The year is ending, and we thought it would be interesting to see what our community has read the most in 2010. Here are our most popular posts from 10 up on to 1:

1862 – 2010: A Brief History of Food and Nutrition Labeling – where we review the major developments in nutrition labeling and mis-labeling. This post was originally published in 2008, but is continually updated.

A Visual of Twinkie’s 37 Ingredients – mostly chemicals, of course.

Four Graphic Examples of Portion Distortion – which show us that we eat way too much.

Can You Guess What’s So Special About THIS Happy Meal? Oh the wonders of fast food cuisine.

What’s Inside Yoplait Yogurt Anyway? -  A breakdown of the expected, and unexpected things you’ll find in this top brand of strawberry yogurt.

Whole Foods Adopts ANDI Rating System – In January, Whole Foods announced a new rating system for foods. There wasn’t too much follow-up to this pilot and it seems to have fizzled away.

What is Soy Lecithin and Why is it Found in So Many Products? – well, for one thing, soy is cheap…

11 Quick Facts about Phosphoric Acid (Yes, that Chemical in Coca Cola) – one of them – it leeches calcium out of bones.

Three Reasons to Rethink that Diet Coke You’re About to Drink - people have actually written to tell us they’ve gone cold turkey on soft drinks after reading this!

Guess What’s in The Picture [Foodlike Substance] – our top post of all time, went viral (twice), and continues to shock people every day.

See ya Next Year!

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Good news from the USDA. Meat and poultry, which to date have not been marked with nutrition information, will begin including them in 2012:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today announced that it will be making important nutritional information readily available to consumers on 40 of the most popular cuts of meat and poultry products. Under a new rule, packages of ground or chopped meat and poultry will feature nutrition facts panels on their labels. Additionally, whole, raw cuts of meat and poultry will also have nutrition facts panels either on their package labels or available for consumers at the point-of-purchase.

What you need to know:

About 40 different cuts of beef, pork, lamb and poultry will be labeled. The label will list

• calories
• calories from fat
• saturated fat
• cholesterol
• sodium
• protein
• vitamins & minerals

much like the nutrition facts panels that appear on processed foods and are regulated by the FDA.

The important thing to keep in mind is portion size vs. serving size. Many of us eat portions that are 2 to 3 times the recommended serving size as defined by the USDA. Which means that a 250 calorie steak can easily balloon to 500-750 calories.

What to do at the supermarket:

We have an entire year to wait for this. In the meantime, keep looking for the leaner cuts of meat. Each gram of protein is only 4 calories, whereas fat is more than double at 9 calories per gram.

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As the new year approaches, and with it a multitude of resolutions for a healthier behavior, we will be seeing many new announcements about nutrition, foods and exercise contraptions.

Getting a head start is Frito-Lay, the savory snack stalwart owned by PepsiCo. Yesterday the company announced major changes in its lineup. In fact,

“This is the largest evolution we’ve ever had in our product line,” says Ann Mukherjee, chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay. Until now, she says, 30% of its line was “all natural.” For example:

• A bag of Tostitos Hint of Lime Tortilla Chips will lose all of these additives: monosodium glutamate, sodium diacetate and artificial colors.

• Lay’s Barbeque chips will drop the monosodium glutamate and some other additives.

read more from USA Today…

Unfortunately, Doritos and Cheetos are not included in the changes.

What you need to know:

Let us be perfectly clear. Fooducate applauds the removal of unhealthy additives from food products.

But as we wrote just last week, “Natural” is an unregulated term. It is misleading because it adds a health halo to products that do not deserve one. Potato chips are not healthy. Tostitos are not healthy. They are salty, fatty snacks that should be consumed occasionally at best.

Frito-Lay’s motivation is to increase sales of its products and to take back market share from smaller rivals who have been playing the “natural” ticket for several years. If Frito-Lay can additionally spin a PR story to appear interested in our health, even better.

If junk food companies would really care about our health, they wouldn’t peddle soft drinks and empty calorie snacks to our children. They wouldn’t spend billions in advertising and product placement to get us to eat MORE MORE MORE snacks. They would re-invent themselves to create totally new brands, back to basics foods.

Bottom line: “All Natural” junk food is still junk food. You should not be tempted to consume more just because some ingredients have been removed.

What to do at the supermarket:

It’s good to know that if and when you purchase an occasional snack, it’s made with ingredients you would most likely find in your pantry. Always check the ingredient list to see you are not buying snacks with partially hydrogenated oils (a.k.a. trans-fat), excessive salt (over 200mg per serving), or additives of dubious nutritional value.

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IF you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know we advocate eating whole grain breads. In our five part bread minisereies back in November, we tried to cover the seemingly simple task of choosing bread at the supermarket.

While some breads are easy to classify as healthy (100% whole grains) and others as not (white breads made with refined flours), what happens when you come a bread that’s made with flour that is both white and 100% whole grain?

On the one hand white means refined, but on the other it says 100% whole grain.

What you need to know:

The flour used for our bread comes from several varieties that are grown in the US:

• Hard Red Spring
• Hard Red Winter
• Hard White
• Soft Red Winter
• Soft White

Each one has certain characteristics, including color, protein content, gluten content, among others.

The difference between white whole-wheat bread and regular whole-wheat bread is in the type of wheat flour used. Regular whole-wheat bread is made with red wheat, which is dark in color and has a slightly bitter taste. White whole-wheat bread is made with a relatively new variety of wheat, which is lighter in color and has a sweeter, milder flavor.This variety is much more common in the UK.

Buyer beware: you still need to look for bread with 100% WHOLE WHEAT. In the above image, Wonder boasts

Made with Whole Grain White

But if you take a look at the ingredient list, you’ll see refined flour as the main ingredient, not the whole grain white.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t rely on the writing on the package itself to choose the best bread or other baked product. Carefully read the ingredient list and look for 100% Whole Grain Flour as the first and only flour ingredient. If there are additional flours in the list, they should be whole grains as well.

(Thanks Jess for suggesting this topic!)

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Longtime reader Justine wanted to know about Horizon Boxed Milk:

I buy these for my daughter (just the regular 2% milk) and have always wondered why they don’t need/are never refrigerated. Is there some weird ingredient they are sneaking in that I should know about?

Good question!

What you need to know:

The boxed milk is perfectly safe and there are no shenanigans here.

Shelf stable packaging is achieved by pasteurizing the milk at a much higher temperature than normal (over 280 degrees Farenheit vs 180 for regular pasteurization) and immediately packing it into an aseptic (sterile) vacuum box. This process is also called UHT , for ultra high temperature of the pasteurization.

You can see that the ingredients are exactly the same as regular milk:

Organic Grade A Reduced Fat Milk, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D3.

The shelf stable milk can be stored at room temperature for several months, but once opened (and the vacuum is gone), it must be refrigerated.

What to do at the supermarket:

When you choose boxed milk, make sure the box is intact, with no punctures.

Got  a food related question for us? send us a email or post it on our facebook wall.

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OK, the above is a bit extreme, but how about commercials for junk food while your child is watching American Idol with you? There is no shortage of means for junk brands to get to your kids if they really want to.

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Happy holidays from all of us here at Fooducate!

What tasty dishes are you preparing for the holiday?

Are there any cool kitchen and cooking gadgets Santa will be bringing you?

Please let us know!

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One in four new products launched in 2010 had a label claiming it was “Natural”. But did you know that there is no regulatory definition for “Natural” foods? While there are strict standards for Organic labeling, it’s pretty much a wild west when it comes to the use of the word Natural.

Hence you can find chips made from “all natural potatoes”. Has anyone ever seen an artificial potato?

And does natural even mean healthy? sugar is natural, so is butter.

Consumers have caught on to this labeling trend and don’t like it. According to Food Navigator:

Consumers on the lookout for eco-friendly claims are skeptical about the term ‘natural’, and two-thirds would favor a uniform standard to certify natural claims, according to a new survey.

The poll, from natural and organic marketing firm Mango Sprouts Marketing, asked 1,000 natural product consumers about their organic shopping habits in an effort to get an idea of upcoming trends for the sector in 2011.

What to do at the supermarket:

Skip the claims on food labels and head straight to the nutrition fact and ingredient list. That’s where you’ll find the informaton you really need.

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Last week,  First Lady Michelle Obama held a holiday reception with children, parents and staff at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Chit-chating with the kids, the subject of healthy breakfast came up. From the transcript:

CHILD:  What’s your favorite thing to eat for breakfast on Christmas morning?

MRS. OBAMA:  Oh, wow, that’s a good question.

CHILD:  I usually eat Honey Nut Cheerios.  (Laughter.)

MRS. OBAMA:  Okay, we’re not going to do any advertisements.  (Laughter.)  But that is a healthy breakfast, it is.

CHILD:  You should eat some cookies…

Cheerios has definitely earned its place in the pantheon of trusted and beloved American brands. And Honey Nut Cheerios has been positioned as the sweet yet still healthy alternative to the sugar-free regular Cheerios brand.

But is it a healthy breakfast?

What you need to know:

Honey Nut Cheerios boasts its Honey and claims it can help reduce cholesterol:

Honey Nut Cheerios® cereal is a great tasting way to help lower your cholesterol. It’s made with real honey for a delicious sweet taste and soluble fiber from whole grain oats to help lower your cholesterol.*

Oh, in the small text we learn that:

* Three grams of soluble fiber daily from whole grain oat foods, like Honey Nut Cheerios® cereal, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease. Honey Nut Cheerios cereal provides .75 grams per serving.

But guess what, a serving of Honey Nut Cheerios contains only 2 grams of fiber. That’s even less than Froot Loops and Apple Jacks!

Here is Honey Nut Cheerios ingredient list:

Whole Grain Oats (Includes the Oat Bran), Sugar, Modified Corn Starch, Honey, Brown Sugar Syrup, Salt, Tripotassium Phosphate, Canola and/or Rice Bran Oil, Natural Almond Flavor, Vitamin E (Mixed Tocopherols) Added to Preserve Freshness. Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium Carbonate, Zinc and Iron (Mineral Nutrients), Vitamin C (Sodium Ascorbate), a B Vitamin (Niacinamide), Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride), Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B1 (Thiamin Mononitrate), Vitamin A (Palmitate), a B Vitamin (Folic Acid), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3.

Take note, the second ingredient is Sugar. Not Honey. So there’s one bluff – General Mills would have you think that it’s Honey Nut, but it is more like “Sugar Without Nuts Cheerios“. There is only a hint of “Natural Almond Flavor”, which may or may not originate from real almonds.

To Honey Nut Cheerio’s defense, the total sugar count is 2.5 tsp, which is slightly less than most children’s cereals. There are also no artificial colors and no trans-fats.

So is this a healthy breakfast? Let’s just say there are many healthier options in the cereal category, but there are also many other cereals, especially for kids, that are not.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you are a Cheerios fan, the best option is regular Cheerios with less than half a teaspoon of sugar and 3 grams of fiber. Multigrain Cheerios are also a better choice then Honey Nut, because they have 3 grams of fiber, and only one and a half teaspoons of sugar.

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We’ve written a lot about yogurt recently.

We love yogurt. It’s really good for you.

But sometimes it seems that industry is hammering on this one nail way too many times. And too hard.

Many brands are adding to yogurt all sorta of additives that detract from the nutritional value of the original product.

And if you’re a woman, you’ve got it even worse – it seems that all the yogurt commercials are aimed at directly at you. This funny video by Sarah Haskins is part of a series called Target Women on Current TV. Enjoy! (hat tip to Jennie Brown)

What to do at the supermarket:

Buy plain yogurt. Add your own sweetener, whether fruit, honey, or even chocolate. You will be adding much less sugar than the manufacturers do.

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