Homemade sweet bread with “unrefined sugar”

I want to share with you some of my experiences with how food is presented and marketed and talk about some aspects that might draw your attention.

Today’s speciality - hidden things or how to hide or beautiful pack a not so beautiful “reality”.

Let’s talk about sweets and pastry a little now that the Christmas is coming.

We often see on the labels a big text like “With brown sugar” or ”With unrefined cane sugar”…

Ok then you assume that this product is healthy because you have some information that unrefined sugar is healthier than white sugar, being less processed. But the manufacturer did not specified that all the sugar in this product (let’s say a cake or a Christmas sweet bread) is unrefined sugar… It can be 1 percent or 5 percent, you don’t have this information until you read the label. And when you read the label you might discover that the product contains a lot of taste and colour additives and some questionable fats of course together with a high sugar content. That is what reading the label does…

So keep in mind when you see this “slogan”… Don’t get too confident that you truly deal with a healthy product until you read the label. It can be a marketing strategy… You can often see on the shelf a “regular” sweet bread near a sweet bread “Whith unrefined sugar” and the last one being more expensive and equal or even less healthier…

Same story with cereals or cookies when you see written with giant characters on the label “With honey”… and you assume that the product contains honey instead of sugar which might not be the case. If the manufacturer adds a t-spoon of honey to a hundred cakes he can write on the label that the product contains honey. And it has the same result as you add a t-spoon of honey to a full bucket of sugar - no noticeable benefits. So again read the labels to check if you are indeed looking to a better quality or healthier product.

A good quality or healthy ingredient doesn’t turn the whole product into a healthy one…

We can often read “With olive oil” written on a bagel package and many of us assume that this is the only fat added in the recipe. And because we know that olive oil is good for health we assume that those bagels are healthy. But in fact we don’t know how much olive oil those bagels contain or what other “not so famous ingredients” the recipe contains. We do not know what quality level is that olive oil and what other fats and preservatives are added.

Many times manufacturers highlight the “magic ingredient” (which is worldwide appreciated ) in a product without mention the quantity or anything about the rest of the ingredients. And, by placing the product on the proper shelf (maybe near true healthy products) creates a false impression of a health friendly product. Too many times the focus is on one healthy or famous ingredient (added in a very small quantity) and not on the whole product.

What to have in focus when you read the labels ?

Read the labels, read the labels, but what should capture our attention ?

Do not only look at the calories content (energy) when you read the labels. In fact it is normal for some product categories to have high caloric values, like oil, butter, chocolate (even organic or dark ones due to cocoa high caloric value). We do not have to avoid them, we have to consume the proper quantity for us.

Search for more natural and less processed products. This products have on the label very few ingredients (which you probably are familiar). Try to avoid high processed products with many ingredients on the labels, especially the ones which contain many substances that you are not familiar with. For example if you buy flatbreads for wraps you will find types which contain the main ingredients only ( flour, water, oil and salt ) but also you will find types which contain more than ten ingredients (I let you decide which is better for your health) …

Look also at the sugars contained and the types of fat added. Avoid trans fats and high concentration of saturated fats especially combined with carbohydrates. As a general rule the list of ingredients should contain the fewest ingredients possible especially in simple products.

You will observe that the heavily a food product is processed, the longer the list of ingredients is.

And don’t let just the taste and the brand play the main role in your decision.