Reading a Hummus label at the store- an eye opener!

[Clairembart]

I was at the Natural Food store today. For the first time ever I looked carefully at a Hummus label. I always thought Hummus is basically chick peas with the addition of a little tahini, maybe a very small portion of olive oil , some lemon juice and a little salt. Certainly not a high fat item. Maybe 20% at the very most. Wrong.

According to the label, 2 tablespoons of the hummus provides 70 calories.
Fat is listed as 7% of daily value. That does seem low at first glance. Sodium is at 115 mg - only 5% of daily value.

Then I start looking at it the "Novick Way":

It says lipids: 5 gram. Hmmm... at 9 calories per gram that's 45 calories out of the 70! And that's 64% of the calories coming from FAT !!! Wow!

But how could this be? The 5 grams of lipids are just 16% of the total 30 grams? But wait... that 30 grams include the water in the product which has zero calories. Ha! A neat trick here - how to make a very high fat product appear "healthy" to the untrained eye.
Just confuse people by mixing weight measures with calories and irrelevant percentages.
Now you see it - now you don't! It's a magic trick.

The sodium is not horrendous but still it is 65% above the recommended guidelines.

So this product sold as a Health Food is actually in the category of very poor food - just above the potato chips. We could even say it is "junk" - couldn't we?

[f1jim]

Even at the health food stores it's hard to find hummus that isn't laden with oil. We found a couple brands and the fat content shows it. Reminds me of Veggie burgers. I have found veggie burgers with a low of .5 grams fat per serving to some with 22 grams of fat. Some laced with cheese and oils. Funny to be eating a "health food" that has almost as much fat as a regular beef burger!
Jeff Novicks method of simply reading a label and discarding the worthless info has speed up my grocery shopping. Heck, I can read the ingredients list and just about guess the other numbers.
f1jim

[JeffN]

I was at the Natural Food store today. For the first time ever I looked carefully at a Hummus label. I always thought Hummus is basically chick peas with the addition of a little tahini, maybe a very small portion of olive oil , some lemon juice and a little salt. Certainly not a high fat item. Maybe 20% at the very most. Wrong.

According to the label, 2 tablespoons of the hummus provides 70 calories.
Fat is listed as 7% of daily value. That does seem low at first glance. Sodium is at 115 mg - only 5% of daily value.

Then I start looking at it the "Novick Way":

It says lipids: 5 gram. Hmmm... at 9 calories per gram that's 45 calories out of the 70! And that's 64% of the calories coming from FAT !!! Wow!

But how could this be? The 5 grams of lipids are just 16% of the total 30 grams? But wait... that 30 grams include the water in the product which has zero calories. Ha! A neat trick here - how to make a very high fat product appear "healthy" to the untrained eye.
Just confuse people by mixing weight measures with calories and irrelevant percentages.
Now you see it - now you don't! It's a magic trick.

The sodium is not horrendous but still it is 65% above the recommended guidelines.

So this product sold as a Health Food is actually in the category of very poor food - just above the potato chips. We could even say it is "junk" - couldn't we?

I am glad to see you use the guidelines and I "mostly" agree with you with one little difference.

While it is a high fat, high calorie dense, high sodium food, a junk food is a food that is high in calories "and" has no (or little) nutritional value and one I would want someone to avoid completely. But while this is high in calorie, high in fat and high in sodium, it does have some nutritional value because it is mostly made up of garbanzos. So, I would consider it a rich food with added oil, and not a junk food, and one I would rather you avoid if you can as you could do better. There are brands with no added oil and lower sodium which would be better or you can make one yourself.

It is soo easy to make simple healthy homemade hummus that doing so, would be the better choice. You could make extra and keep it around as a healthy dip, spread, or thinned out and used as a salad dressing. A can of Eden Foods garbanzo beans with some water, lemon juice and garlic blended up and your done!

In Health
Jeff

[SactoBob]

As Jeff says, home made is great and pretty easy. I like it with a bit of lemon flavoring (juice plus rind) and a little tabasco sauce and a bit of warm water. It keeps pretty well in the fridge.

I haven't found anything commercial that meets Jeff's guidelines, and it illustrates how important it is to read the label the correct way. I would say that especially anything tasty is guilty until proven innocent by the label, because usually the reason it is tasty is because of calorie density or salt.

The more I read the labels, the less packaged foods I seem to eat. Hummus is great self-defense food, because it is always available to make a snack with some veggies or whatever.

[JeffN]

Here are two of my favorite bean based recipes

1) My favorite hummus recipe - Basic Hummus

1 Can Eden Foods No Salt Added Garbanzo Beans, rinsed and drained.
~1/4 cup water
~1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 cloves garlic

Blend in food processor or blender

Adjust water & lemon juice to the consistency you like.

To make it spicier, add in some hot red pepper flakes.

To make it chunkier, only blend about 2/3 of the can, and mash the remaining 1/3 by hand, and then add in

Optional - to make it really creamy, blend in 1-3 tsps of either unsalted tomato paste, cooked sweet potato or tahini.


2) My favorite salad dressing recipe - Creamy Garlic Dill Dressing

1 Can Eden Foods No Salt Added Butter Beans, drained (save the drained bean liquid).
4 (-6) Tbsp bean liquid
2 (-3) Tbsp plain vinegar or balsamic vinegar or lemon juice
1/2 (-1) tsp garlic powder
1/2 (-1) tsp dried dill weed

Blend in food processor or blender till creamy.

Adjust the amount of bean water & vinegar/lemon juice to the consistency you like.

Adjust the amount of garlic & dill to the flavor you like.

Any white bean will work but I find butter beans make the creamiest dressing.

I also use this on baked potatoes!

Enjoy!

In Health
Jeff

P.S. 1 can beans is approximately 1 1/2 cup cooked beans.

[Jeannie1960]

Some Hummus labels sure do tell a scary tale!!
Thanks Jeff for the tips!
I'll be sure to try them both!!
Jeannie

[molly25]

That garlic dill dressing looks awesome. I'm thinking you could change up the spices and come dangerously close to it tasting like a ranch dressing (onion powder, parsley flakes, black pepper, keep the dill in there).

I've never seen canned butter beans anywhere, though.

[JeffN]

That garlic dill dressing looks awesome. I'm thinking you could change up the spices and come dangerously close to it tasting like a ranch dressing (onion powder, parsley flakes, black pepper, keep the dill in there).

Yes. Many people have done this and think the very same thing.

I've never seen canned butter beans anywhere, though.

Not very common. Also, as far as I know, they are also known as baby lima beans, but you have to make sure they really are the small baby ones as the larger ones are harder and do not work very well at all.

However, we also use cannellini, navy or small white beans and they all work great.

In Health
Jeff

[Bkworm]

Sorry, Jeff, missed your link. Found it when I read your post again and will give it a try.

Thanks to Mom+Me and your link, I now have lots of new recipes to try.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!