Becoming Food-Aware!

Who doesn’t like snacks, chips and candy? I too am a foodie. I love eating foods that please my senses, after all they are the ones which are tasty and sweet. 

My mom always tells me to eat junk foods in moderation, but I had never really paid much attention to what she told me, until recently.

It was while doing a research project on food labels that I realized that there are many hidden ingredients in our foods.  We are unaware of and would not normally expect to find sugar in a can of soup or sodium in breakfast cereals. Looking at the labels of the cookies and chips blew my mind. I came across many food additives that I could not recognize.

I found that most packaged foods had labels that tell us the ingredients, vitamins, fats, amounts of sugar, sodium and carbohydrates, allergy information and the percent daily value. They also give us information about the food – if is locally grown, natural or organic.  But this was not easy to use. It all seemed very confusing. How are we supposed to know what we are eating, what to eat and how much to eat?

And so my journey began, to learn more about the information in food labels.  These days as I am becoming aware, I find myself reducing the number of times I go to the pantry for a snack and the amount of junk I am consuming.

Through this blog I hope to share my learning with you, so that you too can understand and analyze labels, extract information and make healthy food choices.