By Nicole St. Louis, Senior Nutrition & Health Major, Sargent College 

When you walk into the grocery store, it is very easy to get overwhelmed by all of the options, whether it be in canned foods, pasta, sauces, dairy . . . the list goes on. Halloween is coming, and with that comes the endless aisles of candy. With food companies printing all sorts of descriptions on their products including “no sugar added”, “low fat”, “fat free”, etc, here are some helpful tips for deciding which processed foods are most worth your while:

• To find out how many grams of heart-healthy unsaturated fats are in your product, subtract the total fat from the saturated and trans fat. If trans fat is not listed on the label, look for “partially hydrogenated oil”. Beware, though, because if there is less than .5 g of trans fat per serving, the company can put ‘0’ on the label.
• Total sugar in foods that do not contain significant milk or fruit ingredients is considered ADDED SUGAR. Most fruit in sweetened processed food products don’t contain much actual fruit.
• Many processed foods include added fiber ingredients, so to get grams of grain, subtract dietary fiber and sugars from total carbohydrates
• There are about 7 grams of protein per ounce of meat, so to convert protein in processed foods to ounce meat equivalents, divide the grams of protein in the product by 7.

Obviously, it is not necessary to do this for every processed food product you buy (and it would probably be pretty impractical to whip out a calculator in the middle of the store for each food that you’re curious about), but hopefully this will help you decide which foods taste great, made with whole grains, and most importantly, help you feel satisfied while enjoying a balance of healthful foods from all of the food groups. Happy shopping!