“The Package May Say Healthy, but This Grocer Begs to Differ”. Neat article about a grocery store chain that is labeling all foods with objective health ratings, regardless of what the food manufacturer claims. It sheds a lot of light on those products labeled “healthy” or with some esoteric health claim (“Anti-oxidants!”). Most include way too much sugar, fat or salt while promoting one positive health benefit.

I bought a package of ready-to-bake Nestle’s Tollhouse cookies that proclaimed “0 grams of Trans Fats!” Which is great, except that one cookie contained 10 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat. There is nothing remotely healthy about this cookie. You’d be better off with some trans fats and a lesser overall fat total. Most people don’t even know what “trans fat” means. I also saw a Swiss Miss hot chocolate package promoting how it was chock full of anti-oxidants. It’s also chock full of sugar and trans fat. Guess what, the anti-oxidants loose that battle.

All of these new healthy buzz-words are great for food companies because they can sell you peace of mind. When a package has the word “healthy” it promotes nutritional evasion. People trust it, knowing it’s probably bullshit, but at least they don’t have to think. They’ll feel good about it and never question it because a guilt-free food experience is hard to come by these days.

I found Campbell’s response to the realistic food ratings the most comical:

We don’t like the idea that there are good and bad foods out there, and these sort of arbitrary rating systems.

Of course they don’t, because most of their products aren’t remotely healthy. And of course there is such a thing as good and bad foods. The idea is to be realistic about it, stop practicing evasion, and understand that bad foods have a place in good diets. But that eating Baked Lays and Healthy Choice pudding isn’t necessarily the road to a sound, let alone enjoyable, diet.

Tags: eaten, food, goreadthis, health