Nutrition is More Than Dieting

Labels reveal food's real nutritional value.

Sharon Stewart, a unit clerk at New York City’s Hospital for
Joint Diseases, during a trip to a local supermarket.

“Labels on foods are so important,” says Sara Barnes, a dietitian retired from Bronx-Lebanon Hospital in New York City. “What’s listed first in the ingredients is what the food contains the most of. Also, they may say things like “no cholesterol” to make you think they’re healthy, like some margarines; but most margarines have no cholesterol, unless they contain milk solids.”

Barnes also points out that a low calorie count doesn’t mean increased nutritional value. She uses a box of “healthy” 120-calorie snack bars as an example. With four calories in a gram of sugar, nearly half of their calories came from their sugar content.

“Just because something is reduced in one ingredient, like sodium, it might be high in fat or sugar,” she adds.

Barnes says portions are almost as important as food content.

“You also need to think about servings. Sometimes those numbers (for salt, sugar or fat) are very high. The information listed is for just one serving,” she says. “Read the labels carefully, because everything adds up.”

Barnes and Sharon Stewart, a unit clerk at Manhattan’s Hospital for Joint Diseases, recently went on a shopping trip to a midtown-Manhattan supermarket. Stewart’s goal was to raise her nutritional IQ to help her shed some excess weight she has put on over the last few years.

“I don’t cook. I hate cooking,” says Stewart. “When I was on Weight Watchers I was eating Weight Watchers meals. Then my boyfriend moved in, now he does all the cooking.”

Stewart is a busy single mother. She works two jobs and takes extra hours when she can. She says she orders out a lot. She also eats a lot of prepared foods, snack foods and “grab and go” type foods.

“I eat a lot of starchy foods. I eat bagels, eggs, bacon and whole milk,” says Stewart.

At 5’1 and 189 lbs. Stewart says she was surprised to see that she was likely taking an average of over 2,500 calories a day–hundreds over what a woman her size needs. She’s also taking in a lot of extra fat, sugar and sodium, says Barnes.

Stewart, who has high blood pressure, says she never thinks to look at sodium amounts on food labels.

“If I look, I usually just look at the calories,” she says.

Barnes warns against looking at only one number on a food label.

“Look at the amounts of vitamins too because it’s better to get them through your food than from supplements,” she says.

Stewart admitted that, like many people, when she is dieting she skips meals and undereats. Barnes recommended that Stewart begin cutting her calories to about 1,800 per day–healthfully, not by eliminating an entire food group.

“She needs to make sure she eats three balanced meals a day. When we skip meals the body begins to shut down,” says Barnes. “The body is trying to prevent itself from starving.”

Barnes says, like Stewart, she struggles with her weight and has for most of her life. She adds that she too recently gained weight as a result of a knee injury and being put on steroids.

“I have to watch my sugars and my fats because my metabolism is extra sluggish,” she says. “Now I really have to watch what I eat.”

Stewart says her supermarket seminar gave her a new level of consciousness about what was going into her grocery cart and into her body.

“I’m not afraid to change. This is really important. I have friends who are really skinny and eat a lot more than me and I always wondered why,” says Stewart.

“Now I realize that I have to check my labels closely.”