My girlfriend Kitty and I were just discussing this issue yesterday . . . about nutrition labels and portions and how food companies try to trick us (and succeed).
This is a product that I have bought many, many times . . although not in the last year or two.
I picked up a bag the other day . . . without looking at the label first . . a NO NO in my book these days, but I was in a hurry . . and you know how that goes.
You sprinkle this tasty mix on your salads that contains fruit and nuts to make them tasty and more interesting . . healthy right? wrong, wrong, WRONG!!
THIS why we read labels . . and THIS is why you need a food scale! It's really easy to look at this and say "oh, it has fruit and nuts and is ONLY 30 calories" (this is where they get you by the short hairs ...)
Look at the SERVINGS too ... there are SIXTEEN of them in this little 4 oz bag! Lets do the math ... 30 x 16 is 480 whopping calories . . added to your healthy bowl of lettuce and vegetables (and we haven't added the dressing yet ... EEK)
I remember making a salad for dinner for my husband and I and adding the entire bag between us . . it was NOTHING on the salad it seemed . . just a little extra crunch and flavor. That being so . . each one of us was adding an additional 240 calories, 12 grams of fat, 40 carbs and 32 grams of sugar . . . in the words of the infamous George Takai . . . OOHHHH MYYYYY!
Below is what a 7 gram serving actually looks like . . . would that fill you up? Me too neither!
And the really insulting thing is that it says on the front . . Great for Snacking . . the package contains less than two of my handfulls . . . a supposedly good snack.
The moral of this rant is . . this is why you READ YOUR LABELS, and compare SERVING SIZES to nutrition data and do the math . . then think about how you can do it healthier! Fresh non-sugary walnuts and fresh fruit (dried fruit packs a concentrated sugar whallop) . . . not only tastes better, it fills you up faster. Buy a good food scale too, one that weighs in grams and ounces and tares out the weight (meaning can stick a bowl on it, zero it out, add an ingredient . . and zero it out and so on).
They are cheap, easy to use and you will wonder how you lived so long without one!!
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