Healthy

I've learned that "healthy" is not a word that is easily agreed upon. The first time that I ever thought about food as being healthy or not, I was in HS and standing in our kitchen. My mom had just bought a book called the "T-Factor Diet". Basically it was the beginning of the fad that blamed fat grams instead of just too many calories for unhealthy eating. I didn't read the book, and really I don't know anything else about it, but for the next large portion of my life, I always looked at the "fat grams" first on the nutritional label. Even when America figured out that just because a cookie is "fat free" doesn't make it healthy - I still looked at those fat grams...habit I guess.

What made me think of this? A few days ago I was in a meeting and someone had offered an extra banana to anyone who wanted it. Another person at the meeting exclaimed, "No way! Those things have 35 carbs, I can't eat that!" A banana? Unhealthy? What? It made me stop and think for minute. I thought the statement was ludicrous. But why? What do I consider healthy? Do I think carbs are especially good or evil? No - I really don't pay attention to them much at all. I realized that I have stopped looking at the fat grams (or calories, or carbs, or whatever else is at the top of the label) and started looking at the bottom of the label. What is IN this product? I know what's in a banana. Banana. See? Easy. Eat it!

Not everything is so easy though. I was at the grocery and needed sour cream. I grabbed sour cream. I'm not sure why, but I looked at the label. This is what it said:
Ingredients - Cultured Cream, Skim Milk, Whey, Modified Corn Starch, Gelatin, Sodium Phosphate, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate, Calcium Sulfate and Locust Bean Gum.

What? So I picked up a different brand of sour cream. And this is what it said:
Ingredients - Grade A Cultured Cream

Good Grief. Why must grocery shopping take so much effort?

I'm not saying we've started eating tofu around here. I'm not even sure what's IN tofu, so I plan to avoid it for as long as possible. I still like Doritos. And Oreos. And all those other yummy chemical laden O's. But I'm trying to do better.