Decoding Food Labels & All The Things You Cannot Name

Bait and switch is a problem

As if eating healthy wasn’t challenging enough, reading food labels can be completely mind-numbing. Trying to discern the small print on a colored label can make even the clearest sighted person doubt their acuity.

But thanks to heightened interest and concern over what is ending up in our food supply, more and more people like you and me are reading labels.

This is great news and leading to better food choices! Yeah us!

But our efforts are not going unnoticed by the food industry.

Even though we would hope that heightened public concern over food additives and nutrition would prompt food companies to improve their products, that isn’t the only direction of chance market forces are creating.

While we do see new products like reduced salt and more gluten-free for Celiacs, we also see the age old bait and switch tactics of name changes and “nature-washing” food labels.

In an effort to “simplify” food labels, we also increasingly see new and creative names for food additives. Whether these bring clarity or confusion depends on which side of the shopping cart you stand on.

Let’s take a look at a few items lurking on food labels that should raise your eye brows.

Renaming Xylitol

It used to be a safe bet that if you couldn’t pronounce it, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.

Chemical sounding names were one of the most obvious clues in the ingredients list that the food label you are reading is dressing up an ultra-processed food.

Changing the name of a food additive is not a new strategy, but with an increasing eye to making things sound more “natural”, this slight of hand is something that needs to be called out.

Which one of these sounds more natural?

Xylitol

Birch sugar

Now don’t get me wrong. Xylitol is sweet and derived from plants. That means it could be called a “natural sugar” in the same way that cane sugar is a plant-based sweetener.

Unfortunately, “natural” doesn’t automatically make it safe or good for your health.

A quick read through WebMD on Xylitol tells you there is little scientific evidence to support the claims made regarding xylitol reducing cavities. Further it’s a concern when the description includes phrases like “possibly safe when used in chewing gums”.

That gives me reason to pause.

Regardless of its human safety, xylitol is VERY toxic to dogs. Toxic enough that exposure to a xylitol product means you should rush your dog to the vet.

So now “birch sugar” is appearing on some labels. . . . but that is still xylitol and it is still extremely toxic to dogs, and it still has unsubstantiated safety claims for people.

According to a news release in June 2024 from the NIH - studies with xylitol and human blood indicate that it increases blood clotting, which could be a problem for people with cardiovascular diseases.

This is a buyer beware situation.

And if you hit an ingredient you don’t recognize, try a google search.

Enter Yellow Dye #5

While Yellow Dye #5 on a food label might make you raise your eyebrows in concern, does Tartrazine trigger the same result?

While tartrazine doesn’t have the soothing effect of “birch sugar”, it does sound less scary than yellow dye #5.

All the same, this dye has a history of causing concern for effects like hyperactivity in children, skin irritations, and possibly even cancer.

In the US and Canada, foods with this dye are supposed to carry warnings on the label. Anyone sensitive to aspirin may be sensitive to tartrazine as well.

Public concern over artificial dyes (yellows and reds) in food were loud enough that in 2016 (in both Canada and US) Kraft Foods stopped using artificial colors in its Macaroni and Cheese products, opting instead for natural spices like paprika, turmeric and annatto to create the desired color effects.

Food dyes, including Yellow #5, are still prominent in many sports drinks.

Reading labels is key - and understanding that multiple names represent the same chemical is critically important if you are trying to limit your exposure.

On a similar note - Red #3 has just been banned in January 2025 by the US FDA over cancer concerns.

Sugar by every other name

I’ve covered this one before, but it bears repeating over and over.

Sugars, both natural and artificial, are important flags on food labels.

One of the oldest tricks in food labelling to avoid sugar being first on the label is to use multiple sources to achieve the sweetness in the product. This distributes the sugar throughout the food label, giving the impression that the food is healthier.

Remember that ingredients are listed on the label in order of weight from highest to lowest. So if sugar is first on the label, it is the largest component of the product. But if instead multiple sources of sugars are used, then sugar may not be first - it may simply appear 4, 6 or more times throughout the ingredient list in various forms.

It seemed boring to try and write all the names in a list so I just dropped them into Canva make the visual a little more interesting. The 56 most common names for sugar used on food labels include 7 types of simple sugars, 27 forms of solid or granular sugars, and 22 liquid sugars.

All the Names of Sugar (Source: Sue Senger, Canva Pro)

Reading labels is an essential health skill

Unless you have the luxury of having someone else to do your shopping for you, reading labels is an essential health skill. It seriously should be taught in schools - along with chemistry class to understand how these chemicals and additives affect the human body.

It is essential to stay up-to-date on the bait-and-switch methods of creatively renaming food additives that generate public concern.

Of course, the easiest way to avoid this all together is to focus on the types of foods your grandmother or great-grandmother would have eaten: natural whole foods which do not need a label to know what they are, and foods prepared at home with ingredients available in a typical 1940’s kitchen.

What are whole foods? (Try WWGD)

We need more of this generational wisdom around food, and much less of the lose-weight-fast/get “healthy” diets flashed all over social media.

Food that supports human health is not rocket science and it’s not concocted in a food lab or churned out of a food factory. Swapping out whole nutrition for convenience, boxed, ready-made, and fast food is killing millions of people.

Healthy food is grown and harvested from living soil, and includes all the plant and animal nutrients human beings have evolved eating for thousands of years. Biologically we are omnivores. Biologically our mind-body-food connections are what make or break our health and longevity.

That means decoding food labels is an essential skill.

For me, that means packing my reading glasses along on a shopping trip, and/or looking things up on my phone when in doubt. More and more often though, it means I just put the tempting food back on the shelf and push my shopping cart back to the produce section to buy the raw ingredients to make it myself.

---

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5 US a month (or less on an annual subscription), if you’re not already. Your support sustains and expands my work here at The Naturalized Human. Understanding our mind-body-food connections and learning to grow our own healthy foods has never been more important.