The advantage that the advertising industry and salespeople have these days is that they know that many people desire to eat healthy—but at the same time, they know most people don't really know what is healthy, and they also know people would rather eat tasty than healthy. So what do they do? They sell the illusion of being healthy.
When you're walking around Costco, they entice you with meaningless phrases such as, “all natural,” “wheat flour,” or “gluten-free.” I once saw ice cream that was advertised as “gluten-free.” Uh, yeah. Ice cream isn't made with flour, that's why it's gluten-free. In fact, ALL ice cream is gluten-free!
Or what about the gourmet licorice sticks that Costco was promoting the other day? Scanning over the list of ingredients, it wasn't hard to miss—in unnecessary large bold print—the ingredient, “WHEAT FLOUR.” Yeah, cupcakes have wheat flour. Cookies have wheat flour. Doughnuts have wheat flour. So I'm not sure whether this is an unsuccessful attempt to draw attention away from your secret ingredient, or if this is just a really ill-placed warning to those with Celiac disease.
And then there are always the nutrition bars that don't actually do a superb job of tasting good, but they do manage to grind a multivitamin pill into their organic cardboard and birdseed mix (yea, recycling!), stamp it into the shape of a candy bar, coat it with some sugar and some saturated fat, and then finish it off with a $1.25 price tag. Ooooor, you could just eat a multivitamin.
- Carly
3 comments:
Carly, you sound so smart! I didn't know all this stuff! Did you learn this stuff from: a) school, b) work, or c) life experience?
Xave, I think being married to Tim has just made me smarter.
FYI, some ice creams will have wheat added to prevent crystallization, and you have to remember that if you don't know what an ingredient is, it could have gluten in it. Plus, things like Peanut butter can have wheat filler in it, so even if it is not cookie dough, your ice cream could easily have gluten in it.
I will actually fork out a bit of money for some health foods, but not just any. I've seen things labeled as healthy, but that have corn syrup in it, etc. And if you don't research things, you can be taken advantage of. Yes, probiotics are good for you, but some have been so highly processed, they aren't much helpful anymore... and activia is not better for you than most yogurts with live active cultures.
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