Connor Anderson: Tip # 36: Study Food Labels

 "97 Things To Do Before You Finish High School"
Chapter: For Your Body
Tip # 3: "Study Food Labels" (Jenkins 84)

 Now days, a lot of us consume food without giving it a second thought. I do this all the time, I just eat whatever is handed to me, and never truly think about the what's going into my body. Although this isn't always the case for everyone, I thought that studying the labels of two of my favorite foods would be a good idea. Through my health class this year, I had a unit on studying food labels. Some basics are that calories are just the amount of "energy" it has, and saturated fats are the bad kind of fats (Jenkins 84). Carbohydrates are good for you if you are planning to exercise, and sugar and sodium should be eaten in moderation. For the foods I will be examining are both from the Duncan Hines food company, and they are Blueberry pie filler, and country cherry pie filler. My book didn't tell me any specifics about what the examine, so I thought it would be funny to compare pie fillers.

I prefer cherry over blueberry, but I don't eat these pies very often. If I look closely at the nutrition facts for both of them, right off the bat I see that the calorie count per serving for the blueberry is 10 calories less than the cherry. The saturated and trans fats for both are at 0 grams, which was actually really surprising to me considering these would be considered "fattening" foods. Less surprising was that the protein was at 0 grams. The cherry has 25 grams of sodium compared to the 15 grams for blueberry. The cherry also has 21 grams of carbohydrates to the 22 grams for blueberry. Also, the cherry has 17 grams of sugar to the 16 grams of sugar for blueberry.

After taking a look at all of these facts, it makes sense now that the cherry would be 10 calories more than the blueberry. 1: because the sodium (salt content) of the cherry is much higher than the blueberry, and the sugar content is also a tad more. So after looking at the facts, I can see that calories can be influenced by sodium and sugar, which makes the cherry a little less healthy compared to the blueberry.

After seeing how bad these are for me, because all of that goes into just one serving (1/7 of the can), I will still eat these whenever I am given the opportunity, but now I will think about it while I am eating it.