Crackers Aren’t Always All They’re Cracked Up To Be
Used to be all you worried about with crackers was how much salt they had. If you picked a low-sodium or no-salt brand, you could feel pretty virtuous about eating healthier food.
Now, however, we’re looking for more whole grain foods and fiber, and eliminating the bad trans fats.
Once again, labels that are supposed to be there to help us are misleading and confusing. Food manufacturers have the tendency to put a spin on their label information, to make the food seem as wonderful as possible. After all, their goal is to get you to buy, so sometimes plain facts are hard to come by.
To make cracker comparisons even more confusing, for labeling purposes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows cracker companies to choose between a 15-gram serving, or a 30-gram (1 ounce) serving.
Naturally, the cracker companies choose the large serving size if they want to emphasis how much healthy-for-you whole grain and fiber is in their crackers, and the small serving size to talk about trans fats or sodium.
That means if you want to compare whole grain in different brands of crackers, you need to make sure you are comparing the same serving sizes, or do the math to even them up.
For instance, Triscuits uses the 30-gram (or one ounce) serving size. When comparing them to something like Ry Krisp, which has the 15-gram serving size, you need to double the numbers on the Ry Krisp label so you can get a better comparison between the sodium, fiber or whole grains in each cracker.
The moral of the story is, once again, to check the serving sizes when comparing food products, and made sure you’re comparing like sizes. It’s the only way to get a better idea of which is closer to a true health food!
July 28th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I LOVE when snack companies put something other than a weight on their boxes, ie: approx. 26 pretzels.
I am amazed at nutrition information on so-called “healthy” crackers. My most recent eye opening was a box of Kashi crackers. There were 7 (yes 7!) grams of fat in one serving. Hardly, health food. Who eats just one ounce of anything salty and crunchy, anyway?
My main objective is to shop on the periphery of the grocery story. Stuff in boxes, cans and containers make me have to read too much:) Nutritional information takes all the happiness out of eating. Too bad it’s so necessary!
August 4th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I agree, it’s a lot easier when they give realistic portion sizes, like how many in each serving, or at least by something easily measureable, like “half a cup.” It’s hard to figure by weight.
You’ve got a great plan on shopping the periphery… with the fruits and veggies, and other unprocessed foods it’s much easier to figure out what’s good for you and what’s not!