If you want your employees to eat healthier as part of your overall wellness plan, don’t let them get scammed by this common “health food” lingo.
Here’s a cheat sheet of words and phrases compiled by the folks at The Washington Post that your workers should be wary of. Consider printing it out and passing it along to your employees.
- “Natural” — Thanks to loose regs, companies can use the word “natural” to mean just about anything. Many people tend to think it means “organic” — but they’d be mistaken. There are more stringent guidelines companies have to meet before a product can be called “organic.”
- “Healthy” — To be called healthy, foods must meet various U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards (for fat content, calories, etc.) per serving size. But rather than change the ingredients to make the product healthier, many companies just shrink the serving size — say, for example, from 15 crackers to 10. So before eating a product that looks low in fat, cholesterol, etc., employees must ask themselves, “Is this a realistic serving size for me, or will I want to eat more than that?”
- “Whole wheat” — Just because a label says “made with whole wheat” doesn’t mean it’s made with 100% whole wheat (or whole wheat grain). To use that label, it only has to contain a tiny amount of whole wheat.
- “Zero trans fat” — This is a popular one these days — since the FDA announced trans fats contribute to heart disease. But just because a product contains no trans fat, that doesn’t mean it isn’t loaded with saturated fat — which can be just as bad for you. So check the label.
