What information can be found on a “food label”?

What information can be found on a

“food label”?


General Nutrition: What information can be found on a “food label”?

The main thing to think about with a food label, and what I say when I’m teaching my clients how to read a food label, is that it’s not that they have to read everything on that label. They have to focus in on a few things. One is the serving size because if you get a bottle of some sort of juice and it says, “50 calories per serving,” but there are four servings in that bottle, then you have to figure out that you’re getting four times that if you drink the whole bottle. So that’s one thing; understanding what a serving size is in that package or container. Number two is really looking at the list of ingredients. How many ingredients are in that particular food? If there’s more than four or five, it’s probably not a whole-food-based kind of product; it’s probably a very synthetic kind of product with a lot of added things to preserve it, to keep it on a shelf for a long time. That would not be a good idea. You also look at what the first ingredient is. If it says “wheat flour,” you know you’ve got a white-flour product there. If it says “whole-wheat flour,” then you’ve got something that’s got whole wheat as the foundation. Then, you look at what the next ingredient is, and the next ingredient. As long as you can read all of the ingredients and know what they are, that’s a good start point. Then, it starts with the healthiest product. If it starts with sugar, don’t pick it up and buy it. That’s something that you don’t need in your diet. However, if it’s got a whole-grain base, that’s probably a good alternative. The next thing to look at is how much sugar and how much sodium there is in the product, and what kind of fat it is in the product. Is it trans-fatty acids? How much of the trans fats are inherent in it? How much fat overall is there? I usually aim with my clients to teach them to have no more than 3 grams of fat per serving. That way they get a good serving size of fats but not too much, and especially, as I said a minute ago, you don’t want to have trans-fatty acids.

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What is the “food pyramid”?

What is the “food pyramid”?


General Nutrition: What is the “food pyramid”?

The food guide pyramid was originally developed by the food industry. It was not developed necessarily with health in mind. The food pyramid was more a vehicle for selling the food items; the dairy products, the meat products, and the canned processed products, because it was really not set up in a way that was conducive to good health. When you look at the very foundation of the food pyramid, the very base of it was carbohydrates. It was carbohydrates in any form that was baked and so it could be simple carbohydrates or complex carbohydrates. There was no differentiation. It was all grouped into the same bundle. As they moved up in the food pyramid, it was focused on dairy and meat instead of really focusing fully on what we know now to be really healthy foods; fruits, vegetables, and legumes. Actually they even basically overlooked things like beans, peas, lentils, split peas, and nuts, all of which healthy cultures in the world eat. So, the food pyramid was not founded on really nutritious foods. The food pyramid was founded on what the industry was really trying to sell. That was the basis of the food pyramid and it moved up from, you know, the carbohydrates at the bottom right up to the top where it was incorporating oils and things like that. However, it didn’t differentiate even between which oils were healthy and which ones were not. So, again, there was no differentiation between healthy versus unhealthy in the food pyramid.

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What is the “RDA” or “Recommended Daily Allowance”?

What is the “RDA” or

“RECOMMENDED H2 Allowance?< Daily>


General Nutrition: What is the “RDA” or “Recommended Daily Allowance”?

Well, the recommended daily allowance; that’s a great question, because the recommended daily allowance is not something that I encourage my clients to really focus on. It’s a minimum amount that you need, that a healthy person needs, in order to stay healthy. The challenge is that it’s not enough for a person who’s on the borderline. So, I always encourage people to aim for more then what they see as the recommended daily allowance as a minimum requirement. It was originally developed because people were not clear on what they required in order to maintain health, so in studying what the baseline was for general health, it was determined (I believe it was through science as well) that it was this particular level of, for example, vitamin c to prevent scurvy, and this level of vitamin b1 to prevent a deficiency that would lead to pellagra. These were things that they looked at and determined it as a base level. That’s how this was originally set up; so that there was a level that we would be sure that if you met you would not get those particular deficiency illnesses. However, if you were already sick, you would not then be able to get well from that amount; you needed to have a better foundation in your diet in order to regain your health.

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What is a “Registered Dietician” Compared to a “Nutritionist”?

What is a “Registered Dietician” Compared

to a “Nutritionist”?


General Nutrition: Introduction To Nutrition

There is a lot of controversy about what a nutritionist is, but let me just start by saying a nutritionist is anyone who puts a sign up outside their door and says, “I’m a nutritionist”; that is the overall definition. However, a true nutritionist, for example a registered dietician, has to have at least four years of university and then a year of an internship. Many of us have more than that, but that’s the baseline to become a dietician. A “clinical nutritionist” has to go through two years of schooling and then becomes certified. That’s a “certified clinical nutritionist.” So, there are different levels. For example, in Japan, this was interesting to me, they only have to have two years of university in order to become a dietician. So, it’s different globally. However, in North America you have to have a baseline of four years plus an internship to be a registered dietician. A registered dietician goes through massive training to become a nutritionist; you can go between the two words “registered dietician” and ”nutritionist”, but if you’re a nutritionist who doesn’t have the RD status, you can only call yourself a nutritionist. There are many self-proclaimed nutritionists out there. You can go to someone with that kind of education (and many of them have spent years studying) but do they have the clinical basis? Do they understand how nutrition works on a cellular level? That’s something you have to ask. I always tell people, “Ask a lot of questions. Find out how much education the person has. Find out what they know about the clinical aspects of nutrition and how it works with the metabolic systems.”

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The Benefits of Yoga and Nutrition

The Benefits of Yoga and Nutrition

Stacey Shipman interviews Victoria Haffer, MS on the benefits of yoga and nutrition for healthy lifestyles.

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