Eighteen or twenty years ago, I was into high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diets, thanks to the original Atkins Diet Revolution and, to an even greater level, Stillman’s Quick Weight Loss Diet (which I need to admit I still prefer to Atkins however that’s simply personal taste). At the time, every aisle was loaded with labels declaring Low Fat or Reduced Fat. I didn’t care about fat and sought much different information. Regrettably, slim was “in” and I felt alone and abandoned.With a specific sense of bitterness, I found the carb expenses of a wide range of food, keeping a sharp eye on components, calorie levels, and nutritional worths. Specific items were strangely emblazoned with banners revealing low fat: pasta sauce, potato chips, sweet bars, and ice cream. I was puzzled: how could particular foods, complete of fat to their very core, be low fat? How might all the fat be removed and there be anything left?I ended up being interested with specific labels. Have you ever, for instance, checked out the labels on those flavored coffee creamers? No fat. Zero carbohydrates. Zero protein. Absolutely no calories. How can anything we put in our mouths have no calories? A negligible amount, perhaps, however absolute no? What is in that stuff? Or is it virtual food, existing only in our mind’s eye as a type of edible hologram?Mercifully, the slim fad died its natural death. Atkins and similar regimens took over and the low fat labels were reprinted(business recycling at its finest)to read Low Carbohydrate. Unexpectedly, all over you looked, there were foods recast as low carb-once again with the pasta sauce, the potato chips, the sweet bars, and the ice cream.I was curious. Had the manufacturers gotten all those carbohydrates
and put the fat back in? Where did those carbohydrates go? Are there huge dumpsites in the desert where undesirable carbohydrates are buried -next to worn tires, plastic bags, and nuclear waste?Once more, I wonder: what is left in those boxes, cans, and jars?
Why am I paying$ 1.19 per ounce for something that really isn’t anything?Then I began to figure it out(in some cases I’m a little sluggish). The food had not actually changed at all, just the product packaging. Food labels are like those ubiquitous Web sales letters. They trumpet headlines that capture our interest because they remain in synch with our desires and objectives. Is that unexpected? Of course not. Highly paid copywriters select their headings with fantastic care, buying into the national “fascination o’the day”, floating on the coattails of the most recent fad.Many people are so desperate to control our weight that we purchase into the promises like the unaware followers we are: bleating
sheep heading for a precipice without any thought of questioning our leaders or starting out in a different direction.The unspoken trick is that the label does not matter. If we desire to reduce weight, we do not eat pasta sauce, potato chips, sweet bars, or ice cream.
Period. No matter what the bundle states. Deep in our mind, we understand what we can eat (very little)and what we can’t (a whole bunch ). Allowing ourselves to be deceived is just a fashionably acceptable way to trick ourselves, and we know it. We buy into the hype since we want, so severely, to think. We desire to believe that we are doing the best thing, that we’re actually trying, that our inspiration is pure.Our weak points are being exploited by the packagers and the extremely shop con guys. Our uncertainty, and
the frustrating need to prevent the very real discomfort of reliable dieting, invests the misguidance of food labels with an illusion of truth.Like our dimwitted ovine cousins, we, too , are ultimately fleeced. Atkins Diet