What Nutrition Labels Are Not Telling You

Since the government passed laws making it mandatory for food manufacturers to put nutrition labels on their products, we have felt safer and more “in the know” about what we are eating. We can now pick up anything in the grocery store and look at how many calories, carbohydrates, vitamins, and grams of fat and protein it has. We can also find out about the sodium and fiber content of the food item. Great, now we can plan our meals to a healthier lifestyle because we know for sure what we are putting into our bodies. Or do we?

Recently, a website called Walletpop.com did a study and found out that only 3 out of 4 food items in the grocery stores actually has the correct nutritional information listed! This means that 1 out of every 4 items that you buy regularly does not have the right information printed. This is clearly outside of the laws that were passed a few years ago. Walletpop.com did not just make assumptions on this either; these results were based on actual lab tests, the findings of food experts and government reports. This is not good news for all of the dieters out there – all this time you thought you were buying food that was low in calories or low in sodium, and meanwhile, the food labels were tricking you!

These findings are not exactly just based on recent tests either; these studies have been going on for a few years now, so all of this time, we have been fooled into thinking that we know what we are eating and that every food manufacturer has been abiding by the law, when in fact, they haven’t. What I don’t understand is how they can print inaccurate information when there are people with severe allergies and sensitivities to certain things and when obesity is on the rise in this country. They are certainly not helping the problem by making these kinds of mistakes.

Another thing the study found was that the government has almost no insight as to what the manufacturers are putting on their labels. Each company basically is its own police when it comes to this law. Many people think that their should be a lot more control with this issue, and that if the government went as far as making the law, they should at least make sure that it is being followed.

Unfortunately, the mistakes on the labels were not for little things like the percentage of vitamins; they were about how much sugar, fat and calories there were in the foods, which makes people suspicious that these were not actually mistakes. More people are health conscious these days, and sales of certain foods would go down if the correct nutritional information was posted on everything. However, a law is a law. Our laws are put into place to protect people, and they are not meant to be broken.