Reading Between The Lines

Nutrition is one of the five elements of health, and one of the most important ones that can guarantee a healthy and happy life. One of the best places to start is paying attention to what's inside your food before you eat it! Where can you start to find this information? The nutrition labels! 

Hi everybody, it's Dr. Bob Salamon here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. You know, we talk about the five factors of health quite often. Those five factors are nutrition, exercise, rest and relaxation, positive mental attitude, and chiropractic care. This blog is going to be dedicated to factor number one, nutrition! I am going to be working my way through a nutrition label found on the side of a cereal box to guide us through this blog and to talk about what you should be looking for in your foods and what you should be avoiding. The FDA requires companies to put these labels on their food products to let the consumer know what's inside the food they're buying. It's the best way to determine if what you're eating is healthy or not. 

The cereal box I am looking at is a knock off brand of cereal called "Multigrain Tasteeos". This cereal isn't too bad when it comes to nutrition, but it's not as healthy as it could be. Let's dig in! 

• Calories The first line on my cereal box is calories. Now, I'm not too concerned with that number. I believe there are more important components inside your food than worrying about those numbers. 
• Fat Content The next line on my cereal box is the total fat content, which is very important. In my cereal, the total fat content is only 1 gram, and none of it is saturated fat. That's good! When looking at a product, in terms of the fat content, you want to make sure the majority of the fat is unsaturated. You don't want a lot of saturated fat or trans fats in your foods. In food processing, there is a term called hydrogenation. This process changes the chemical bond of a certain product into a trans fat configuration, which is a very unhealthy product. This process is banned in some countries because the product it creates is so unhealthy. Naturally occurring fats, like those in avocados, are good for your body and its functions. When picking out a product and looking at its fat content, you need to make sure that the saturated fat content is as low as possible and the unsaturated fat is as high as possible. If the label mentions that it has been hydrogenated, remember that means something inside the food has been chemically altered, making the product a trans fat. Trans fats are bad because our bodies cannot break them down or digest them properly. When that happens, you can form clogged arteries and all kinds of other issues. 
• Cholesterol The next line down on the cereal box's nutrition label is cholesterol. There is no cholesterol in my cereal, but cholesterol is something you don't want too much of. Cholesterol is a building block for the cell membranes around your heart and organs. It is pretty important to have. But, your liver produces plenty of it and you don't need to add any more to your body. 
• Sodium The next line down on the label is sodium. This product has 120 milligrams of sodium, which is not bad. Some of your more processed foods, if you look at frozen dinners and such, advertise that they are low in fat or no fat, which is great. But, a lot of the time these products have a lot of sodium and refined sugars in them. So you need to be very careful there. 
• Carbohydrates The next line down on the nutrition label is carbohydrates. Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates are building blocks in our bodies and we need to be eating the right portions of each to keep our bodies happy and healthy. But, in my cereal, there are 23 grams of carbs. 3 of these grams are made up of fiber, and 6 of them are composed of sugars (most probably refined sugars), and the rest are other carbohydrates. So, what you want to do, especially if you're buying cereal, is to pay attention to the sugar content. Most cereals have a lot of sugars put in them, sometimes between 20-25 grams worth which is far too much. Cereals like Special K have a much safer and healthier lever of sugar. Why is sugar and refined sugar so bad for you? The primary reason is that it increases inflammation in your body. Inflammation on your brain, organs, and joints is never good! 
• Protein At the bottom of the nutrition label, is protein. In this cereal, there are 2 grams of protein, which is not a lot but we do need to get our proteins any way we can. We can get them in animal products like meats or fish, and nuts or beans. 
• The Fine Print Below the list of ingredients, it lists all the vitamins and such that are found inside this particular cereal. The last thing that I always look at on a label is the list of ingredients. Here is the rule of thumb when looking at this list. The shorter the list of ingredients, the healthier the product will be. In the longer lists are your additives and dyes, hydrogenated products, and a lot of other things you don't want in your diet. You want a purely natural product. The next time you're at the grocery store, look at the labels of regular bread versus an organic loaf of bread. The regular loaf will have a lot more ingredients. You might find enriched wheat, which you don't want to eat, along with other additives that are bad for you. A lot of the time the stuff you can't pronounce in the ingredient list are the bad things you don't want to be eating. If you can't pronounce it, try not to eat it or buy products with these things inside them! 

This is how I look at and read labels. You want to get into the habit of reading your labels and paying attention to what is inside the food you're eating. The front of your food products can say anything that makes you think it's a healthy product. But until you read those nutrition labels, you don't know for sure. So why does this all matter? Nutrition is one of the five factors of health, and so is chiropractic care. How does chiropractic care help with your nutrition? Your digestive organs are getting nerve supply from your spine. If this supply is being impeded in some way due to a subluxation or a bone out of alignment, then the nerve supply into that organ (your stomach, intestines, colon) won't be working as efficiently as possible. Your organs won't be extracting the maximum amount of nutrients from your food as it could be and it is just letting it pass through your system. Chiropractic care can help you get the most out of your nutrition, especially if you're eating healthy products. Chiropractic care will help your digestive system work as it's supposed to. 
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I hope that helps and I hope these little nuggets of information help you on your nutritional journey. If you feel like your nutrition is not where you'd like it, I would love to talk to you about it. Reach out to us and we will get you in to discuss the next best steps for you and your nutrition. Until then, I'm Dr. Bob and I've got your back covered. Take care!

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