Read the Fine Print
Written by Jim “Pops” Martin
I’m not a nutritionist. What I know about nutrition I have picked up from some of the coaches here at Invictus, a couple of seminars with Robb Wolf and a few not-too-technical books.
Having made this disclaimer, please take my observations with a grain of salt and draw your own conclusions from a recent experience I had.
I recently picked up a sample packet of a new pre/post workout supplement. (They seem to be everywhere, don’t they?) The front of the packaging told me that this Protein Pack contained 5 grams of protein, that the #1 ingredient is Whey Protein Isolate, that you can use it to build and maintain lean muscle and it is fat-free and gluten-free. Holy Cow! Sign me up! Perfect nutrition in a package! I know what I’m going to live on for the duration of the current Invictus Look Good, Feel Good Challenge!
Then I reversed the package and started reading the fine print. Well, maybe I shouldn’t make this a staple of my diet. It was formulated as a pre- and/or post workout jolt of protein. There’s no fat, and heaven knows I need my avocado and bacon. But that’s OK, I workout and just like the package says, I sure need to build and maintain lean muscle.
So 5 grams of protein equals about 20 calories. The label says that each pouch contains 50 calories. Let’s see what else I’m eating besides Whey Protein Isolate.
- Ingredient #2 – Corn Syrup – Oops. At least it’s not the devil, high fructose corn syrup. Regular corn syrup is pure glucose. According to an article in Time Magazine titled “All Sugars Aren’t the Same” (Tuesday April 21, 2009), a study at the University of California Davis reports that glucose is the best of the Glucose-Fructose-Dextrose trio. Your body seems to react best to glucose because there’s not a lot of processing time – the proverbial shot in the arm. So maybe it’s not so bad that it is the second ingredient. Except for that insulin spike thing that I heard about. Oh, well, let’s move on.
- Ingredient #3 – Erythritol – (Don’t ask me how to pronounce it.) This is referred to as a sugar alcohol. According to a source referenced at the bottom, it’s manufactured by fermenting plants to extract their natural sugar. The most commonly used plant is corn. The big selling point is that it is 60% – 80% as sweet as sucrose (table sugar) but has 0 calories. Hmm, sounds like a sugar substitute. OK, next.
- Ingredient #4 – Glycerine – This is getting a little repetitive. Glycerol is also known as Glycerine. It’s another sugar alcohol. The difference here is that it is distilled from fats and oils instead of plants. According to Wikipedia, it has a few more calories than table sugar but has a lower glycemic index (well that takes care of my earlier concern about an insulin spike), and employs a different metabolic pathway. It’s also very inexpensive.
- Ingredient #5 – Tapioca syrup – I’ve never heard of it, although I’ve eaten tapioca – yuk! According to the website Livestrong.com, tapioca syrup is a liquid sweetener made from tapioca starch. It has the same sweet taste as sucrose, with slightly fewer calories.
- Ingredient #6 – Sugar – Well, I think I know what that is but I’m not to happy to see it listed here after all of the other sweeteners.
- Ingredient #7 – Gelatin – Finally something that is not a sweetener, and something I recognize. Everybody loves J-E-L-L-O! (Well, almost everybody. By the way, did I hear you singing?).
- After 5 more ingredients, most of them different kinds of acids and artificial flavorings, I get to Coconut Oil. Yah-hoo, something else I’m familiar with.
- Then the next item, #14 is Stevia Extract. Man, you would think that they had used up their allowable allotment of sweeteners.
- Item #15 is my favorite – Carnauba Wax. Surely this is not what I think it is. For this one I went to about.com. Here’s my favorite exerpt: “Carnauba wax has a very high melting point of 82-86 °C (180-187 °F). It is harder than concrete and nearly insoluble in water and ethanol.” Not that I drink much ethanol, and I guess it’s a common candy coating, but it’s most often found in auto polish. Well that sounds delectable. After reading this, I’m not sure I want Carnuba Wax traveling through my digestive system.
- Please be patient, there’s only 3 more ingredients. One of them is Yellow 5; I read something about Yellow Dye #5 recently, so back to Google and I find that Yellow 5 has been banned in Austria and Norway. There are several European countries that have issued health warnings. Our friends at Livestrong.com state; “The April 1, 2013 Code of Federal Regulations declare label statements for Yellow 5 must include a warning statement that the color additive may cause allergic reactions, such as asthma.”
OK, I’m done. After further consideration, this healthy little sample pack doesn’t really impress me as something that I want to consume. In fact, in good conscience I don’t think I could even stockpile these things and hand them out at Halloween. 18 ingredients? Really? Most of them are sweeteners all seemingly disguised behind 5 grams of Whey protein.
This little exercise has convinced me that I really need to pay attention and read the fine print.
So now I’m still looking for something to fill that void to power and build all my lean muscle mass, such that it is. Eggs are protein, right?
How many ingredients are in a hardboiled egg? A large egg, less the shell (normally how I eat them) has 6 grams of protein, about 78 calories and 13 vitamins and minerals. If you’re absolutely convinced that you need a complex carbohydrate infusion after a tough training session to replace all those lost glycogen stores, (most of us that have body composition goals aren’t there yet), try preparing a sweet potato mash. How many ingredients are in a sweet potato?
Maybe the answer is on the label.
References
de Cock, Peter and Bechert, Claire-Lise. Erythritol. Functionality in non-caloric beverages. Pure Appl. Chem., Vol. 74, No. 7, pp 1281 – 1289. 2002.
http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/2002/pdf/7407×1281.pdf).
