Grandma's No-Frills Labels

One of my favorite food-related authors is Michael Pollan. He wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Both books have opened my eyes to the nature of the food that we eat...well, the "food" that we eat. Both books, but in particular In Defense of Food, provide a straightforward look at the increasing artificiality of the things we buy in the grocery store. The chemicals and artificial flavors and jam-packed ingredient lists.

Pollan's advice is that we eat food that our grandmas would actually recognize as food. That means whole foods like fruits and vegetables, basic yogurts, whole grains, etc. He also cautions against an overconfidence in the foods that seem real but aren't. Bread, for example, looks like food your grandma would recognize, but take a look at the ingredients list in most modern breads. There's a mile-long list of preservatives and chemicals there that would boggle the mind of dear old granny. Or yogurt. Grandma might recognize the food, but today's ingredients are artificial fruit flavorings, preservatives, and sugar (real or fake). Not simple whole yogurt.

I'm reminded of this because a friend just mentioned how a local convenience store has a section of moderately healthy snack options, which I LOVE. One of the items is a local dairy place's cottage cheese with pineapple. Like my friend, I was stoked to see this option. Real food in convenient form! Yay! But then I turned the container around and saw the ingredients list. It's full of high-fructose corn syrup and other junk. WHY?? Why can't you just add some damn pineapple to simple cottage cheese? Why mess with natural stuff that's delicious in its natural form?!? WHY?

The thing is, enjoying the occasional treat like that is perfectly reasonable and better than a candy bar by quite a fair distance. But the problem is that our everyday foods are just as loaded with hidden garbage that's unnecessary and potentially harmful. If nothing else, these products put a healthy halo around foods that aren't as healthful as they seem. And what happens, then, is that people get frustrated when they don't lose weight even by making what seems like healthy choices. It's not that they can't lose weight--it's that the "healthy" foods in our stores are often anything but. It's that we're tricked into eating things that won't help shed those pounds or keep those pounds off.

So, what's a healthy eater to do? Read the labels, look for grandma's favorites, enjoy artificial favorites in a moderate way, while keeping staples the staples of your diet. Keep convenience foods for the times when convenience is necessary and not a simple convenience. It seems hard, but it gets lots easier once you're used to it. (I'm still working on making myself used to it...)