What's Inside

Simple label: for an egg

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We are what we eat. That's a simple fact, and unfortunately one which is often ignored in our western culture. When striving for a nutritious, powerful pantry, we need to know what we're eating, and that starts with reading labels.

I know it might seem geeky to invest precious minutes of our busy day reading food labels, but it is absolutely worth it, especially realizing the bizarre stuff that is in foods we buy. The pantry premise is that if it's there, we'll eat it (or when we're stumped on what to make for dinner Tuesday evening, we're obviously limited to whatever we find in the pantry, so it better be good.)

The 40+ ingredient cake

What are we looking for on labels? We want whole, natural ingredients wherever possible. A rule of thumb is the less ingredients, the better -- simple wins. Here's a label from a cake we got as part of a recent birthday party. I counted over 40 ingredients on the label between the actual cake and the toppings. It looked good to eat, but seeing all that stuff in what should have been a simple pound cake made me lose my appetite.


Another guideline: if you can't pronounce it, or it has more than three syllables, look for a healthier alternative. There are key offenders that can be avoided once you know to watch

A simple bag of potato chips - 3 ingredients

for them: refined grains, enriched grains, all refined white foods (rice, flour, sugar, vinegar, salt) high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated / partially hydrogenated oils, monosodium glutamate, and ingredients that may be problematic to food-sensitive folks in your household (like soy or gluten, etc.)

Here's a worthwhile exercise if you're getting into the habit of label-reading: search Google or Bing images for 'healthy food labels' and 'unhealthy food labels' and review what comes up. You can get quite an education by scanning the materials available on line that explain parts of the label and reinforce what healthy guidelines are for recommended daily allowances (RDAs) and such.

The point is that at some level, we need to root out the unhealthy choices that are lingering in (or dominating) our pantry, and replace them with nutrient dense, healthful alternatives. Here are a few we've found:
Progresso soups (compared to Campbell's - almost all Campbell's soups have MSG)
Neuman's Own dressings (compared to Kraft - almost all Kraft dressings have MSG and many have partially hydrogenated oils).
Nature's Own bread and rolls - 100% whole wheat available, and no hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup.
Almost everything from the produce section is a good choice, because they all basically have singular ingredients (veggies, fruits, greens, etc.).
The lists can go on and on, but you get the idea that there are nutritious healthy alternatives to basically all of the unhealthy ones that can occupy our pantries.

By the Way

My wife, Jen, has acknowledged that her label-reading experience improved over time. She didn't like reading labels at first; it's a time investment, rooting out poor nutritional choices compared to good ones. But it has gotten much more tolerable. Once you know what to look for, it is easier to recognize poor ingredients compared to good, nutritious ones. You'll be well on your way to a power pantry.