Manufacturing companies can trick people in interesting ways when you’re reading nutritional facts or on the label. The main focus will not be on the front of the packaging, where they’ll use things like “farm fresh” or “free range” or “natural”. The main focus will primarily be on what’s on the back of the label. There are a lot of things on this label, but we’re going to do a deep dive into real specific and important points that you need to know about.
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Serving size
The first thing is the serving size. Realize that when you are looking at the different values, especially total carbohydrates, net carbs, sugars, realize that those figures are per serving size, not the whole container.
So you really have to look at what is in a serving size, what is in the whole container, how many serving sizes are you going to consume in that meal, and then multiply that times the total net carb. Because if you don’t you, can very easily be misled because some of these products have around 33 serving size and you might eat the whole box of something and think you’re fine when you’re not really fine.
Trans fats
The next point is regarding trans fats, that is under total fats at the top. And here is the standard: if you have trans fats of less than a half of a gram, which is less than 500 milligrams, you can make your trans fats as zero. So, remember the serving size: if your serving size is 30, for example, and there are around 499 milligrams of trans fats per serving size and you eat the whole box, guess what, you are getting a lot of trans fats without knowing it.
So how do you know you have trans fats? Well, you go to the bottom part where it says ingredients and you look for two words: one is hydrogenated, and the other is partially hydrogenated. If it has either one of those two words, then you know there are trans fats in this product.
Carbohydrates
The most important thing is understanding carbohydrates and what that means. So you have the total carbohydrates, and then underneath that you have dietary fiber, and underneath that you have total sugars, and then you’re also supposed to see the added sugars, and then under that you may see sugar alcohols. So sugar alcohols are sweeteners that don’t apparently increase insulin too much, so they are not classified under sugars. They’re instead classified as sugar alcohols.
Now, what is a net carb? To find the net carb you should take the total carb and minus the fiber that will give you this net carb. And that is basically what you’re going to be using to be in keto. In other words, to be in keto then that carb needs to be below 50 grams per day. Now, this might sound pretty easy to understand and follow and implement, but there’s a couple tricks that manufactured companies use to make these values look more favorable.
Maltodextrin
The first trick is maltodextrin.
Maltodextrin is mostly a polysaccharide. What is the polysaccharide? That’s a starch. And so a starch is a series of sugars that are attached together, and so starch is not classified under sugars, it’s under total carbohydrate. And the way this is classified is this: if you have a polysaccharide, a starch, you don’t have to put it under sugars; if it’s a disaccharide, which is two connecting sugars, or a monosaccharide, which is one sugar like glucose, it needs to be classified under sugars.
But because maltodextrin is classified as a polysaccharide, it doesn’t have to be listed under sugars, despite acting like a sugar. Because if you look at the glycemic index, maltodextrin is way higher than sugar, it’s higher than glucose. Maltodextrin is between 106 and 130, it’s way up there. Now that’s because it gets absorbed in the stomach a lot faster than sugar, and that’s probably because it’s far from being natural.
The way that they make maltodextrin is using all sorts of chemical processes that break down corn starch, it could also be tapioca, it could also be wheat, it could also be potato, rice, but it’s usually corn starch. And then they heat it under high pressures using certain chemicals, and they come out with this maltodextrin. And maltodextrin is in so many products.
And if maltodextrin does have some disaccharide or monosaccharide, that is supposed to be in the sugars. However, you can go to Amazon right now and buy maltodextrin, and look at the back of the label. You’ll see that it has no sugar, it’s all carbohydrate. That means it’s all starch, and the problem with that is that a lot of times they’ll advertise this product with “less than one gram of sugar” or “no sugar,” but it has a lot of carbohydrates that act like sugar, even worse than sugar. And the other interesting thing is maltodextrin is often not used to sweeten something; it’s used as a flow agent to help dry out certain extracts, even like stevia, for example. And if that per serving size is less than a half a gram of maltodextrin, that can be considered as zero. So, in other words, you could be getting maltodextrin without even knowing you’re getting it if it’s less than 500 milligrams per serving size.
Dextrin
Now, everything about maltodextrin also applies to dextrin because dextrin is also a polysaccharide, a starch, that can act like sugar but isn’t classified as a sugar. It is a starch under the total carbs, so you just want to avoid any products with maltodextrin or dextrin.
Resistant maltodextrin
To make things even more complex, you also have something called “resistant maltodextrin”. This is classified as a fiber, in other words, manufacturing companies have found a way to turn this polysaccharide, this starch, maltodextrin, into a fiber chemically. So it’s an isolated, chemically made, they call it “functional fiber.” And now they’re positioning functional fibers as a health benefiting ingredient. And so, you have soluble corn fiber, which basically is resistant maltodextrin, tapioca fiber, which is resistant maltodextrin.
These are all fibers, and they are not classified under sugars, and they are deducted from the total carbohydrate. So, you can have a lot of these new fibers in your gradient that basically are not even calculated in this equation because they are deducted out with the fiber. The question is, do they affect your blood sugars? Well, there are studies that say that they might, but the problem is, these new functional fibers are new to our diet and a lot of people are having a lot of digestive problems: inflammation, bloating, gas, diarrhea, and so the jury is still out.
The best option is to stick with fiber that comes from real food like vegetables. There is a big difference between an isolated, synthesized fiber, and fiber that comes from nature with all the other factors that work synergistically. And just think about the source of these fibers. Like wheat, for example, or corn, or potato, or rice, or tapioca, there is no question whether they’re GMO or not at this this point. So that’s the fiber part.
Sugar alcohols
Let’s touch on the sugar alcohols. Sugar alcohols can also be deducted, just like fiber, from total carbs to get your net carbs. Well, there are certain sugar alcohols that definitely will spike your blood sugars and create a problem. And the big one is maltitol, but there is also sorbitol and mannitol.
Xylitol can affect the blood sugars to some degree, but not as much as the other ones. The only sugar alcohol that doesn’t affect your blood sugars is erythritol. So, even though these sugar alcohols are deducted from the total carbohydrates, giving you the net carb, your blood sugars can still be affected. And on top of that, let’s say some of this fiber, or functional fiber, resistant starch that you consume, is creating a lot of digestive issues. Well, the stress in your digestive system could potentially elevate your blood sugars. Why? Because of all the inflammation that is created. When you bake things that are keto friendly using erythritol, they usually add stevia or monk fruit. In addition, they’re also adding maltodextrin to that.
So, if you are going to get a sweetener, make sure you get the ones that don’t have the maltodextrin or dextrin. Maltodextrin many times is not even that sweet, but it’s there as a filler, it gives you the mouth feel, it gives you a certain texture very similar to fat, but it sure acts like a carbohydrate. So we’re looking at this label and we’re trying to get this net carb. It’s very important to understand the type of carb that’s in this product because if we’re going to try to do the healthy version of keto, we want healthy ingredients. And so that number, 50 grams net carb, should be quality nutrient dense carbohydrates. And all these resistant starches just don’t have the nutrient values compared to regular real food.
Whole grains
Another way that manufacturing companies trick people is with this “whole grains”. Just take a look in the grocery store at all these cereals, the worst cereals that you can eat, they are filled with sugars. Right at the top it says “whole grain” and, of course, people think that that gives some benefit. But what about all the other things that are added to the “whole grain” to make it taste good? Of course, you get sugars, chemicals preservatives. Not to mention, the “whole grain” is ground into flour, and who knows how long it’s been oxidized, or sitting on some shelf before it’s turned into some product.
These delicate vitamins, these fat-soluble vitamins in grains, are highly susceptible to oxygen and heat, and they can go rancid really fast. And then when they’re put into a product, and they sit on a shelf for a period of time, you’re consuming a product that has very low levels of nutrients. So, just because something says “100% whole grains” doesn’t mean they’re 100% healthy!
Keto-friendly products
When you look at some of these keto-friendly products, they actually put wheat gluten in there. Well, that’s a protein, but so many people have a gluten intolerance and they’re going to have a lot of digestive issues from that type of protein. And then there is soy protein isolates, probably one of the lowest quality sources of protein that you can get, is soy protein isolates. It’s just not a natural thing that we’re supposed to eat.
Another point about sweeteners: even keto-friendly foods have sugar in them, but they will have low amounts of sugar. And many times that sugar is not even cane sugar, it’s beet sugar. and 95% of all beet sugar is GMO.
So, it has traces of glyphosate, which is the herbicide they spray when you have GMO products. The same thing with wheat. Wheat is not GMO, but they still sometimes spray it with glyphosate. Non-GMO does not mean genetically modified organism free; it’s listed as non-GMO project verified. So basically, they go through a series of standards that they must meet, they don’t necessarily test them to see if there are actually GMO organisms or byproducts in the product. It is a checklist that they follow, which lowers the risk of having GMO foods in that product. So non-GMO project verified does not mean absolutely 100% free of GMOs.
Antibiotics
When a product says “no antibiotics”, it doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been antibiotics used. You just can’t use antibiotics past the second day of life, but as far as eggs go, if an egg has not been hatched yet, or let’s say it’s been hatched, and that chick is alive for one day, and it’s given antibiotics, but then from the second day on no antibiotics, it could be classified as no antibiotics. Even though it was given antibiotics on the first day.
If something is classified as “no growth promoting antibiotics”, that doesn’t mean they’re not using antibiotics. They are just using antibiotics for different purposes. Not necessarily for growing the chicken, but for other reasons, like the chicken is sick. And when they say “no medically important antibiotics”, that means that they’re not using antibiotics that are used for humans, but they can use other types of antibiotics that are not for humans but for animals.
This was the list of several tricks that manufacturing companies use to get you to buy their products. You can now apply this information when you want to read labels.
