Is it Food? [Flowchart]

Grocery shopping has never been more confusing than it is in 2011.

With conflicting nutrition information coming at us from all sides, navigating the supermarket can feel as impossible as doing long division while juggling loaded bear traps. It's neither fun nor safe.

To help you find real food within the endless labyrinth of junk, I've put together this handy flowchart for your use and amusement. Consider it your supermarket GPS. If you ever get lost, just start back at the top.

Alternatively you can just ditch the supermarket altogether and head to the farmers market like I do.

Please feel free to share this with friends

May the food be with you.

Originally posted at Summer Tomato, where you can find more healthy eating tips.

 

Follow Darya Pino, Ph.D on Twitter: www.twitter.com/summertomato

Comments

[Sam Persons Parkes]

07:11 AM on 02/12/2011

This may be funny, but it's no joke! A great flowchart for figuring out what is really food! It works!

[dusanmal]

10:34 AM on 01/26/2011

No flowchart needed, just single question Food Scientists forget these days:
Can humans eat each single ingredient in its raw state and get nutrition from it?

[ohdem]

10:59 AM on 01/25/2011

To paraphrase Get Fuzzy: You might be surprised that a lot of stuff that is edible isn't technically food.

[multimedyanet]

06:16 PM on 01/18/2011

Thanks Darya,
Though, the flow chart above is not correct in technical terms. This is not how we draw flow charts. the shapes have not been correctly located.

[Nerdiac]

10:44 PM on 01/17/2011

They could cut this chart by 3/4 by stopping after "does it have a label?". If yes, it's not real food.

[brooklynmatt]

03:28 PM on 02/15/2011

um, you mean the label on my bag of Quinoa means its not real food?

[Anandi Premlall]

09:11 PM on 01/17/2011

Love this chart and shared it with friends & family. Thank you!

[CT333]

04:26 AM on 01/16/2011

In between the "was it ever alive" and "well done, you're at the produce isle or meat counter", there should be several different arrows... "was it raised organically?" "was it raised humanely?" "was it raised free-range?" "was it picked by hand?" This would weed out the production iceberg lettuce and the factory farmed animals... totally not healthy for anyone.

[justforchuckles]

01:38 PM on 02/07/2011

Your conflating ethical, environmental, and nutritional considerations and falling for several marketing ploys along the way. One free range as defined by USDA only applies to fowl and specifies that at some point the bird has had access to the outdoors. The quality, nature, and duration are not defined and as such any nutritional claim is as meaningless as the term itself. Two- raised organically implies the lack of chemical exposure but says nothing about the nutritional value of said food. Organic cookies, cakes, crackers, chips and the like are still just as devoid of nutrition as their non-organic counterparts. Likewise an organic head of iceburg lettuce wouldn't be weeded out but is still not as nutritionally dense as its non-organic Romaine bretheren. One could argue organic practices in regards to animals could lead to healthier animals overall which may impact nutrition but with one large caveat. When farmers askew medical treatment of animals they increase the risk of zoonotic illness in humans. Lastly, I would doubt the PETA would argue humane husbandry produces more nutritious meat. You raise animals humanely because they are fellow sentient beings. Slogans- like this flow chart make things easy for people who prefer not to think and overlook or fail to take the more appropriate considered approach. You do it by trumpeting little more then green bumper stickers and the chart fails to take into account- grains,beans, and legumes, the cornerstone of the human diet.

[Reelcanajun]

12:25 PM on 02/09/2011

Definitely fanned. The chart is hilarious. Too bad that many foodies don't have a sense of humour. You're so right about the pervasiveness of branding non-nutritious food artifacts as
"organic". A couple of points, though. Cattle raised naturally (grass-fed in fields) have much healthier meat than those fed grain in feedlots (grass fed critters have higher rates of omega oils and in a healthier ratio. Venison is the best of the red meats for being healthy.) The author, however, points out that it behooves us to shop mindfully, and to be aware of the misleading slogans that are in our faces as we shop. She simply does it with humour.

[Tishana Trainor]

06:08 PM on 01/12/2011

Bwhahahahahahahahahahahahaha... Hooooo, heh heh... Oh, man... Good one.

[lrobb]

02:23 PM on 01/10/2011

I think we may have had dog food for breakfast at least once last week.

[Carolyn ODonnell]

12:11 PM on 01/10/2011

My husband to be crushed to hear that marshmallows don't make the cut.

[jsr4u]

07:23 AM on 01/10/2011

Nice post! I actually hadn’t seen the diagram before, and it makes a lot of sense to me. My partner and I have nevertheless even decided to go a step further, and explained in a recent post why we have decided to stop buying food from supermarkets altogether… (http://makingsenseofthings.info/2011/01/why-weve-decided-to-stop-buying-food-from-supermarkets/) It will probably sound weird for most, but to us, it just makes sense!… Anyway, where do you buy your food then?

jsr

[LadyDusky]

01:00 AM on 01/10/2011

Yeah, well, I'm not giving up my pop tarts.

[Rainier Wolfcastle]

11:23 PM on 01/09/2011

The 5-ingredient test is deeply flawed. Vegetable soup and rosemary garlic bread each fail the "is it food" test according to this flowchart.

On the other hand, the 80% calories from fat abomination that is Steak-Umms is food according to this flowchart, because it has only one ingredient: beef. Well, technically it doesn't even have to go through the 5-ingredient test, because it has nutrition info, makes no health claims, and was once alive.

[greengeekgirl]

03:50 AM on 01/10/2011

Perhaps Steak-Umms are terribly loaded with fat and calories, but that doesn't mean they are not food--especially if their sole ingredient is beef. They simply are not healthy food. 80/20 ground beef is food and has 80% fat.

[AcademicChic]

10:09 AM on 01/10/2011

80% fat? Let's not get carried away. 80/20 meat is 80% lean, 20% fat. Not health food, but far from pure lard as you first portrayed it. :) By your original reasoning, 94/6 beef would be a much worse choice than 80/20, which is, of course, not the case.

[elcerritan]

11:52 PM on 01/10/2011

80% fat. Bwhaha! Well, that would certainly cook up into a VERY tiny burger.

[DennyCrane]

10:31 AM on 01/10/2011

Maybe that should tell you that bread isn't real food, but something manufactured by man. Show me where bread exists in nature. Does it walk, swim, or fly? Does it fall off a tree or grow up from the ground? Do you think the caveman would think that bread is food?

[lrobb]

02:25 PM on 01/10/2011

If a caveman ever got his hands on a good San Francisco sourdough loaf, he would KNOW it was food!

[Nick Wood]

08:44 PM on 01/17/2011

Yes. Yes he would.

[judderwocky]

11:09 PM on 01/09/2011

Well... there is a problem in this: most yogurts list the scientific names of the 3-7 cultures of bacteria they contain!

Otherwise funny and informative.

[NWBrunette]

10:26 PM on 01/09/2011

Get Food Rules by Michael Pollan. It's almost as short, very accessible, and much more accurate.