"Fat free" and "0 calorie" foods are not necessarily your best friends. This is not new or exciting news by any means, but I keep reading these blog posts by fat-phobic, media blitzed, and generally eating disordered people (of which I can sadly relate to) and many of you are eating horrible shit. I mean, most of the garbage you ingest can't even be classified as food in the truest sense of the word, yet you wonder why you get nowhere with your battle against the dreaded bulge. So you consumed less than 1000 calories today and worked out until you were ready to pass out, but did you ever stop and read the label of the overly processed, chemically saturated, disease causing, health destroyer that you just wolfed down in a "weak" moment? Bitch please, eat an apple, eat an orange, or try any number of the colorful variety of honest-to-goodness food found in your grocer's produce section. You could spend all day eating that stuff and never gain weight, but instead you're eating crap that may as well have been concocted in Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. Your "100 calorie" snack foods and diet soda is making you fat AND causing cancer (among other things). Please get real and stop thinking this is an okay substitute for food.
BAD: YOPLAIT (AS WELL AS OTHER BRANDS)!!!
Some of you may be okay with ingesting animal-derived fats, but my goal with this post isn't to get all preachy on that subject. (Lord knows I enjoy a good cheese from time to time and vanilla flavored coconut yogurt is my newest obsession.) But Yoplait (and others) like to dazzle and confuse their consumers with such large, bold faced type that they are "HIGH IN CALCIUM" or "RICH IN VITAMINS D AND E" etc, etc, that they think they are eating healthy. However, check out their ingredients:
WHY IS THIS BAD? READ THESE:
REGARDING HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP:
REGARDING ASPARTAME:
BAGELS: NOT A GOOD BREAKFAST (OR ANYTIME) FOOD!!!
On top of the fact that a bagel is a carb overload for even the most aggressive athlete (not to mention basically empty calories), many manufacturers add unnecessary ingredients to their bagels. For that matter, I'm not a fan of most breads either, as companies do the same things to their loaves as they do their other baked goods. What happened to flour, yeast, water, and spices? Now we need to add excessive sweeteners and preservatives to extend the shelf life of our now unhealthy food? No thank you!
YOU BE THE JUDGE:
But the cream cheese was "fat free" you say? Doesn't mean it was healthy. Here's the ingredient list for Fat Free Philadelphia Cream Cheese from the Kraft Foods website:
PHILADELPHIA CREAM CHEESE - CREAM CHEESE - FAT FREE
Ingredients: PROTEIN CONCENTRATED SKIM MILK, SKIM MILK, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE, SUGAR, XANTHAN GUM, PASTEURIZED MILK AND CREAM, SALT, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, CARRAGEENAN, POTASSIUM SORBATE AND CALCIUM PROPIONATE AS PRESERVATIVES, CHEESE CULTURE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, CAROB BEAN GUM, VITAMIN A PALMITATE.
Size: 8 OZ
Upc: 2100061239
Size: 8 OZ
Upc: 2100061239
Yum, artificial color, preservatives, and artificial flavor. What a treat!
NO MORE SODA, DIET OR OTHERWISE!!!
Go to the Diet Coke website and they'll tell you to "Stay Extraordinary!" They must mean extraordinarily uninformed/ignorant/etc, because this shit is killing you but you drink it like water anyway. Here's their nutrition/ingredient info:
Diet Coke™
Nutritional Information
Amount (% RDA Ingredients)
Calories 0
Fat 0g (0%)
Sodium 40mg (2%)
Carbohydrates 0g (0%)
Sugar 0g
Protein 0g (0%)
Calories 0
Fat 0g (0%)
Sodium 40mg (2%)
Carbohydrates 0g (0%)
Sugar 0g
Protein 0g (0%)
Diet Coke™ - Ingredients
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Caramel Color
Phosphoric Acid
Natural Flavors
Caffeine
Aspartame (NutraSweet)
Potassium Benzoate
Citric acid
Right off the bat, this stuff is bad news, and it's not like their competitors offer any better options. High Fructose Corn Syrup, Aspartame, preservatives, and my latest personal favorite, caramel color. Nice and benign sounding, right? Wrong:
Wake up, people! Stop buying into the ignorant American way of life and start paying attention to what the "food" you eat is doing to your bodies. There's no magic pill or formula that will transform us all into Kate Moss, but fresh fruits and vegetables will get us a hell of a lot closer than the new diet drive thru menu from Taco Bell or a Lean Cuisine. I know what it's like to loathe your body and never feel good/thin enough. I know what it's like to constantly struggle with weight and self-image. I've been 80 lbs and 180 lbs and everywhere in between, but I refuse to sit idly by, stuffing my face with hidden fats and chemicals and cry about not losing enough weight when the reason for this is right in front of me. Food should not be manufactured in a lab--it should come from nature--so stop whining and start doing something about it. I was appalled at how many hidden saboteurs were lurking in my supposedly healthy diet once I started obsessively reading labels. Calories and fats are not necessarily your enemies, but junk food and a sedentary lifestyle are. Know what you're consuming and how much, and ALWAYS READ YOUR LABELS!!!
