Part 2
Grocery Shopping for a Lean Body

The first installment of our Summer Rapid Body Makeover focused on habits—bad habits that need to be broken and good habits that will help you live leaner and healthier. This week, Kelli Calabrese clears up some of the confusion about food labels so you can avoid the hype and shop smarter.

Do you walk around the grocery store, scratching your head about which salad dressing is best, wondering if you should choose butter or margarine, or which of the hundreds of yogurt choices are the right option for your body? If so, you are not alone. It’s confusing, and the choices keep expanding. But with a little insider information, you can be a savvy shopper and make the very best choices for your health, energy and well-being.

As a rule, most of the foods you shop for should not have a label. Your selections should consist mostly of fresh fruits, vegetables, and lean meats and fish from the butcher or fish market. Those are the items found around the perimeter of the store. Several things on the desirable list do come with a label, though, including beans, pasta, rice, cereal and some dairy products.

Understanding Nutrition Labels

Serving Size and Servings per Container
Not understanding the size of a serving is one of the biggest traps people fall into, causing them to over feed their bodies. Compare the servings on labels to determine how much of the package you can eat. One serving if you are a woman, and two servings if you are a man, will most likely meet your meal requirements. The servings also apply to the nutrients. For example, if a serving has 9 grams of protein, two servings would have 18 grams.

One example of where people fall into a serving-size trap is with nuts. While nuts can be healthy (when not salted or roasted), too many can put you over the calorie and fat limits for the day. A small bag of nuts or trail mix that you might pick up at the convenience store or airport is likely four to seven servings. You would need to multiply the nutrients on the label by the number of servings you would consume if you were to eat the whole bag—which most people do!

Calories and Calories from Fat
A food label shows both the total grams of fat as well as the percentage of calories in the serving that come from fat. For example, if there are 90 calories per serving and 30 calories are from fat, one-third of those calories comes from fat. If you eat two servings, you would consume 180 calories and 60 calories from fat. When reading labels, as a rule of thumb, you should strive for foods in which 20 percent or less of the total calories come from fat. If you choose a food that is greater than 30 percent fat, you should balance out the rest of the meal or day with lower fat options. It’s best to balance out each meal individually, rather than trying to bank calories or fat for one meal during the day.

There are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrates and protein, 7 calories per gram of alcohol, and 9 calories per gram of fat. Therefore, you can eat a greater volume of food when making low-fat choices. Some of the best sources of fat come from nuts and beans. Our body needs 20–30 percent of its calories from healthy fats for health. Natural sources such as almond butter, avocado and coconut are always the best alternative versus adding fat to your diet.

The following new food labeling terms describe the level of a nutrient in food. Understanding this terminology will enable you to become an educated consumer.

Free
If you see free on a label, it means that the product contains no amount of—or only a trivial amount of—one of the following compounds: fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, sugar and-or calories. You may also see free foods labeled without, no and zero, which are synonymous with free.

Calorie-Free—Fewer than 5 calories per serving
Sugar-Free/Fat-Free—Fewer than .5 grams per serving

Choosing “free” foods can be healthful, unfortunately free many times means taste-free as well. We all know that fat tastes good, and when an item is fat-free, it can also be flavor-free. Free of fat does not necessarily mean low in sugar, though, so read the entire label. Very often, fat-free (or sugar-free) items have more total calories than their full fat counterparts—so pay attention.

Low
Low means that foods can be eaten frequently without exceeding dietary guidelines for one or more of these components: fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and calories. Synonyms for low include little, few and low source of. The following describes what is considered “low” for each component.

Low-fat—3 grams or less per serving
Low saturated fat—1 gram or less per serving
Low sodium—140 milligrams or less per serving
Very low sodium—35 milligrams or less per serving
Low-cholesterol—20 milligrams or less of cholesterol; 2 grams or less of saturated fat per serving
Low-calorie—40 calories or less per serving

“Low” foods are typically more healthful and have a lower caloric value, but be cautious of the sugar content and read for other natural ingredients.

Lean and Extra Lean
These terms can be used to describe the fat content of meat, poultry, seafood and game meats.

Lean—Less than 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams or less of saturated fat, and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol per serving and per 100 grams
Extra Lean—Less than 5 grams of fat, less than 2 grams of saturated fat, and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol per serving and per 100 grams

Strive to select both lean and extra lean proteins. If neither of those claims is clear, it’s likely a higher fat cut. Eating leaner meats is better for your health and will help keep total fat intake down.

High
This term can be used if the food contains 20 percent or more of the daily value for a particular nutrient in a serving. High fiber is one example. Cereal is one place you want to look for high fiber and low-sugar options.

Good Source
This term means that one serving of a food contains 10 to 19 percent of the daily value for a particular nutrient. For example, orange juice containers may say, “Good source of vitamin C.”

Reduced
This term means that a nutritionally altered product contains at least 25 percent less of a nutrient or calories as compared to the regular or reference product. However, a reduced claim can’t be made for a product if its reference food already meets the requirement for a low claim.

Less
This term means that a food, whether altered or not, contains 25 percent less of a nutrient or calories as compared to the reference food. For example, pretzels have 25 percent less fat than potato chips. Fewer is an acceptable synonym for less.

Light
This descriptor can mean two things: First, it may mean that a serving contains one-third fewer calories or half the fat of the reference product. Second, the term light can also be used to describe properties, such as texture and color, as long as the label explains the intent. For example, light brown sugar.

More
A serving of food contains a nutrient that is at least 10 percent more of the daily value than the reference food. Synonyms are high and low.

Percent Fat-Free
A product bearing this claim must be a low-fat or a fat-free product. The claim must accurately represent the amount of fat present in 100 grams of the food. So, if the box of cookies you are picking up says 95 percent fat-free, it must contain 5 grams of fat per 100 grams of cookies.

This information will give you a good start for your next trip to the grocery store. Stay tuned for next week’s installment, which will cover the kinds of carbs, what to look for when choosing foods with fiber, which organic labeling to look for and trans fats.

About Kelli Calabrese
Kelli Calabrese, MS, is a national fitness, nutrition and lifestyle expert committed to helping people live longer, stronger and more vibrantly. She is the author of Feminine, Firm & Fit!—Building a Lean Strong Body in 12 Weeks and has been voted Personal Trainer of the Year twice. www.KelliCalabrese.com

Read Part III:  Grocery Shopping Made Easy

Additional Reading

• Grocery Shopping Made Healthy
• Manage Your Mind to Manage Your Weight