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How to Read Food Labels Without Being Tricked

Food labeling regulations are complex, making it harder for consumers to understand them.

Diabetes is an expensive condition to manage. In 2017, 1 out of every 7 dollars spent on healthcare in America was spent on diabetic care.

High blood sugar, also known as hyperglycemia, is associated with diabetes and prediabetes. Prediabetes is when your blood sugar is high, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.

Your body usually manages your blood sugar levels by producing insulin, a hormone that allows your cells to use the circulating sugar in your blood. As such, insulin is the most important regulator of blood sugar levels.

However, multiple factors can impair blood sugar management and lead to hyperglycemia.

Internal causes for high blood sugar include when your liver produces too much glucose, your body makes too little insulin, or your body can’t effectively use insulin. The latter is known as insulin resistance .

External factors include dietary choices, certain medications, a sedentary lifestyle, and stress.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 13% of U.S. adults live with diabetes and that another 34.5% have prediabetes. This means that close to 50% of all U.S. adults have diabetes or prediabetes.

Blood sugar management is especially important for people with diabetes, as chronically high blood sugar levels can lead to limb and life threatening complications.

Here are 14 easy and evidence-backed ways to naturally lower your blood sugar levels.

Don’t Let the Claims on the Front Fool You

One of the best tips may be to completely ignore claims on the front of the packaging.

Front labels try to lure you into purchasing products by making health claims.

In fact, research shows that adding health claims to front labels makes people believe a product is healthier than the same product that doesn’t list health claims — thus affecting consumer choices

Exercise also helps your muscles use blood sugar for energy and muscle contraction.

If you have problems with blood sugar management, consider routinely checking your levels before and after exercising. This will help you learn how you respond to different activities and keep your blood sugar levels from getting too high or low (5).

What’s more, researchers recommend doing so-called “exercise snacks” to lower blood sugar and prevent the damage that sitting all day can do.

Exercise snacks simply mean that you break up your sitting time every 30 minutes for just a few minutes throughout the day. Some of the recommended exercises include light walking or simple resistance exercises like squats or leg raises.

Other useful forms of exercise include weightlifting, brisk walking, running, biking, dancing, hiking, swimming, and more. In fact, any activity that regularly gets you up and moving — regardless of the intensity — beats a sedentary lifestyle.

Plus, know that if you have trouble dedicating longer periods to exercise throughout the week, you can still gain many benefits by doing shorter sessions. For example, try aiming for 10-minute exercise sessions 3 times a day for 5 days, with the goal of 150 minutes per week.

Study the Ingredients List

Product ingredients are listed by quantity — from highest to lowest amount.

This means that the first ingredient is what the manufacturer used the most of.

A good rule of thumb is to scan the first three ingredients, as they make up the largest part of what you’re eating.

If the first ingredients include refined grains, a type of sugar, or hydrogenated oils, you can assume that the product is unhealthy.

Instead, try choosing items that have whole foods listed as the first three ingredients.

In addition, an ingredients list that is longer than two to three lines suggests that the product is highly processed.

Watch out for Serving Sizes

Nutrition labels state how many calories and nutrients are in a standard amount of the product — often a suggested single serving.

However, these serving sizes are frequently much smaller than what people consume in one sitting.

For example, one serving may be half a can of soda, a quarter of a cookie, half a chocolate bar, or a single biscuit.

In doing so, manufacturers try to deceive consumers into thinking that the food has fewer calories and less sugar.

Many people are unaware of this serving size scheme, assuming that the entire container is a single serving, when in truth it may consist of two, three, or more servings.

If you’re interested in knowing the nutritional value of what you’re eating, you need to multiply the serving given on the back by the number of servings you consumed.

Serving sizes listed on packaging may be misleading and unrealistic. Manufacturers often list a much smaller amount than what most people consume in one setting.

Eating plenty of fiber can aid blood sugar management. Soluble dietary fiber appears to be more effective than insoluble fiber for this purpose.

The Most Misleading Claims

Health claims on packaged food are designed to catch your attention and convince you that the product is healthy.

Here are some of the most common claims — and what they mean:

Light. Light products are processed to reduce either calories or fat. Some products are simply watered down. Check carefully to see if anything has been added instead — like sugar.

Multigrain. This sounds very healthy but only means that a product contains more than one type of grain. These are most likely refined grains — unless the product is marked as whole grain.

Natural. This does not necessarily mean that the product resembles anything natural. It simply indicates that at one point the manufacturer worked with a natural source like apples or rice.

Organic. This label says very little about whether a product is healthy. For example, organic sugar is still sugar.
No added sugar. Some products are naturally high in sugar. The fact that they don’t have added sugar doesn’t mean they’re healthy. Unhealthy sugar substitutes may also have been added.

Low-calorie. Low-calorie products have to have one-third fewer calories than the brand’s original product. Yet, one brand’s low-calorie version may have similar calories as another brand’s original.

Low-fat. This label usually means that the fat has been reduced at the cost of adding more sugar. Be very careful and read the ingredients list.
Low-carb. Recently, low-carb diets have been linked to improved health. Still, processed foods that are labeled low-carb are usually still processed junk foods, similar to processed low-fat foods.

Made with whole grains. The product may contain very little whole grains. Check the ingredients list — if whole grains aren’t in the first three ingredients, the amount is negligible.

Fortified or enriched. This means that some nutrients have been added to the product. For example, vitamin D is often added to milk. Yet, just because something is fortified doesn’t make it healthy.

Gluten-free. Gluten-free doesn’t mean healthy. The product simply doesn’t contain wheat, spelt, rye, or barley. Many gluten-free foods are highly processed and loaded with unhealthy fats and sugar.

Fruit-flavored. Many processed foods have a name that refers to a natural flavor, such as strawberry yogurt. However, the product may not contain any fruit — only chemicals designed to taste like fruit.

Zero trans fat. This phrase means “less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving.” Thus, if serving sizes are misleadingly small, the product may still contain trans fat.

Despite these cautionary words, many truly healthy foods are organic, whole grain, or natural. Still, just because a label makes certain claims, doesn’t guarantee that it’s healthy.

Different Names for Sugar

Sugar goes by countless names — many of which you may not recognize.

Food manufacturers use this to their advantage by purposely adding many different types of sugar to their products to hide the actual amount.

In doing so, they can list a healthier ingredient at the top, mentioning sugar further down. So even though a product may be loaded with sugar, it doesn’t necessarily appear as one of the first three ingredients.

To avoid accidentally consuming a lot of sugar, watch out for the following names of sugar in ingredient lists:

The Bottom Line

The best way to avoid being misled by product labels is to avoid processed foods altogether. After all, whole food doesn’t need an ingredients list.

Still, if you decide to buy packaged foods, be sure to sort out the junk from the higher-quality products with the helpful tips in this article.

Sugar goes by various names — many of which you may not recognize. These include cane sugar, invert sugar, corn sweetener, dextran, molasses, malt syrup, maltose, and evaporated cane juice.

Getting enough sleep feels excellent and is necessary for good health .

In fact, poor sleeping habits and a lack of rest can affect blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity, increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. They can also increase appetite and promote weight gain .

Additionally, sleep deprivation raises levels of the hormone cortisol, which, as explained, plays an essential role in blood sugar management.

Adequate sleep is about both quantity and quality. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults get at least 7–8 hours of high quality sleep per night .

To improve the quality of your sleep, try to:

• follow a sleep schedule
• avoid caffeine and alcohol late in the day
• get regular exercise
• cut down on screen time before bed
• keep your bedroom cool
• limit your naps
• create a bedtime routine
• use soothing and calming scents such as lavender
• avoid working in your bedroom
• take a warm bath or shower before bed

SUMMARY
Good sleep helps maintain your blood sugar levels and promotes a healthy weight. On the other hand, poor sleep can disrupt critical metabolic hormones.

There are multiple ways to naturally manage your blood sugar levels.

Many of them include making lifestyle changes, like managing your weight, stress levels, and sleep quality, exercising, and staying hydrated. That said, some of the biggest improvements have to do with your dietary choices.

Be sure to talk with your healthcare professional before making lifestyle changes or trying new supplements— especially if you have problems with blood sugar management or are taking medications.

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