Have you done your reading today?

I mean your LABEL reading! The best-case scenario is that you are buying foods WITHOUT labels; fruits & veggies mostly. A rule of thumb for very clean, healthy eating is don't buy anything in a bag, can or box! Exceptions to this would be bags of whole brown rice, quinoa, couscous and other protein-rich grains.

When you do have nutritional information, don't just look at the calories in the food you're eating! That's no true indicator of nutritional VALUE. Look at the ingredients label. Can you pronounce every ingredient? If sugar, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup or maltodextrin is the first or one of the first ingredients listed, and then a string of 10-syllable words you cannot pronounce follows -- put it back!

Check out the sodium, fat (especially trans fat), carbs and most importantly...THE SERVING SIZE!! If a label says 2 servings per package, you need to double all the numbers on the nutritional label. It's great if you first see "100 Calories" as the caloric value but when you eat half of the package, that's 8 servings! OOPS! Remember that you are trying to keep your meals/snacks around 200-300 calories and that is difficult when not eating whole, fresh foods.

Lets live longer by being knowledgeable about our nutrition! Questions? Leave a comment or query!