Food is for nutrition and to provide the body with energy
and vital nutrients. Names of foods help us to know what the likely ingredients
might be in it. But often, we notice that food names are misleading. They can
fool a person into buying only to realize that it did not meet their
expectations and imagination.
For instance, take the example of samosa. An ideal samosa is
refined wheat flour (maida) wrap with mashed potatoes and boiled peas inside.
And when we say paneer samosa (cottage cheese stuffed fried dumplings), the
picture that comes to our mind is of a wrap of refined wheat flour dough with
paneer inside. But to your disappointment, you will find that these samosas are
nothing but the normal samosas with mashed potatoes with or without boiled peas
and just 1 small piece of cottage cheese at one corner!!!
If we talk about rusks, most of these are made of refined
wheat flour or maida which is not healthy. Maida is stripped of all the vital
nutrients such as fiber, vitamins, and minerals. They are empty calories. And
when companies such as Kitty (in Uttarakhand) market Suji (semolina) rusk, you
think that it is made of suji (wholly or atleast 50% of the mixture). But alas!
This is not so. It is tactics to fool people. Actually these so-called suji rusks
have only 4% suji in them while the rest is refined wheat flour!
Same issue occurs with Atta (whole wheat flour) bread. In
this, the amount of atta ranges from 32-63% and the rest is maida and other
ingredients that go into the making of the bread. In brown bread, the amount of
whole wheat flour is less than 32% and the rest is maida (refined wheat flour) and
other ingredients. Hence, brown bread may be better than white bread but is
still inferior to atta bread. Moreover, brown bread has added caramel in it for
the color. So though brown bread looks brown, it is not whole wheat bread.
Hence, opt for atta bread over brown bread. But most grocery shops, bakeries,
and supermarkets sell more brown bread than atta bread since people are
ignorant about the difference between the two. And they do not want to know it or do not have time to know it. Sad.
Read here: An Apple a day keeps the doctor away! Does it?
It is vital as a Woke consumer to always check the
ingredients on the food products before purchase. This will help you to know
which products are genuine and which companies are fooling you. FDA needs to
check on these fake and misleading labels but it does not. So the
responsibility rests on the consumers to pick up the best of the lot.
If the label list is long, it means that the product is
ultra-processed or highly processed. Better to not buy that product. You are paying for everything you buy. And it
is for your nutrition. So why compromise on it?
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