One of my pet peeves is those individuals who many refer to as "The Food Police". These are the people who don't simply tell you to eat healthy, but have grandiose guidelines which border on the insane. These are the people who appear to believe that the Common People are too stupid to realize that a small fast food restaurant cheeseburger has fewer calories and less fat that the quadruple patty with 3 ounces of cheese, battered and deep fried "Super Deluxe Special" burger does. These are the people who tell you that a large movie theater popcorn with butter has thousands of calories and a week's supply of saturated fat and you're "better off not going for that free refill!" Has anyone other than the Incredible Hulk ever eaten two large buckets of movie theater popcorn all by themselves?
I figure if someone thinks I'm stupid, they should tell me straight out, rather than hint at it.
I used to read these "Eat This, Not That" lists until I realized I got angry every time I read one. I didn't get angry because my favorites were in the "Not That" column (in fact, sometimes they were in the "Eat This" column.) Nope, my ire was raised by the comparisons themselves. Did you know that four ounces of all natural, no sugar added fruit juice is a healthier alternative than 32 ounces of a sugary carbonated soft drink? Gwarsh, Mickey! Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. How about this one: four ounces of all natural fruit juice is better for you than four ounces of fruit juice cocktail? Do the people who put together these list truly think nobody reads nutrition or ingredient labels, or don't know that "cocktail" means "a little bit of juice flavoring with a bunch of sugar added to reduce the company's costs"? Other lists compare eating a candy bar to the healthier rice cake with an eighth of a teaspoon of artificially sweetened jam. Hey, you've convinced me! Goodbye, chocolate bliss, hello strawberry flavored Styrofoam!
Equally annoying are the lists that compare only calories or only fat, and state that Choice B is better than Choice A because it has 30 fewer calories and 1 fewer grams of saturated fat. The reason the people making these lists think no one reads nutrition labels is because they don't read labels themselves. The (slightly) higher calorie and (marginally) higher fat choice has significant amounts of protein, vitamins and minerals that the "healthier" choice does not. It's all important, folks. Watching those fats and calories might give you that slim figure you're after, but it won't make you healthy. Yes, it's true that carrying around extra weight and clogging your arteries with trans-fats will shorten your lifespan. So will malnutrition. If you don't get sufficient nutrients your internal organs will get diseased and wither, and you will die. Your body, however, will look fantastic in your casket.
Recently a friend sent me a recipe for chicken prepared in a way supposedly comparable to a popular Chili's entrée. The recipe compared fat, calories, protein and other nutrients between the two dishes. Chili's is one of my favorite restaurants, so I looked closely at the comparisons. I checked out the nutrition information of that particular dish from Chili's website and added up the numbers from the individual ingredients from the "make it yourself at home and save money as well as fat and calories" recipe. The numbers-per-serving of the home recipe were pretty accurate. The numbers from the Chili's entrée -- well, a little bit of tweaking took place there. I can overlook the discrepancy in the initial counts, as the recipe was a few years older than the currently posted Chili's nutrition information; I reasoned that Chili's had adjusted their recipe over those few years which would account for the slightly lower amounts. But the real subterfuge in the Food Police's comparison came with what actually ended up on the plate.
The numbers cited for the Chili's entrée were "as served" - which means "served with two side dishes." As anyone who has eaten at Chili's knows, most of their side dishes are sautéed. Even those which are not are going to add at least calories if not additional fat. The numbers for the home recipe, however, were for an individual serving of chicken, no side dish included. In addition, the home recipe served four people and the Chili's recipe served one - with the same amount of chicken! Yes, folks, four servings do indeed contain more fat and calories than one!
These restaurant comparisons always assume that just because your server puts the plate in front of you, you have to clean your plate. Mom made you do that when you were growing up, but I've yet to eat at a restaurant which required it. With the exception of all-you-can-eat buffets, every restaurant will give you a bag, box, or carton to take home what you cannot (and probably should not) finish in the one sitting. Chili's is one of my favorite eating establishments but I seldom leave without taking home half the meat and sometimes a portion of the veggies as well. When I go out to eat with friends, those who don't ask for take-home containers leave the remainder on their plates for the server to take away. Places like Chili's give you a lot of food for your money. I'm sure many people do clean their plates. In my experience, most people do not - because we're not used to eating two or three meals all at once.
If those who made food comparisons made honest comparisons, I wouldn't be annoyed. I'd still eat whichever choice made my mouth and tummy happiest; sometimes that is the "healthier" choice and sometimes it is not, and I'm smart enough to realize a smaller portion will satisfy the craving just as effectively as a larger portion will. But you cannot honestly or accurately compare a serving of meat (regardless of whether it is skinless and broiled or still-skinned and fried) to a complete meal, or an apple to a box of jujubes, or a glass of water with lemon twist to a tall glass of lemonade.
Anyone - Food Police or those who buy into the subterfuge - who thinks such comparisons contain any truly useful information has been eating "healthy" for far too long, and the lack of proper nutrients has rotted their brains.
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