Nutrition Facts

I read them because I am generally curious about.. everything. I like to know as many facts as possible and I love Nutrition Facts because they are facts about whatever I am currently eating. Highly interesting, as far as I am concerned. Plus, it gives me something to think about while eating because I generally feel that taking the time to eat is.. a waste of time. XD

I was just reading the label on a container of Odwalla B Monster and was highly disappointed to find that it doesn't tell me exactly how many mgs of Niacin are in it. =/

Do you read Nutrition Facts? Why or why not?

I do..mainly I try to avoid the "bad stuff"...artificial sweeteners, high sodium content, saturated fats...that type of thing. I like to know if consuming the product will put me one step closer to a heart attack or not.

As little as possible. My body normally handles whatever I put into it. *taps belly* cast iron stomach *clang clang*.

I read ingredients a lot, but mostly because my husband has a lot of food allergies I need to watch for.

I require a high salt diet, and I am annoyed to a spectacular degree by people trying to insist that low salt is healthy. If I'm on a "healthy" low salt diet I will be in constant physical agony as my nervous system completely misfires.

I tend to read nutrition information a lot, but as a rule my body is good at knowing what it needs and I tend to be hungry only for what is required. Mainly though I read nutrition information to make sure I'm getting enough calories, and if my calorie intake is very low one day I will try to eat something high sugar to give me some kind of boost.

In general, a high salt diet *is* unhealthy...you just have a strange system <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s --> In a "normal" body, one that doesn't run on a sodium difficiency like yours seems to, high salt = bad.

Seraphyna Wrote:In general, a high salt diet *is* unhealthy...you just have a strange system <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s --> In a "normal" body, one that doesn't run on a sodium difficiency like yours seems to, high salt = bad.

That's the problem, there is no "normal" as everyone's body is different. And that's why I hate standards in medicine and health related things because while salt may not be good for your body, Archer needs it, and other stuff like that. At best, the standards are just estimated guesses so I think it's better to take the facts and alter them to fit your personal needs.

Exactly. I would have no problem with "for most people, it's best to limit your sale intake" - that would be accurate and not get the "SALT IS BAD!!!!!" nonsense into people's heads.

A great example is McDonalds (very healthy to start with, heh heh) round here had a habit for some time of using only "lo salt", which was salt made half with sodium and half with potassium, I think. Fantastic. Except if you have a sodium deficiency when it does, in fact, make you very, very ill.

Here's a thought . . . instead of "lo salt" and artificial sweetener nonsense, why not just use regular salt and sugar and stuff . . . and if your body says "NEED SALT!" or "NEED SUGAR!" just listen to it. Tricking the body, by having it taste a natural and necessary flavour but instead feeding it artificial substitutes with little or no metabolic use serves no helpful purpose at all.

Sweeteners = making people fat by causing sugar cravings. True fact. Your tongue might not be able to tell the difference, but your brain and digestive system sure do.

Rant over.

We read them because we have to watch our carbs and minimize our caffeine intake; cutting loose on either makes our depression harder to treat. Caffeine also has some "fun" side effects for us, now that we're no longer addicted to it.

Allergy-wise, we recently found out we're allergic to buckwheat, so we have to watch out for it in both food and bath product ingredient lists.

Artificial sweeteners other than stevia taste terrible to us.

High fructose corn syrup doesn't affect us any differently from other sugars and it's been established to have the same glycemic load as glucose, IIRC...but it's generally a red flag for cheaply made products that are likely to throw off our nutritional balance so we avoid it in most products anyway.

Also, sometimes we just get bored and read an entire food package for sh**s and giggles.

-Shainin and Aletheia

I read them cause i like to know what all the extra chemicals are I'm putting in my body (especially since i can understand what most of them are). Sure one feels invincible while young, but it's when one becomes older that they may truly feel the effects of their youthful lifestyle on their aged body down the line.

And i plan on staying as healthy as i can for as long as i can
Mainly cause i can't wait to see the effects of aging on our generation and intern how we'll influence the perception of younger generations view of us (yup, definitely a gerontology minor here).