Day Six - July 18, 2009

This is Day 6 of my 21-Day Makeover - How to read a nutrition label. Nutrition labels list ingredients in order by amount. So a product that lists ‘high fructose corn syrup’ as the first ingredient has more high fructose corn syrup in it than anything else. Many products have multiple types of these ‘processed’ and ’simple’ sugars and grains in one product. So, if you see several of The Dirty Dozen listed in one product, you need to count them together. Also, watch out for the use of parentheses. You are looking for the first 4 ingredients NOT in parentheses.

The Dirty Dozen

Since these sugars have such patential to compromise your Glycemic Profile, we need to minimize them as much as possible during my 21-Day Makeover. Unfortunately, that can be tricky because these refined sugars hide behind so many different names - what we will call The Dirty Dozen. Look for the following names (AKD The Dirty Dozen) on your food labels and avoid foods that have any of them listed as one of the first 4 ingredients.

(1) Sugar (Sucrose)
(2) High Fructose Corn Syrup
(3) Brown Sugar
(4) Dextrose
(5) Maltose
(6) Corn Syrup
(7) Malt Syrup
(8) Maple Syrup
(9) Maltitol (Sugar Alcohol)
(10) Maltitol Syrup (Sugar Alcohol)
(11) Modified Corn Starch
(12) Corn Starch