Tip Thursday: Fat or Fat-Free?

If you are on a diet, I guarantee you've thought of this before.

Should you buy the fat-free version just because it says fat-free?

It does make common sense - you need to cut down on "fat" so you cut out the fat from the foods that you eat. It makes so much sense that you think you're doing the right thing.

The skinny on the fat deal

Fat-free products intentionally deceive you by displaying a lower caloric consumption number (i.e. the part that says kcal on the nutrition label). Foods low in fat usually mean that the manufacturers have compensated for taste elsewhere. 


Let's use everyone's favorite Vitamin Water

What you lovelies are looking at is the entire label from the Vitamin Water bottle. For now, just look at the nutrition label part on the right. 

1. Number of calories per serving. There are 2.5 servings per bottle which mean that per BOTTLE, you're consuming 125kcal. So much for 50kcal.
   
2. Total fat content 0g. This is technically true. There are no MUFAs, trans or any other kind of dietary fat in the drink. We're talking scientific 'fat', not the fat that appears on your hips here.
   
3. Total Carbohydrate content is 13g. JUST LOOK at where the entire 13g actually comes from! SUGAR. A person's worst enemy. Yes, sugar is a carbohydrate! It is a polysaccharide made by monomers of glucose/ribose bonded together. (High school biology suddenly flooding back to you?)
   
4. I don't need to explain why something that contains less than 1% juice is not the best thing for you. Especially when you're getting 4% of sugar per serving (that's about 10% of the entire bottle!)

Let's face it. We're being lied and cheated even through the mandatory nutrition labels. They think us consumers are so caught up in the hype of fat-free, no sugar, etc etc, that we don't pay attention to detail.


And the truth is we don't. We need to pay just that extra bit of attention to what we put into our mouths.


I'm not saying I have the perfect diet. I'm human like everyone else. When I found out that fat-free didn't really mean fat-free, I felt so cheated. 


Because really, they don't care about you at all. 


You need to care about you. 


Alright lovelies. 

Til the next post!