If You Can’t Read It, Don’t Eat It. The Truth Hiding in Your Food Labels
Walk through a supermarket today and you’ll notice this: shelves lined with boxes, packets, and bottles shouting “natural,” “plant-based,” “heart-healthy,” “extra protein,” “low fat.”
But here’s the truth — most of it isn’t food anymore. It’s marketing.
If you can’t pronounce half the ingredients, your body probably can’t process them either.
And if you can’t read the label, it’s probably not meant to nourish you — it’s meant to sell to you.
💬 The Illusion of Healthy
Modern food packaging is a masterclass in persuasion. Buzzwords like vegan, gluten-free, and organic-style often mask the fact that the product is still ultra-processed, stripped of nutrients, and filled with cheap additives to make it taste, smell, and last like real food.
Take “plant-based nuggets” — they sound virtuous, but look at the back: stabilisers, gums, seed oils, colourants, and flavour enhancers you’d never find in a kitchen cupboard. It’s chemistry, not cooking.
🍟 Then vs. Now: The McDonald’s Chip Example
A McDonald’s chip 40 years ago contained three ingredients: potatoes, oil, and salt.
Today? Around 19 different ingredients, including preservatives, anti-foaming agents, and artificial flavourings. The same golden chip, but built differently — designed for shelf life, not human life.
That’s the quiet shift: our grandparents ate food; we eat formulas.
🌾 “Real Food” — Even That Has Changed
The Bible mentions olive oil, bread, fish, honey, figs, milk, lamb, and wine — the simple staples of human nourishment. But even those, today, are not what they once were.
• Bread is no longer slow-fermented or stone-ground; it’s ultra-processed, bleached, and raised with chemical yeast in under an hour.
• Olive oil is often blended or heat-treated, losing its antioxidant punch.
• Fish can be farmed and fed antibiotics.
• Fruit and grains are sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, and growth accelerators.
We’re consuming versions of ancient foods that have been reshaped by mass production — and our bodies, finely tuned to nature, are showing the strain.
🧠 Reading Labels = Reading Reality
The ability to read food labels isn’t about being obsessive; it’s about being aware.
Every label tells a story: how far something has drifted from nature. The longer the ingredient list, the more steps away it is from the soil, the tree, or the animal it came from.
A good rule: if your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise it, neither will your body.
🧾 How to Read Food Labels (Without Losing the Will to Live)
Learning to read food labels doesn’t mean spending an hour in the supermarket aisle with a magnifying glass. It’s about spotting a few key red flags — and knowing what real food looks like on paper.
Here’s how to make it simple 👇
1. Start With the Ingredients List
This is where the truth lives.
• Short list = good. Think 3–5 ingredients you recognise.
• Long list = science experiment. Anything over 10 usually means it’s ultra-processed.
• If it sounds like it came from a lab, not a farm — it probably did.
🧠 Example:
“Peanuts, sea salt.” ✅
vs.
“Roasted peanuts, sugar, palm oil, emulsifier (E471), stabiliser (E476).” 🚫
That’s not peanut butter; that’s peanut-style spread.
2.Watch Out for Sneaky Sugar
Sugar hides behind many names: glucose syrup, maltose, fructose, cane juice, dextrose, rice syrup, and so on.
If you see more than one version on the list, that product’s been sweet-talked — literally.
Even “healthy” snacks and granola bars are often sugar in disguise.
👉 If sugar is in the top three ingredients, it’s dessert, not health food.
3. Understand the Order
Ingredients are listed in order of quantity — the first few make up most of the product.
If “vegetable oil” or “sugar” shows up before the main ingredient (like oats, nuts, or fruit), marketing beat nutrition.
4. Don’t Be Fooled by the Front
The front of the packet is advertising.
The back is information.
Phrases like “source of fibre,” “all natural,” “made with whole grains,” “no artificial flavours” sound comforting, but they mean almost nothing legally.
Always flip it over — the fine print tells the truth.
5. Mind the Oils
Ultra-processed foods are often drenched in cheap seed oils (sunflower, rapeseed, soybean, canola). These oxidise easily and contribute to inflammation.
Look for real fats your body recognises — olive oil, coconut oil, butter, avocado oil.
6. E Numbers & Additives
Not every E-number is evil, but when you see E415, E450, E627 all in a row, you’re not eating food — you’re eating a formula.
The more stabilisers and flavour enhancers you spot, the further the product has travelled from its natural state.
7. Check Serving Sizes (They Lie)
That cereal claiming “only 120 calories per serving”? Check the serving size — it’s usually a toddler portion.
Manufacturers shrink serving sizes to make numbers look cleaner. Be realistic — how much would you actually eat?
8. Remember: Marketing ≠ Nutrition
Just because a label says “vegan,” “gluten-free,” or “low fat” doesn’t make it healthy.
Crisps can be vegan. Energy drinks can be gluten-free.
The question isn’t “what’s missing?” — it’s “what’s added in its place?”
🍎 The Easy Rule of Thumb
If it has:
• No label (like fruit, veg, meat, eggs, whole grains) → ✅ real food.
• A label you can read and understand → 👍 probably fine.
• A label that looks like a chemistry exam → 🚫 probably not.
Reading labels isn’t about restriction — it’s about recognition.
Once you start seeing which foods still come from nature and which are built by marketing, your trolley — and your health — start to look completely different.
🌱 The Vegan Trap
Even the wellness aisle has its pitfalls. Many “vegan” products are ultra-processed, loaded with refined oils, starches, and synthetic vitamins. Being plant-based doesn’t automatically mean being healthy — it just means it didn’t come from an animal.
A vegan sausage can still be as engineered as a packet of crisps.
Whole foods — lentils, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts — nourish.
Imitation foods — shaped, coloured, flavoured — confuse the body and inflame the system.
⚡️ The Fast-Track to Illness
Fast food and processed snacks deliver instant pleasure — salt, sugar, fat, dopamine — but long-term damage.
Rates of obesity, autoimmune conditions, chronic fatigue, anxiety, and hormone imbalance are rising sharply, and it’s not just stress or genetics. It’s what we’re feeding ourselves daily — small doses of chemical confusion that add up over time.
🌿 The Return to Simplicity
You don’t have to be perfect — just curious. Flip the box. Read the fine print.
If it’s real, it will say so plainly: oats, almonds, honey, sea salt.
If it’s full of things you’d never cook with, ask why.
Because the closer we get to understanding what’s on our plate, the closer we get to genuine wellbeing — not the marketed version.
Fast food is the fast track to illness.
Real food is the slow road to health.
And that road begins in the simplest place — standing in a supermarket aisle, reading the label before you buy.
Love from Fallon, with intention xox
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