Stop Worrying About Cholesterol

One of the biggest scams being perpetrated on society today lies in the area of food labeling.

The overwhelming majority of people have no idea what to look for and why. In many situations, we’re being taught to look for the wrong things or at best … we’re given just a piece of the puzzle instead of the complete picture.

First, let’s talk about what I refer to as “over” labeling. By this I mean referencing something the product does not have to give it the appearance of being healthier than it really is.

You see more and more of this today with an increased emphasis on low fat and low cholesterol foods.

Now granted, part of this is just good sound marketing. I mean c’mon, no food label is going to state something such as “avoid this high cholesterol food”.

For example: You’ll never see an egg carton that has a fancy sticker declaring: “Eggs have high cholesterol content”. And that just makes sense, right?

Egg producers shouldn’t do that just as shrimp meat producers should never have a label stating that “cholesterol levels in shrimp are high”. It’s bad business and it’s a disservice to consumers since the relationship between eating those foods and blood cholesterol levels is NOT what we’ve been told to believe over the year.

But back to the OVER labeling for a minute. Some of this over labeling is borderline shady. They go beyond good marketing to misleading.

We see it all the time with things like “Quaker Oatmeal is a low cholesterol food”.

Or how about this one? Go to your local grocery store and check out what you see on butter vs. margarine labels and notice the “label war” going on there.

An exaggerated example might be selling a bottle of shampoo that says, “0g of harmful acid”.

The company will say these things so the consumer thinks to herself, “Oh good, I don’t have to worry about getting any harmful acids on my hair with Brand X. And since Brand Y doesn’t say anything about not having those acids, I better play it safe and buy Brand X.”

Again, it is an effective marketing strategy, but it should make sense. The above was just for example purposes obviously, but some real-life examples aren’t that far of.

Another crazy example might be selling a bottle of water that says “Sugar Free and Fat Free”. I mean, duh. Of course, water doesn’t have sugar or fat. That’s another ridiculous example just to prove my point, right?

Well, yes and no.

It is ridiculous. But it is being done. There is at least one company that sells bottled water using this as a marketing tactic on their label. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Some marketing campaigns use association in a way to trick you into thinking their product is healthier than it really is.

Think about a lot of breakfast cereal commercials. They tell you to eat their cereal “as part of this complete breakfast.” And you see a glass of orange juice and maybe a piece of multi-grain toast. We’ll yeah, eating all of those things is a lot more complete and healthy than simply eating your cereal.

But they want your mind to remember it later as “that cereal is a complete healthy breakfast for me”.

Other products tell you that eating their product along with more fiber, less stress, and regular exercise is part of a healthy low cholesterol diet. It gives the strong illusion that their product lowers cholesterol, when in reality any positive effect is probably negligible at best.

There’s also another type of association and this can be the most dangerous for consumers.

Example: It’s now known that you can lower cholesterol with almonds and also with cinnamon.

But only a certain type of almond lowers cholesterol. So if the wrong type of almond package says, “Almonds have been shown to lower cholesterol”, then it is terribly misleading and can actually lead to increased cholesterol levels.

Now let’s look at the cinnamon example.

Eating or taking raw cinnamon does help lower cholesterol. But if a package of sugary sweet cinnamon rolls – dripping with gooey globs of icing – states on the package that “Cinnamon is a cholesterol-friendly food”, well - that is misleading at best and possible fraud as far as I’m concerned.

So get knowledgeable and make your decisions about which foods are good or bad for you before you get to the store and start looking at labels with a marketing spin.