Thank you Uncle Sam!

I wrote the promised blog on fats, and I was thisclose to uploading it, but decided to wait until after my weekly Kroger run.  While there, I overheard a conversation that reminded me of a story... and has changed my mind about how I want to talk about fats.

Back in the day, I worked as a nutrition counselor for a treatment center specializing in eating disorders.  Every so often, they would hold an intensive weeklong program and my role as part of the treatment team would be to teach clients how to care for themselves through their meal plans.  Because they were smaller classes, I could get creative with the presentations.  If that meant traipsing into the gigantic pantry to prove that there was no magic to the food in tiny podunk Texas, we did it.  I also took them on field trips; sometimes we went out for lunch to give them a chance to practice their new found menu skills with me before getting stuck in the airport restaurant on their way home.  I also took them to the grocery store so they could ask questions about their favorite things, and to get my feedback and help in tweaking their shopping habits.

I never, ever had one of these classes without a curious bystander stopping to listen. I’ll never forget this one sweet little lady who approached us as we were standing in front of the popcorn section.  As she reached for the box of microwave popcorn that boasted a flavor just like the movies, she said, “Excuse me...I just need to get my husband’s favorite snack.  I finally convinced him to switch from ice cream to something healthier.”  God love her.  She had no idea that between ice cream and the extra heaping helping of butter on the popcorn popped in heaping helpings of trans fats, hands down ice cream is the healthier option.  If only she knew how to read the labels...

Which brings me to my point today.  You can complain all you want to about the US government getting in your business, but one thing you should thank Uncle Sam for is the nutrition facts label that MUST be on every food container you buy.  (Note-if it’s not there, that means it’s either imported or kind of homemade.   Your workaround is to find a similar product that does have one and reasonably compare.)  Welcome to “Nutrition Facts” class, friends!  Go get your favorite snack out of your pantry for your visual and come right back.

Now at the very top, underneath “Nutrition Facts” you’ll find the most overlooked , ignored details, “serving size,” and “servings per container.”   Key information.   Literally, the rest of the label means nothing if you don’t have a basis for the numbers.

Next, you’ll see “Calories” in bold print. Like I’ve said before, I don’t count calories, but calories count.  Pick up a few different types of soups in your pantry and see for yourself how the calories vary.  Under that, you’ll find “Fat Cal” (no bold print.)  Now dust off your math skills and do some percentages.  If there’s 60 calories per serving, and 20 of those are “fat calories,” that means that 20/60, or 33% of this stuff is made up of fat.  Generally, a good rule of thumb is to keep your fat percentage under 30%.   Anything more than 30%, use sparingly.  (Wait till I talk about butter and oils!)

I think that’s enough for the nutrition label today.  Tomorrow,  we’ll go into the next section on this label under the bold heading “Total Fat.”  By the time you’ve read that one, you’ll understand what all the “good fat” and “bad fat” noise is about.  Did I lose anybody?