Nutritional Facts: A Puddle

I have never been a calorie counter or that excessively worrisome—to the point where you might actually starve yourself because of one too many grams per whatever—individual (male or female) who suddenly becomes faced with a dilemma when a black and white label, often way too small to actually read, disrupts reality. Sometimes I wonder if they truly decided whether or not to eat that bag of chips or “health” bar because of the ingredients label and its lack of a ’100 calories or less’ promise. Snap back to reality real quick—yes this decision relies heavily on how potentially heavy that food item could make them. Instead of utilizing food in line with an idea output in physics—potential energy becoming kinetic or active energy—they look for the potential fat stuff that will in translation make them fat too.

Other than freaking out people when I tell them that the Calories on their labels are actually 1000 calories, the only time I ever had some notion to keep a keen eye, was when I was suckered into the belief that we need this much protein or this many carbs in order to accumulate muscle mass. This is a rather mirky puddle where one is basically stranded and risks a shoe filled with water and its muddy sediments, whether you step left of right.

It is the water from the puddle that clearly inhabits the nutritional facts label, but it is the muddy sediments that wreak havoc. There is too much information pertaining to the evils of certain ingredients and this permeates and overlaps into our feelings about food in general. Big problem solved NOW (for the most part) -> fats are not evil, protein exists, but we do not need to scarf it down and go back for seconds, quit counting calories and instead teach your kids how to not use their fingers to do math, and avoid sugar-coating and a-salting everything.

Of course I am referring to healthy fats, healthy consumption of protein, adequate calorie intake, and elimination of refined/processed foods and sugar. Can we step around these mirky waters? Can we avoid the temptation to splish-splash (indulge) while unknowingly getting dirty?

Is there a reason why they do not stamp one of these labels on every fruit, vegetable, nut, seed, and etc…? It makes me truly wonder about the genesis of food labeling. Were fruit and vegetable vendors fighting to avoid the labeling practice? Was labeling initially started to derail the food industry’s conniving plans to put what was cheap and efficient into their products rather than what was truly worthy of being considered a food item?

Today, our eyes are blindly attracted to the blazoned advertisements of the grocery store and to those of many other arenas. It is the promises of antioxidants, natural fruit, vitamin enriched-ness, immune boosters, protein, and whatever they feel like selling you that day, that companies use to reel you in and sell you something like a box of cereal, yet these ingredients are extracted from elsewhere (?).

I am not one-hundred percent sure, but I would bet a pretty dollar, only one, that food labels originated for the sole purpose of unmasking the hidden ingredients in every food item that mommy and daddy serve daily. That in itself is a rather scary notion. Labeling food to protect us from the food industry sounds kind of backwards  is backwards.

It has become a benefit to the food industry nowadays due to their vast range of abilities: promoting certain foods and or ingredients as healthy or unhealthy and even using them against each other to further increase sales, creating extremely imaginative and often healthy-sounding names for these unveiled ingredients, and utilizing the natural health attributes of real food as advertisement ploys. Fruit, veggies, nuts, seeds, and all the others are now left without a label touting their hidden but clearly evident goodness while unveiling their lack of hidden manmade ingredients.

Unlike the variety of healthy foods readily available in your local grocery store, we are not mute, and we can consciously delve into a health-focused diet. Pesticides and chemicals are still not listed on labels, and for this reason, I urge you to choose organically grown foods—when available, make the effort—over those laced with chemicals. I urge you to eat according to what is natural, not a little black and white box that has become over-empowered by an industry unconcerned with the end result.

Do you shop and or eat by the food label?

Can you truly browse the ingredients listed and feel confident that you know what each and everyone is?

Should you even have to take the time to understand this absurd terminology?

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