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Healthy Convience Food?
By Linda DuBose, RD
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| Photo: Tomasz Trojanowski |
Many convenience food manufacturers are trying to meet the demands of health-conscious, though busy, consumers by cutting out trans fats, creating low-calorie options, and using various substitutes for sugar. A February 13, 2005 article in the New York Times reports that PepsiCo has removed trans fats from its Frito-Lay brand chips. Grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats are refusing to sell any processed food that contains it. Other companies such as Campbell Soup, ConAgra, Kraft Foods, and Kellogg, have cut trans fat out of most if not all of their products.
As consumers we often know what we should be eating but we find it hard to jive that with our busy schedules and our need to use convenience food products that often are not healthy choices. But there are healthy options if we look for and utilize them. Take for instance the increase of ready prepared fresh vegetables and fruits now found in most grocery stores. Everything from diced raw sweet potatoes, to stir-fry veggies are cut, packaged, and ready to microwave or cook. Some stores such as Trader Joes are offering shelf stable pouches of ready-to-eat cooked brown rice and vegetable curries. Lean Cuisine is even adding a “Spa” line of convenience entrees that contain whole grains and more generous servings of vegetables such as Salmon with Basil which pairs wild salmon on a bed of whole wheat orzo pasta with yellow and orange carrots and spinach in a basil cream sauce.
Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, LD, national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, teaches consumers what to look for on a food label. “There are six key points to determine whether to leave a product on the shelf or put it in your cart,” she says. They are the following:
• actual serving size
• calories per serving (use this rule of thumb: 100 to 200 calories is a snack or part of a meal and 300 to 500 calories is a whole meal)
• low saturated fat (less than 4 grams per serving)
• sodium level (500 milligrams or less per serving)
• dietary fiber source (good sources have 3 grams to 5 grams and excellent sources have 5 grams or more)
• the ingredient list (beware of unhealthy culprits such as hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup that may be lurking in the top five ingredients).
Many food manufacturers are bucking up and re-labeling, re-packaging and reformulating convenience food to meet the dietary recommendations from the government. It is up to the consumer to read the labels and make wise choices and when in question to seek advice from nutritional professionals.
Now go, read the labels and eat quick healthy meals!
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