Nourished Living

04 - What’s Hiding in Your Food? How to Read Labels Like a Pro

• Courtney Podany

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In this episode, we’re diving deep into nutrition labels and ingredients—helping you navigate the grocery store with confidence so you can make the best choices for your health.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by all the different brands and confusing labels, this episode is for you! I’ll break down what to look for, what to avoid, and why ingredients matter more than marketing claims.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why ingredients matter more than the nutrition facts panel
  • The top ingredients to avoid (like trans fats, artificial dyes, and hidden sugars)
  • The many names sugar can hide under—so you don’t get tricked!
  • The truth about natural flavors and why they can be misleading


Resources Mentioned:


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Connect with Courtney: 

Instagram: @nourished_living_

Work With Me: Nourished Living

Welcome to the nourished living podcast, where I will be diving deep into nutrition, holistic wellness, and practical tips to help you live your healthiest, most vibrant life. I'm Courtney Podany, a nutritional therapist, certified personal trainer. Type 1 diabetic and mom. And I'm here to help you take charge of your health with ease and confidence. Together, we'll explore how to nourish your body, mind, and soul in a way that feels good and sustainable. So, grab your favorite beverage, take a deep breath, and let's get into the episode. Welcome back. This is episode four of the Nourished Living Podcast, and I'm your host, Courtney Podany. Today we are diving into nutrition labels and ingredients. So a few episodes ago we talked about shopping the perimeter of the grocery store to try and get those nutrient dense foods, but of course, there are foods that are needed down the aisles. This should help you choose the best options for you. I have heard from so many that you feel overwhelmed while you're at the store because there's basically, the same foods just offered from many different brands, so you're not always sure. Which are better than others, which ones to buy. So I am hoping that this episode will provide clarity for that and you will become a pro at navigating the store and deciphering what these nutrition labels are actually telling us. This is what I do personally as a nutritional therapist. So yes, sometimes I am looking at labels for quite a long time, so if I'm in a rush, I just go with what I know, so I don't have to question anything. But first, I always, always start with the ingredients. A lot of times you might have to search for them because they are located underneath the nutrition facts or over to the side and can be in like really small print. But I go there first. If there's something in the product that I don't want to eat, then there's really no use looking up at the nutrition facts. I do not need to bother looking at those. When looking at the ingredients, there are some things that I try to avoid. Typically, hydrogenated oils, partially hydrogenated oils, shortening or margarine. These are terms for trans fats. Which I'm sure you've heard about because there's been increasing concern about their potential health effects and detrimental health effects at that. So I try to stay away from these trans fats, raise the bad cholesterol while lowering the good cholesterol, which is the opposite directions that we want them. So it really is a double whammy. Which over time, when those numbers go in the opposite directions, it can increase our risk of developing heart disease and contribute to inflammation. Also with trans fats, if there is less than 0.5 grams per one serving, they can actually just list it as zero grams. Which is why we need to check the ingredients, because if it's in it, they do need to list out the ingredients. So that's why I look for anything that says hydrogenated, anything that says shortening or anything that says margarine. Because while it could say zero grams of trans fats, the ingredients tell a different story. And it's just. Per one serving, not the whole box, which you are going to eat over the course of time. Once you eat that whole box, you know it's not just 0.5 grams that you're getting, if there's 10 servings, that's gonna be five grams of trans fats overall. This is just for your awareness. It's of course up to you what you choose to buy and what you choose to eat. This is just so, you can make the best choices for yourself and for your family. And while we're talking about fats, I also choose to stay away from. Soybean oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, and grape seed oil. These are highly inflammatory and are very popular within packaged foods down those aisles. We will definitely do an episode on healthy sources of fats because we do need fat and It shouldn't be demonized anymore. So those are what I also check for in those ingredients. If you see anything with a number after it, for example, blue one, red 40 yellow six, these are artificial dyes or coloring, and that means that they are manmade. There has also been awareness of how these colors are causing, adverse health effects as well, and they have no good nutritional value and like, why do we need to color our food? That's just my opinion. Some foods that have, these are cereal, candy, gum, sports drinks, chips, popsicles, jello, and even flavored yogurts. And it could come under a multitude of names, but like I was saying, typically if you see a number listed after the word, that will signify that it is artificial coloring. And while we are talking about. Foods that can go under many different names. Sugar is one of those as well. I think it's been documented that there are over 80 different names that could be listed on the ingredients. So again, just something to be aware of. It could say something like high fructose corn syrup or corn syrup, solids, maybe even dextrose or fructose. Those are all sugar. And again, why It's just so important that we check the ingredients so we actually know what is going on. But I'm going to list a few of these with you so you know what to look for. If anything ends in syrup like corn syrup, rice syrup, or tapioca syrup, that is sugar. If there's a cane included, cane juice or cane juice concentrate, that will be sugar. If it ends in OSE, like sucrose, fructose galactose, that is sugar. And if it has malt in it, so it could be malt barley, malto, dextrin, or maltose. These are sugars. So again, if you see syrup cane, the word ends in OSE or there's malt in it. This is going to be sugar. And when you are looking for sugar, this will be included. Underneath total carbs, it will say added sugar. Included sugar or total sugars. If you have something like fruit juice where there is just naturally glucose within the, grapes or oranges or something like that will be included in total carbs. But using this juice analogy, lots of times there's fruit. And added sugar. So you would want to look for the added sugar. However, it might already have a high number of total carbs just because of the nature of the fruit. Another ingredient I want to touch on is natural flavors. So you know, way back when I began my. Nutrition journey. I'm sure if I saw natural flavors, I just thought, great. It's all natural. We are good to go. But what does natural flavors even mean? It's so ambiguous. Like literally, you have no idea what it's even made of derived from, and natural flavors has a long, extensive definition, but the short of it is that. It can be derived from spices, fruit, meat, fish, herbs, roots or leaves, and can be manipulated in a lab or made from GMOs, genetically modified organisms. And I got that definition from the New York Times, which is cited in the show notes also. You can read more there, but. Natural flavors can encompass so many things. You never know exactly what it is. And it can be, manmade, it can be natural. Who even knows? So I can't always stay away from everything, right? I'm human and if I choose to go down the aisles, there's a good chance that there might be natural flavors or something that I don't always want in me. I know it can be hard to find items that check all these boxes to avoid this, that and the other thing. So I totally get it. I'm right there with you. I do not eat perfectly even though I'm a nutritionist. This is just for your information. It's just weird that natural flavors doesn't have to be a little bit more specific when we're putting things in our bodies. Okay, when we go up to the nutrition label, if you've ever wondered how calories are calculated, one gram of carbohydrates equals four calories. Let's say that your item has five grams of carbs, you'll take five times four, and that equals 20. You'll be consuming. 20 calories from carbs in one serving of that package, not the whole container. One gram of protein also equals four calories, so it's the same as carbs. And then with fat, anytime you have one gram of fat that is equal to nine calories. That's why fat is referred to as calorie dense. You get more calories for your buck. If you had five grams of fat, five times nine equals 45, so you would be getting 45 calories from fat in that serving. And then, once you added up all those numbers, that would be the amount of calories for one serving in that food. And I wanted to go over some of the verbiage that you might see on the front of packages. So we're moving away from the nutrition label and the ingredients, but still some things that I take into consideration when buying food. When you are looking for organic food. For it to be 100% organic, you'll need to see A-U-S-D-A organic seal on it. Other labels that you might see are just made with organic ingredients that does not require 100% of the ingredients to be organic. That only requires 70% of the ingredients in that product to be organic, leaving, 30% non-organic. So it's not a big deal, but if you need something to be absolutely organic, you need that USDA seal to back it up. And if you're looking at something and you happen to notice asterisk behind ingredients, that usually indicates that they are organic. So you can see which ones are organic and which ones are not. Okay. Other labels that you might see on the front of the package are low fat, non-fat, or fat free, and I just like to consider this marketing. If have a product that's low fat or non-fat, then what is it typically made out of? If you're looking at a box within the aisles of the grocery store there's probably not gonna be a huge portion of protein in it because these things are shelf stable, so that probably means that it's going to be heavy carbs and carbs aren't bad. You just need to be. Aware that when you eat carbs, remember we always pair carbs with protein and fat. So just keep that in mind. I also think that people are still scared of fat a little bit from, a couple decades ago but they're not the enemy that We think they are. We just have to have the right kind. And like I said, we will go into that in another episode, but for me personally, I never really buy anything low fat or non-fat because I want fat in my diet. I need fat. Fat, helps with our brain function. It helps keep us full and I don't want to avoid it. Honestly, as far as nutrition facts go, I really only look at the added sugars section so I know how much sugar is in there because I have already checked out the ingredients, and if I deem them all good and I've decided that I want to eat this food, then the nutrition facts really don't matter to me. I do look at carbs as a diabetic and also just. To see if I'm going to need to pair it this with protein and fat. But other than that, the ingredients are really where it's at for me, so that's why we are not talking about nutrition facts too much. All righty. So I hope you know that the key takeaway from this episode is to always check the ingredients if you want to continue upgrading your health, reducing inflammation, feeling your best on a regular basis, having enough energy to get you through the day. I would just be mindful of the trans fats, artificial dyes, and hidden sugars. I'm not saying you have to completely give'em up. Just be mindful. And again, we've already talked about starting your shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store, focusing on those nutrient dense foods. So if you are doing that, then you are doing a great job, but. I hope you found this helpful and informative and that it might make your next grocery trip a little bit easier, or at least meal planning, and thank you so much for hanging out with me. I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for hanging out with me today and tuning in to the Nourished Living Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and found something you can start implementing right away to kickstart your nourished transformation. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who could benefit from these insights. You can also connect with me over on Instagram at nourished underscore living underscore for more resources and support. Until next time, stay nourished.