St. Paddy's

St. Paddy's turned out to be a bad food day, but that is because I ate one of the prepackaged Yakisoba noodles. 12 points for something with a fairly blah taste, even after I tricked it out. Enough cleaning for some exercise, but again not much.

This prepackaged thing really bugged me. The packaging was listed as 2 servings for a single container. This isn't something that is meant to be shared with others so I was a bit bent to realize that a huge chunk of points were washed right down the drain with that. I really think for things like that the packaging should reflect the fact that it is going to be eaten by one person in one sitting.

It's like cokes and stuff, listing 2.5 servings per 20 oz bottle, when that is clearly going to be consumed probably at one sitting. Thankfully I saw a 16 oz coke with a full bottle label data. That was almost refreshing, pun intended. You know the whole Coke refreshing ad campaign... sigh...

Anyway, with obesity being such a major issue in this nation shouldn't labeling be more consumer friendly rather than company friendly? Granted it is basic math, but to be able to hold the bottle and see how many calories and such you are holding is a hell of a wake up. It is good marketing to break it into individual servings that few is any follow but realistic labeling would point out just how bad some of this crap is for you and that could be bad for business. Soft drinks alone are a huge market with a whole lot of money coming in. To label what things really are might dent profits and we know how unamerican that is. It is almost a crime to want to lower profits in the interest of health.

The fact that the soda industry has also pushed the high fructose corn syrup market, making it the number one additive to most everything, is another hit against your health. I read somewhere that soda and specifically the HFCS causes damage to the pancreas, which can lead to systemic issues. We have basically sweetened our way into bad health.

Now, I am not really all that enamored with sweets. Natural sweeteners in certain foods is generally pretty good for me, though chocolate is worth the sweet. But how many of those use the straight HFCS? Well, more than you might think and that disturbs me. So many things are sweetened with it that the total accumulation you can get from one meal is staggering. Straight sugar is bad enough but this stuff is far worse.

Maybe we can start getting foods that are not sweetened to within an inch of their lives? One of the reasons I prefer real Chinese food to American Chinese food is the sugar. Many of the Chinese dishes aren't that sweet but the American market almost demands it. Just ewwww...

So... anyway... I hope you had a good St. Paddy's and stuff.