The Front of Your Food Packages Is Lying
Yesterday I was out getting some supplies for the gym. The unsexy truth about owning a gym is that you spend more time cleaning bathrooms than you do using the gym.
When I was walking to the line with my lysol and toilet paper in hand I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
A trampoline.
On sale.
Fiona loves trampolines. She goes to her gym twice a week and it’s almost impossible to get her to stop jumping on it, so we’ve been looking for one but in our parental indecisiveness could never pick the right brand, and then of course we just stopped looking.
This one was an adult fitness trampoline.
Whatever the fuck that means.
But it was the right size, had the right weight capacity and it was on sale.
So it went into my cart, and an hour later it was assembled and in our backyard.
After i put all the legs on and had it ready to surprise Fiona I took the box to the trashcan and for the first time I actually took in what it said.
“Intensive Full Body Workout”
“Strength and Conditioning”
“Strengthen Shape and Tone”
Now all these claims are, for lack of a better word, complete bullshit. There was one claim that was 100% true however.
“Burn Calories”
So on the front of this package there were about 5 lies and one truth. But all of those lies were based on that one truth.
Of course jumping on a trampoline burns calories, you’re burning calories as you read this. That does not make it an effective fitness tool to put in your toolbox.
All these claims, and the front of the package in general, are simply designed to sell the product.
It’s designed to overwrite your critical thinking and get you to buy, buy, buy based on emotion and based on your lack of education on the topic.
The front of your food packages act in the exact same manner. It’s designed by a team of marketers to be sexy, eye-catching and SELLABLE.
Let’s go back to Fiona for a second.
She loves cheese, because she’s a woman. In Publix last week we picked out some cheddar cheese for her.
The front of the package said
“A good source of protein”
But when you turned the package over and looked at the factual side, the nutrition facts grid said that this cheese only had 5 grams of protein per serving. One slice of cheese was 80 calories, so that means that about ¼ of the calories in cheese are protein.
Hmmm.
If I’m an adult weighing over 120 lbs 5 grams of protein is not a “good source”. It might be a helpful additive, but is in no way a “good source.”
Chicken breast is a good source of protein, it has 25 grams of protein per one serving. One serving of chicken is 4 ounces. About 80% of the calories in chicken are from protein.
Now this conversation can’t happen without discussing how misguided the FDA’s food recommendations are. If you’ve learned one thing over the last year it’s that the government isn’t interested in optimizing your health, they want to tell you just enough to stay alive and that’s it.
The FDA recommends grown adults only consume about 50-70 grams of protein per day. That’s enough to basically replace all the hair you lose, replace all the skin follicles you lose and keep your muscles from wasting into nothing.
It’s bad, it’s outdated and it’s not good for you.
This low protein recommendation allows things with any amount of protein, even as little as 5 grams, to advertise as a “good source of protein.”
It’s simply not true. And this confusion is why so many people struggle with building and maintaining a health diet.
You need more protein than you’re eating, it’s going to allow you to build muscle, lose fat and stay fuller longer. I’ve written extensively about that in the past.
All this is a long way of saying that the front of food packages is largely bullshit. It’s not information, it’s not education, it’s marketing.
There are billion dollar companies that are paid to design the most eye catching, slightly deceiving and sexiest packages.
Because they want your money. They don’t care about your health or your waistline. They just want you to consume, consume, consume. They don’t want you to think.
To beat this constant barrage of signals you need to do one thing.
You need to learn how to think critically about the food you buy.
My golden rule is to always ignore the front of the package and only decide on a food item based on the backside. The backside has the nutrition information panel, that will tell you exactly how many calories per serving and the macro (and somewhat micro) nutrient quantity of the food item.
The (terrible) British artist Damien Hirst said that “Marketing is the true art form of the 21st century.” It’s everywhere, it’s designed to trick you and it’s only going to get worse.
Take the time to educate yourself on what your body needs and how to find foods that fit your goals.
You’ll never fall for the bullshit on the front of a package again.