition labels, vetting sources of information, etc. Course requirements are left to the individual states here, so the Federal government has little ability to standardize that sort of thing. I'm not sure how much Ottawa can influence the curricula in the provinces in Canada.8
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I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
I think nutritional label reading is a life skill and I'm a strong advocate of teaching life skills at all levels through high school graduation.
I picked up a 5 pound bag of russet potatoes at Sprouts this weekend. It's labeled "gluten free". I just rolled my eyes.5 -
I'm super distilling a batch of gluten free water. None of that highly processed water for me, it has too much GMOs in it, and addictive sugar poison. Not to mention all the mind control corporations big pharma puts in it. No sir, only small batch, cage free, grass fed organic water for me.8
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I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?8
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
Yes.
And you would be surprised as to how many brands of crisps/ chips they manage to crowbar wheat starch into. There are so many kinds of crisps I cant eat. Most of the good ones.
Nutrition labels have been/ sometimes still are on the curriculum. It's Home Economics. We don't need new life skills classes, we need to stop considering HE a "how to be a housewife" class and appreciate it for what it actually is.6 -
HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
This.3 -
It's the flavouring on the crisps that can contain gluten, not the potato itself.4
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We had a few units on calorie counting, reading labels, etc in health class and well as a class called "home ec" in elementary, middle and high school that were required. I think most schools do have programs nowadays. I don't know how good they are though.0
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I give you the point regarding the potato chips.
There is a mandatory life skills course in Alberta. Being mandatory I think makes it automatically unpopular.
http://www.learnalberta.ca/ProgramOfStudy.aspx?lang=en&ProgramId=317412#0 -
It is also possible for a potato chip to have been processed in a facility that also processes gluten on the same equipment, resulting in cross contamination.
I'm unsure if the labeling requirements proposed or even passed ever required avoiding that situation for gluten free labeling.
I think there were also proposals that would limit using low fat that way - at best a brand could advertise "a naturally low in fat food".
I'm waiting for the day someone starts offering caffeine free bread. Until then I'll settle for lactose free, no cholesterol:
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People with legitimate gluten issues can be effected by cross-contamination. This is why thinks such as oats are labeled "gluten free". I think it's great for those that need the information.
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magnusthenerd wrote: »It is also possible for a potato chip to have been processed in a facility that also processes gluten on the same equipment, resulting in cross contamination.
I'm unsure if the labeling requirements proposed or even passed ever required avoiding that situation for gluten free labeling.
I think there were also proposals that would limit using low fat that way - at best a brand could advertise "a naturally low in fat food".
I'm waiting for the day someone starts offering caffeine free bread. Until then I'll settle for lactose free, no cholesterol:
This one requires some careful label - reading. There's no wheat but it's not gluten free, it contains rye. Gluten isn't considered a common enough allergen to be disclosed on it's own. I get the lactose-free claim, some breads are made with dairy products. And Kosher is good to know for what foods it can be eaten with. The rest is the usual "make it sound as healthy as possible" bs - they missed "No GMOs!"
In the US, the FDA requires most labels to include the common name of any of the covered allergens ("milk" for instance as opposed to "whey" or "lactose". This can be done in the ingredients list or as a separate disclosure. It doesn't look like disclosing using shared equipment or facilities is required, (one of my pet peeves - celiac). I do notice that most products are pretty scrupulous about disclosing possible nut contamination.
I sometimes see a product labeled "No Gluten Ingredients" only to find it was processed on shared equipment or in a shared facility. So disappointing and misleading.
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I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
I have a kid, and am working at teaching label reading!
Labels are all about marketing, of course, and GF seems to be trendy right now.
That said, for those with serious food allergies, those labels can be useful. Example -- frozen french fries can be gluten-free or not. Many manufacturers dust them with what flour, and it's enough to cause a reaction for those who are allergic. I have seen it happen and had to administer the Benadryl.
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Lots of potato based crisps have gluten in the flavourings.1
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
Yes.
And you would be surprised as to how many brands of crisps/ chips they manage to crowbar wheat starch into. There are so many kinds of crisps I cant eat. Most of the good ones.
Nutrition labels have been/ sometimes still are on the curriculum. It's Home Economics. We don't need new life skills classes, we need to stop considering HE a "how to be a housewife" class and appreciate it for what it actually is.
I went to secondary school in 1984 and home economics was a mandatory course. We covered finances, nutrition and cooking, home maintenance, and all the other elements required to live on your own.
Education needs to decide what it's mission is.
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
Yes.
And you would be surprised as to how many brands of crisps/ chips they manage to crowbar wheat starch into. There are so many kinds of crisps I cant eat. Most of the good ones.
Nutrition labels have been/ sometimes still are on the curriculum. It's Home Economics. We don't need new life skills classes, we need to stop considering HE a "how to be a housewife" class and appreciate it for what it actually is.
I went to secondary school in 1984 and home economics was a mandatory course. We covered finances, nutrition and cooking, home maintenance, and all the other elements required to live on your own.
Education needs to decide what it's mission is.
When I was in jr high school, home ec was an elective, as was shop, and involved sewing and cooking. It would have been taken instead of, say, a language, so most people didn't take it. In high school (class of '87), "personal finance" was a requirement but could be replaced by "economics," which was what you took if you were on the college bound track. My understanding is that personal finance was supposed to cover things like budgeting (as well as how to write a check, which really doesn't seem that complicated). Econ did not, it was more like a college Econ 101 class (but at a high school level). We read The Worldly Philosophers, which was fun.
Back when my mom was in school, in her school anyway, home ec was required for girls and shop for boys, and it was a "how to be a housewife" class.
That said, I don't really feel like I missed out by not learning how to read nutrition labels in school, as they seem pretty self explanatory. A lot of this is common sense.3 -
I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
The potato chips thing can be useful to those that are very sensitive to small or cross-contamination amounts. (Presumably means the company was somewhat more careful about cross-contamination; and that they didn't lightly coat with any wheat to avoid sticking or add extra crisp). As others have pointed out, it could also be mixed into some of the flavorings (and possible for someone to miss it if a really long ingredient list).0 -
..but I have seen it slapped on whole, unprocessed foods that are very obviously not wheat or rye (like a bag of whole potatoes in the Produce section, etc). definitely shake my head at that one.1
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..Oats do however make sense to be labeled GF. High cross-contamination is typical between wheat and oats.0
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