The Smile Food System is meant to replace the need to worry about specific ingredients on the nutrition label and instead make choosing packaged foods easier. However, looking at the ingredients list and understanding what to look for introduces some additional knowledge and benefits.
As a start, you want to understand the order of items. The ingredients are listed in order of predominance in the food, with the ingredient used in the greatest amount first, the second-most predominant ingredient listed next, and so on (1). The first few ingredients tell you the food’s predominant ingredients, which can allow you to make informed decisions about its nutritional quality. After the first few ingredients, the following ingredients represent a smaller percentage of the food.
To go beyond the starting point of looking at the first few ingredients, we provide below some specific strategies and ideas to consider when scanning the ingredients list:
- Scan the first few ingredients for sources of nutrient-dense foods. For example, when choosing grain-based products such as cereals, breads, and crackers, look for “whole” or “sprouted” grains as the first or second ingredient for a good source of fiber rather than “refined” grains. “Unbleached enriched flour” is a type of refined grain. Additionally, for people who are vegan or vegetarian, when choosing packaged, plant-based, meat alternatives, look for products that contain “soy,” “tofu,” “protein isolate,” or “protein concentrate” within the first few ingredients to be sure those products are providing good protein sources.
- Scan the first few ingredients for sources of added sugar. Added sugar can go by many different names including brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, fruit juice concentrates, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, invert sugar, malt sugar, molasses, raw sugar, sugar, sugar molecules ending in “ose” (dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, and sucrose), and syrup (2). Keep in mind, products such as honey or maple syrup will have “no added sugar” listed on the nutrition label, but they are indeed very concentrated forms of sugar and are metabolized the same as added sugar.
- Should you be concerned with the number of ingredients? Some claim having fewer ingredients on the nutrition label is better. Many exceptions to this rule, however, can be seen. Potato chips, for example, only have three ingredients,; potatoes, salt, and oil, but these are not considered a smile food. Many foods that have a long ingredients lists, moreover, may include ingredients that look scary because they are unfamiliar or difficult to pronounce. However, the U.S. FDA regulates all food additives and ingredients to ensure their safety. Some additives you may be surprised to learn actually support smile foods. For example, cellulose gum may sound intimidating, but it is actually a form of added fiber extracted from plants used as a thickening and stability agent in many types of foods. The added fiber from cellulose gum may actually provide health benefits by keeping you full and adding to your daily intake of fiber! For more information about food additives, visit the FDA’s website(1) or feel free to write to us with specific questions using our Contact Us page.
References
- US Food and Drug Administration. Overview of Food Ingredients, Additives & Colors. FDA [Internet] FDA; 2020 [cited 2022 Jan 21]; Available from: https://www.fda.gov/food/food-ingredients-packaging/overview-food-ingredients-additives-colors
- American Heart Association. Sugar 101 [Internet]. www.heart.org. [cited 2022 Jan 25]. Available from: https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sugar/sugar-101