Learning Labelese - How to Interpret Food Labels

There is a new language evolving that is causing lots of tongue-tripping - although this one isn't conceived in another country - it has been birthed on the shelves in your local supermarket.

Certainly, our food supply has become complicated due to our stress-wrenching days and craving for convenience. In return for those handy pre-packaged edibles, we need to learn labelese to make sense of it all.

Ironic isn't it? We try our best to save time with convenient foods but then spend extra time having to learn what we are eating. Mastering the lingo can be difficult unless you're a food scientist, nutritionist or chemist, but what about Mrs. Average Shopper?

Can you say aspartyl-phenylalanine-1-methyl three times fast? Does butylated hydroxyanisole slip off your tongue easily? How about Disodium Guanylate, and what the heck is it anyway?  Here's the definition: sodium salts of the purines , guanylic and inosinic acids, used as flavour enhancers, frequently together with monosodium glutamate.  Just look for it in TV dinners.

Bisphenol-A is a little easier to say. BPA is an endocrine disruptor chemical used in the manufacturing of some vinyl can liners that made headlines in the last week.

Here's another one, I found in a TV dinner,  sodium tripolyphosphate , which is the sodium salt of triphosphoric acid. It is used in various applications such as a preservative for seafood, meats, poultry and pet foods. It is also used as a builder in soaps and detergents, improving their cleansing ability. Well, if it improves cleansing ability in soaps , guess if I ingested it, I  would probably be clean inside and out!

I love cheese ,but we don't eat a lot of it but use it as an accent to dishes .To find real cheese better head on over to the organic section of the store.

The P'tit Quebec Brand of Brick Cheese , the main ingredient is milk, , but if you are looking at their Mild Cheddar Cheese , it is made from milk, and modified milk ingredients. Another brand I looked at contained milk Ingredients.

To get a clear definition, of  just what these milk ingredients were, I decided to write to the Canadian Dairy Commission.

Milk ingredients usually refer to ingredients made from whole milk.

Modified milk ingredients usually refer to milk by-products such as whey that are obtained by mechanical means (separation/filtration). Whey is the liquid material obtained naturally from cheese making which is often dried into powder form and used as an ingredient in all sorts of food recipes.

When milk ingredients obtained from whole milk such as skim milk powder as used in

combination with whey powder (a modified milk ingredient) the two ingredients may be reported ( on a food label as " modified milk ingredients".

Thanks Mr.Marc Lalonde, Chief , Marketing Programs for that detailed explanation.

If you really want to know just what is lurking in most of the processed foods today, better bring a dictionary with you, or better still bring your laptop which is much more fashionable and convenient.