Mystery Ingredients
One of the oft-repeated comments by many nutritional experts goes something like this: “If you can’t say it, don’t eat it.” A further expansion of that is “If there are ingredients you don’t recognize on the nutrition label, don’t eat that food.”
The idea is that the longer the list of ingredients with more difficulty to pronounce the names, the more likely it’s highly processed and could be an ultra-processed food. I understand that concept, so let’s test it out. I’ll stick to the list of ingredients.
Guess the Mystery Food
The serving size is 3.3 ounces. Ingredients: Sugar (fructose, glucose), ascorbic acid, phylloquinone, homogalacturonans and rhamnogalacturonans, hemicellulose, betaine, cyanidin-3-galactoside
beta-cryptoxanthin, chlorogenic acid, coumaric acid, caffeic acid, phloridzin, and ash. (I didn’t include every ingredient.)
How many could you pronounce? How many did you recognize? Sugar, for sure. Probably ascorbic acid as a preservative, another name for vitamin C. But the rest?
What you’re looking at is the ingredients in an apple—if they actually put the ingredients on the label of apples. Those are the names of the fibers, prebiotics, and the phytonutrients found in just about every type of red apple. I think we should probably eat more of them whether we can pronounce the ingredients or not.
The Bottom Line
I’m not discounting the advice attributed to Michael Pollan about pronouncing ingredients, but oversimplification isn’t the answer either. They just become talking points for media gurus and wannabe influencers. Much of the time they get it wrong. Remember the ruckus about maltodextrin? They want to get noticed to get more clicks. The truth doesn’t always matter.
Their true challenge is to prove that any ingredient deemed as “Generally Regarded As Safe” is not—not with testimonials or research on animals, but with research that connects ingredients with disease. That would be helpful. Otherwise, it’s just tangential commentary that serves only the purpose of the person doing the talking.
What are you prepared to do today?
