Nutrition Labels - An Analysis

[Erin Nash]

Today, you analyzed a "healthy" food, as well as a food that you thought was not "healthy"

In your post today, talk about when you learned when analyzing your food. Here is what I want you to consider:

Tell us a little about your healthy food - what was it, and when do you eat it? Was this food actually healthy? How do you know? What type of fat did it contain? What type of carbohydrates?


Also, tell us a little bit about your unhealthy food. Was your unhealthy food actually unhealthy? Once again, how do you known? What type of fat did it contain? Carbohydrates?

Next, I want you to predict how many calories you consume every day, in comparison to how many your actually burn.

In order to calculate your total number of calories that you require per day, travel to this website. First calculate your basal metabolic rate by using this calculator. Then, use that number to figure out how many calories you need per day.

Finally, summarize what you learned from this experience. How did this open your eyes to what you eat every day?

[Ivory Baldwin]

The day before we had to bring in the two food labels, i was standing in my kitchen at home trying to decide what to bring. Every morning i usually eat a trail mix chewy bar. I decided to use this as my healthy food. When i looked at it, it looks healthy. On the front of the package it says 100% natural and it contains almond, raisns, peanuts and cranberry that sounded healthy to me. Then I decided that grandmas chocolate chip cookies were unhealthy. I just figured cookies were unhealthy and plus there is two cookies in the package. Mrs Nash said that usually if a food in unhealthy they usually round the calories down. After I analyzed the Trail Mix Bar There were mostly carbs then fat then protein and the Total Calories I came up with was 148 but wait the label said there were 140 Total calories . Im confused because i though the bar was a healthy food and now im not sure if it is? Then after i analyzed the Cookies I used the infomation if i was to eat just one of the cookies and there were mostly carbs again and then fat and then protein and the total calories were 170 and again there were actually 172, again they rounded down. I would say cookies arent good for you.
I always though that the higher the calories they worse it was for you but when we look at the mystery label which was AVOCADO ( I was the first to figure it out ) the calories were high and there was 75% fat, and to me that dosnt sound healthy at all but it actually is, you just have to eat it in moderation.
In the beginging to the year during cross country my diet consisted more of carbs so when mrs nash put the three sets of numbers on the board my diet was close to ( 50 30 20 ) Carbs, Protein, Fat but not that cross country is over im only doing activity probably three or four days a week so my diet now would probably be around ( 30 40 30 ). After calcuating the total number of calories i need it came out as 2117, I always though the 2000 caloire diet was for every one but if you do more activity than the average people then you need more calorie intake during the day.

[Amanda Dixon]

my healthy food was shrimp. this food actually was healthy. it had a lot of protein and not a lot of fat or to many carbs. My unhealthy item was hot chocolate, it had a ton of fat.

I need 1934 calories a day. I probably burn about this many a day.

I learned a lot from this lesson. I learned how to really analyze foods and found out that some of the things that I thought were healthy really weren't. I will definitely pay closer attention to what I eat.

[Blayr Bolton]

So, I'm gonna start with my "healthy" food. It was a banana! I don't eat bananas too often, but my dad buy's them a lot. They're always sitting on my counter. And honestly when I do eat them, the main reason is because it's my healthy choice over something else that's 'not so healthy.' I will also crave them sometimes. I'm not sure if I will label a banana as exactly healthy, but I'm still a little confused. The banana was 93% carbs and that's not sounding too healthy if you ask me. It's also not exactly a bad thing to eat bananas, but only if their eaten as the right proportion to my daily food intake. Below shows how many sugars out of the total carbs are in a banana, and it doesn't look too appealing. Give or take, if you plan it right with your daily intake of carbs, proteins, and fats then you'll be fine. :)

total carbs: 51g
dietary fiber: 6g
sugars: 28g

My 'unhealthy food' was Dove chocolate... I mean how could I resist? When first looking at my results, they don't appear to be all that bad. Looking more closely at exactly what goes into Dove chocolate, I realized that it definitely isn't a healthy choice (even if it tastes good.) The chocolate was 52% fat, 44% carbs, and 4% protein. I know that 52% fat doesn't look good, but I thought to myself, it could be worse. I then read that 21g of the 22g carbs were sugar and 7g out of the 12g of the total fat was saturated. Not good at all. This was my final instinct, that Dove chocolate is not healthy.

As far as the calories consumed versus calories burned, I would logically have to guess that I probably consume just as many as I burn because I tend to maintain my weight throughout the year. I do tend to eat a lot at times, but I also work out year rounds, so in the end it evens out. :)

[Marcy Withrow]

My healthy food was a Nutri-Grain Bar and my unhealthy food was mini donuts.

The nutri-grain bar is a typical healthy food. The front of it says “ More of the Whole Grains Your Body Needs” which is most likely true. It is a cereal bar and is produced by Kelloggs and Kelloggs is a pretty big company. It has natural and artificial flavoring. It contains 25% of Riboflavin which is vitamin B2 found naturally in plants and animals, it’s a preservative that adds color and nutrients to the food. Nutri-grain bars contain more carbohydrate than protein or fat. But, it also doesn’t contain a high amount of carbohydrates, the proteins and fats are just low. Nurti-grain bars contain high fructose corn syrup, that would be a monosaccharide. With that carb it also contains corn starch; corn starch would be a polysaccharide. So, the carbohydrate source isn’t too bad. A little mixture of monosaccharide and polysaccharide. It has a total fat of 3 and only has 0.5 saturated fat with 0 trans fat.

In my eyes a nurti-grain bar is fairly healthy. It isn’t a green vegetable from the garden, but it’s better than some “healthy” foods. It is produced by a trustworthy company. It may be factory made, which makes it less desirable than farm grown foods. But, it’s a good thing to grab and go for energy.

Mini donuts on the other hand, not so healthy. Sure, donuts seem like a perfectly good breakfast to start off your day. They give you “tons of energy.” But, on the inside, donuts are out to give you a crash! Sadly, I lost the box with the ingredients on it. I do know that the percent of fat is 51% which is bigger than the carbohydrate percent, 39%. That seems a bit crazy for one package of mini donuts. I can imagine that donuts would have some starch in them for the inside. But, the outside would have tons of sugar, glucose, from the chocolate coating. This is where the crash comes in, with the glucose. As for the fat it would probably come from the oils it took to deep fry the donuts, because donuts are deep fried.

I’m sure I probably consume more calories than I should, although I try not to. The desserts are too tempting. But, I also try to get a decent amount of exercise, because I know maintaining a good diet is important. Obesity can lead to too many complications. Also, diabetes runs in the family. So, it would be wise for me to watch what I eat.

I thought it was really interesting how we brought up where our food comes from. I mean, I think I have thought of it, but I’ve never took under consideration. Yes, bananas (which is one of my favorite fruits) does come from some tropical place; it has been transferred by trucks. That is a creepy thought. I’m not saying that I will never eat a banana again, because I will. But, it is just plain weird. I like how it was brought up that we should eat what comes from our city. It’s kind of like having our own support group for the foods we grow. We should be so grateful of what we grow here in Saint Joseph. It has givin me a little bit more respect for our orchards.

[Kerstyn Bolton]

Before this class I had always looked at the nutrition facts on foods, but I only looked at the calories. Every once in awhile I would look at the other facts, but I never REALLY looked at them. Since we did this lesson in class I'm really excited to start looking at food labels. I know that I shouldn't solely look at these facts when looking at food, but it definitely helps to know what the nutrition facts actually mean.

Well I thought my healthy food was going to be a fiber one bar, but I must say that I was a bit biased based on the name.. and taste I guess. I'd say that I probably eat a Fiber One bar a couple times a week, usually either in the morning or after dinner. In my opinion, this food was definitely not healthy. The ratio of carbs:protein:fat was 83:6:11. The carbs in this bar really overtake the protein and fats, which is fine if I was going to exercise every time after I ate. It contained 4 grams of fat in which 1.5 of that was saturated, which I don't know what that means?! The carbohydrates was 29g, which was 9g of dietary fiber and 10g of sugar. Although I never really knew what those meant either.

My unhealthy food was Pop-Tarts, which I knew would be unhealthy because of all the sugars it contains (or so that's what I was expecting). I personally don't eat Pop-Tarts anymore because I realized that they were unhealthy. After examining the Pop-Tarts I figured up that ratio, which was 73:4:23. This bothered me because there was very little protein and a ton of carbs again. It had 10g of fat and 3.5 of them were saturated. I really wish I knew what that meant though!

How many calories I consume? That's a good question! Eh, I'd have to say I probably consume 2000 calories everyday, but that is a total guess. I'm not sure how many I burn either? All I know is that I make sure I am active every single day. If I'm not playing some type of sports I make sure I go running. This website helped me a ton to see my calorie burning habits! I'd say I burn at least 1000 calories everyday just because of basketball and tennis. But when I run I'd burn about 500 more than that.

I really enjoyed this experience because what we learned will be something I'll apply for the rest of my life. I'll always be watching what I eat, but now I can somewhat correctly see what's going into my body rather than just looking at the calories. This will also be difficult though because some of the food (mostly in restaurants) that I'll eat, I won't be able to see the calories and nutrition facts. I guess although if I just never eat fast food this will be easier because no matter what I eat fast food it will NOT be good for me. As for now though, this activity will be extremely help to me!

[Aziz Siddikov]

This class was very important for me as a good lab to check what food is really good for athlete. As athlete you don't want too much calories from fats. It is more better if you have more calories from proteins. And also if you are the cross country, wrestling or any other aerobic athlete you don't want to have a lot of carbohydrates, because they burn very fast and if you don't have polysaccharides (complex carbohydrates) you would not have energy at the end.

So my healthy food was Bran Flakes. I chose this food because it had 7% of total fat which is not so bad for main food. And it has 10% calories from proteins. But bad bad thing about Bran Flakes is that they have 82% of calories from the Carbohydrates. And when I realized that I thought:" It is not so healthy for me it has 82% calories from carbohydrates!!". So my "healthy" food turned into not so healthy food.

My unhealthy food was the Pringles. In first look they don't look like unhealthy: only 150 calories. But don't forget about serving size which is only 1 ounce or 28.3 grams. And the thing that suprized me is that this thing has 63% of calories from FAT, which is not good at all for athlete or any another guy.

We was studying the same topic in my Heath class and one class we counted how many calories we eat for day, my result was 2300 calories for day. But in the another class we counted how many calories we burn: it was something around 3400. Wright now I burn much more calories than I eat, because I have wrestling and soccer. So it takes me a lot of energy

[Shelby Hawkins]

My healthy food wasn't one that you would probably consider a really "healthy" food, but it is for me. Because of all my icky blood sugar issues, I try to find foods with a good amount of protein. This makes Austin PB crackers a pretty good choice for a quick snack or breakfast on the go. This food isn't like an extremely healthy food, but it's not terrible either. It's ratio was 48-8-43. When I see those numbers it actually sounds a little worse. The brand I usually eat (Lance) actually does have less carbs and calories!

My unhealthy food was basically the atkins-diet worse nightmare!! It's numbers were...drumroll please...100-0-0. Yes, that's right. 100% carbs. The unhealthy food was Swedish Fish candy. Originally I brought it in because I think our class was wondering what invert sugar was, and this was listed as an ingredient. The company kind of misleads the consumer with this product, plastering "FAT FREE!" all over it. Yes, it is fat free. No, it is NOT healthy!!!

My BMR was 1270.7, and my daily calorie needs was about 1525 calculated. I'm not sure how much this applies to me. 1525 isn't a ton of calories. I know I am a small person, but I might need more calories because I am so busy all the time, and probably have less sleep than the average person they used when creating the calculator. I'm not even sure if I meet the daily calorie requirements or how close i come to them, or even if i pass them. It probably just depends on the day and what food is available.

From this experience, I have learned that food labels are very misleading! Also that every person has unique caloric needs. Another thing I learned was that just because something has really crazy numbers (avacado) doesn't mean it is bad for you! You really just have to be food label literate.

[Terra Younger]

I learned a lot about "healthy" and "unhealthy" foods doing this project... Most food that society considers "healthy" really isn't and I'm glad I learned how to determine if it's not.

My healthy food was a Quaker Chewy Granola Bar: Chocolate Chip... Total calories: 100. Calories from carbs 72, 70%. Calories fro protein: 4, 4%. Lastly, calories from fat: 9, 26%.

My "unhealthy" food was Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Total calories 120. Calories from carbs: 88, 73%, Calories from protein: 4, 3%. Lastly, calories from fat: 9, 27%.

I think that I consume about 2000 calories a day... I'm pretty lazy. But I seem to be homeostasis. So maybe I should consume about that amount a day?...

My BMI is 23.49 which is considered "average" on most websites that I went to however some considered it "overweight." My BMR is 1542.2 which says I need to consume about 1851 calories a day.... So yeahh :)

[Hannah Rush]

The healthy food that I chose was a Red Gaterade. I thought it was healty because it has electrolytes. It is recommended to athletes because it can restore energy but it isn't carbonated like soda is. The unhealthy food that I decided to do was a package of nacho cheese doritos. These are definitely unhealthy. But they are yummy too. =)

When I did the calculations, these were my results:

Red Gatorade
130 Calories
Carbs=34 grams * 4 = 136=100%
Protein=0 grams
Fat=0 grams

I'm still unsure about whether or not it's healthy. I think it is because it restores your energy, but I'm unsure because there isn't any proteins in it.

Nacho Cheese Doritos
310 Calories
Carbs---38 grams * 4 = 152 = 50%
Protein---4 grams * 4 = 16 = 5%
Total Fat---15 grams * 9 = 135 = 45%

These are still definitely unhealthy.

Honestly I take in a crap load of calories in one day. I love the comfort food ;) haha who doesn't though. I also work out hard daily too. I life weights every day and run every other day in order to stay in shape. I usually have a tough softball practice too.

according to the calculator I am supposed to only have 1761.75 calories a day. Pretty sure I wouldn't be any ray of sunshine if i followed this. It is pretty interesting to know thought.