Nutrition Labels Can Lie By 20%

Images by Andres Ayrton, Brooke Cagle, and Cesar Carlevarino Aragon

Nutrition and wellness have long been an interest and passion of mine. Which is why the first item listed, about nutrition labels on foods, bothers me more than the second item, about workplace culture. But as a lover of language, and an aspiring bike mechanic, the final item this week has me excited.

Nutrition Labels Lie

It was through a podcast, months ago, that I first learned nutrition labels on food packages can be wrong by up to 20%. But after hearing it for a second time, I’m more concerned about companies intentionally lying on their labels.

With more companies branding their foods as low-fat, low-carb, or high-protein, it’s clear they have a financial incentive to deliberately lie about their products. When you account for the 20% “flexibility” in labels, it means something with 200 calories can legally be labeled as having 160 calories. Now think about how many packaged foods you eat in a day.

The Workplace Is Not a Family

I normally scoff when a job posting touts that their workplace culture is like that of a family. It’s corny and tells me you probably think an ugly sweater party builds culture.

Now, however, it seems that workplaces trying to implement a family-like culture are engaging in harmful behavior. According to this Harvard Business Review article, which references multiple studies, branding your workplace as a family can be toxic, lead to unethical behavior, and exploit the employees who buy-in.

Handiwork and Language Skills

I used to exclusively think that improving language skills was done through reading, listening, talking, and writing. Recent studies however show that using mechanical tools involves the same area of the brain as language skills.

Specifically, the motor functions involved in tool use improve our ability to understand complex sentences, and vice versa. Meaning, spending time improving one skill correlates to improvements in the other skill to some degree.