Click here to see my last post on health halos.
The best way to stay educated and not fall prey to health halos is to read the food labels on products.
Food labels provide information on roughly a dozen nutrients in the nutrition facts table, as well as the ingredients list. Start by looking at the serving size and ask yourself if this is how much you would normally eat. Next examine the % daily value column. Aim to maximize your intake of fibre, calcium, and iron, while minimizing your intake of saturated fat, sugar, and sodium. Note that less than 5% daily value is considered a small amount and greater than 15% is a lot.
Try reading the nutrition facts table the next time you think you’re being caught by a health halo and help yourself make more informed choices about the foods you eat.
PLANT-BASED FOODS
In the last few years, plant-based foods have become more prevalent in restaurants and grocery stores. While the labelling and marketing of these foods helps individuals make personal foods choices, they can also be misleading.
Foods labelled as plant-based, such as burgers, pizzas, and convenience foods like chips or donuts, have a health halo effect where they are perceived as being healthier versions of their non-plant-based alternatives. In reality, these foods are similarly highly processed and can be just as high in fat, salt, or sugar.
A healthy eating pattern involves limiting your intake of highly processed foods to reduce your consumption of less nutritious foods.
LOW IN FAT/SUGAR/SALT FOODS
The next health halo I’m exposing is products labelled as low in fat, sugar, or salt. People often assume that these products are healthy, or at least healthier than the alternatives, but this isn’t always the case.
When foods have reduced fat, sugar, or sodium often the texture or the taste changes. In order to make these products palatable, the reduced nutrient is then replaced with other ingredients, which may increase the total calories compared to the original product. For example, low-fat yogurts may be higher in sugar than regular yogurts.
The use of low in fat, sugar, or salt labels can cause you to add a health halo to that product and assume that it is healthy, potentially leading you to overeat. Be sure to read the nutrition labels to uncover the truth about a food’s nutrition.
JUICES
Juices are perceived as being healthier than soft drinks and many other beverages, but for many juices this is an example of a health halo.
The term ‘juice’ can be used to describe a variety of beverages including punches, cocktails, and juice-flavoured drinks. Like soft drinks, many of these juice types are low in nutrients, yet high in sugar and calories.
The best juice options are those made of 100% real fruit juices without added sugar, but they can still be high in naturally occurring sugars. Whole fruits provide a nutritious and similarly refreshing experience without extra calories and sugar that comes from condensing many fruits.
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