Reading Nutrition Fact Labels

Reading Nutrition Facts Labels

Below are a few the examples of these labels, which you can go through and try to learn to spot the important ingredients.

You are most interested in:

1- Glycemic carbs (sugars) – the stuff we are trying to avoid

2- Portion size

Example: Full Fat Cream

If you can tolerate dairy, I recommend cream as a milk substitute. It has less carbs than milk, tastes better and has the major benefit of making you feel full a whole lot quicker than milk does. If you have to have milk make sure it is full cream and not a low fat variety that has substituted milk sugar for the wholesome fat.

Example: Balsamic Vinegar

Balsamic vinegar is a common ingredient in salads and is viewed as a healthy choice. It may be, but be cautious as to how much of it you pour onto your salad. A quick read of the label below should alarm you enough to know that this particular brand needs to be used sparingly. (Since balsamic vinegar is made by double fermenting various fruits, the carb count will vary widely between brands; make sure you select a low carb variety.) It may be surprising to find that Balsamic Vinegar contains a lot of carbs!

Example: Breakfast Cereal

Remember that it is the glycemic carbs that affect your blood sugar levels. There is no prize for figuring out that this stuff will make you fat.

Example: Sugar the King of Carbs

Sugar, as you may have realized by now is the star of the show in terms of packing on weight and damaging your health. ‘. . . if only a small fraction of what is already known about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive, that material would promptly be banned.’ John Yudkin - Pure White and Deadly Note the conversion at the bottom of the image below from a sugar packet.

Example: Maize (Corn Meal)

Maize is a cereal grain that is part of the staple diet of many people throughout the world. It is America’s largest crop and corn is grown on over 400,000 American farms.(<$n>) A genetic variant is called Sweet Corn. Corn is high in carbs and contains very little fiber. Somewhere around 6% of America’s corn crop is converted to High Fructose Corn Syrup and appears in many foodstuffs.

Corn is also problematic for psoriatics. It has many strange and new antigens that damage the gut and can trigger abnormal immune responses. Corn and High Fructose Corn Syrup should be avoided at all costs.

Example: Whole-wheat Pasta

Don’t eat pasta as it has a double whammy for psoriatics. It is full of sugar and is made of wheat, probably the two most important foods for psoriasis suffers to avoid.

You can Read the Labels! Practice and you will get better at it. If you find a label that is hard for you to decipher, take a pic and mail it to me. I would be happy to help.