Recently by Mark Sisson: The Butterfly
Organic; low-carb; reduced sugar; preservative and chemical free; made from all natural ingredients; and now with special bacterial cultures designed to help you poop! Seriously, is there anything that “health” food can’t do (or fix, or correct, or modify, or prevent…)?
Uhh…yeah. Especially if it’s junk food masquerading as health food.
In recent years, food manufacturers have grown increasingly privy to the American public’s dietary whims. In the early 90s, they fell over themselves to cut the fat, replaced sugar with sugar alcohols to keep up with the low-carb dieters of the new millennium and are now plying us with promises of eco-chic or otherwise “green” food.
The bottom line is that selling health is a huge trend, and manufacturers will do just about anything to make sure their products fit into our definition – albeit fleeting – of what health food is. In fact, for many of these reformed foods, the only real changes that have been made are to the label to play up the positives (“now with whole grains”) and bury the negatives (“but we had to add 20 tbsp of sugar to make it even close to edible!”), leaving you, dear reader, with a product that is only nominally healthier than the original at best.
The following are a selection of ten food items that may be incrementally more healthy than their non-organic, fried-instead-of-baked, full-sugar vs. reduced-sugar peers. But, to us, they all still beg the question, What’s the point?
Nature’s Path Organic Strawberry Toaster Pastries
If the folks over at Nature’s Path didn’t have such a great PR team, chances are the tag line for this product would have been “Nature’s Path Organic Strawberry Toaster Pastries: So you can feel good about serving your kids junk food.” Harsh? Yes. True? Absolutely. In a side comparison between the “healthy” Organic pastries and Kellogg’s Pop Tarts (which we all know “good” parents don’t serve their kids), the pastries were about the same in terms of calories (210 vs. 205) and fat (3.5 grams vs. 4.5 grams) but the Kellogg brand actually had fewer carbohydrates (37.5 grams vs. 40 grams) and less sugar (17.5 grams vs. 19 grams). Although certain foodies suggest that the organic variety taste more “wholesome,” at the end of the day, a toaster pastry is a toaster pastry and it’s definitely not something that you (or your kids) should be eating to kick-start the day!
Dr. Oetker Organic Vanilla Cake
You attend farmers’ markets, you only buy organic, and, where possible, you do your best to eat healthy. But a birthday is a birthday and, as Homer from The Simpsons would say, “mmm…cake.” Unfortunately, however, Dr. Oetker’s Organic spin on vanilla cake is just plain laughable. Besides the fact that cake, in any shape or form, just isn’t healthy, this particular all-natural product contains gum acerbic arabic, the same food stabilizer (as in chemical) used in soda, M&M chocolate candies, gum drops, marshmallows, and many other candies. Still not convinced it’s bad for you? This same ingredient is also used in watercolor paints, shoe polish and other items that you wouldn’t normally consider ingesting. Gum arabic may not kill you, but it doesn’t scream organic either. And you call yourself a doctor, Dr. Oetker!
Annie’s Homegrown Certified Organic Canned Pasta Meals
Although, Annie, you seem so genuine with your homegrown canned pasta meals, we know that the product lurking beneath that metal can is nothing but low-grade slop. Let’s look at Annie’s Certified Organic All Stars pasta dinner (which, by the way, Annie is recommending for your toddler). The first four ingredients (by weight) are water, organic tomato puree, organic macaroni stars and organic evaporated cane juice. Uhh…Annie, sweetheart, stop being fancy and call a spade a spade: it’s sugar…and lots of it. So much so that the sugar is listed way before any mention of cheese (even though this particular “dish” is touted as pasta in a tomato and cheese sauce.) Sounds to us like Annie needs to spend a little more time in the kitchen (or possibly on some reputable nutrition sites) before she tries shilling this stuff as anything resembling healthy!
O Organics (Safeway Brand) Organic Yellow Corn Tortilla Chips
There’s simply no other way to put this: A chip is a chip is a chip. And what could make it worse? This chip (is a chip, is a chip…) is made of corn. Corn people. Need further proof to stay away? Uhh…they’re a chip…and they’re made of corn. Nuff said, we think!
