Reading food labels can be a slippery slope for those affected by eating disorders. Many sufferers will obsess over the details of the numbers and completely lose sight of the overall goal of establishing healthy and sustainable eating habits over time. There was a time when my anorexic daughter was banished from the kitchen and all labels were removed.. Thankfully, those days are behind us and labels are no longer verboten in our kitchen.
I recently watched the documentary ‘Fed Up’: which is an indictment of the food industry and all the crap they are putting in our food–particularly the enormous quantities of processed sugar. This nearly constant overdose of processed sugars alters our metabolism; leading to a variety of health impacts, including a truly frightening rise in Diabetes and obesity.
During a training session at work yesterday, I picked a bottle of fruit juice; the label advised that it contained a whopping 57 grams of sugar– roughly twice what I ‘should’ be consuming in a whole DAY. Wowza! I dropped the bottle like a hot potato and refilled my water bottle.
But let’s be real: I once had a knock-down, drag-out wrestling match with my oldest daughter over a chocolate bar (OK, maybe I exaggerated sightly – there was more tickling involved than anything else–but it was a really good chocolate bar); and my sweet tooth is firmly established as a ‘thing’ in our household. While I am NOT going to make drastic changes in what I eat or the meals that I prepare (cooking seems too strong a word for what I do on a regular basis – I mostly assemble stuff); I WILL be more aware, and am likely to make some lower-sugar choices.
What I REALLY would like is someone ELSE to shop and prepare tasty, healthy meals for me and my family. All this reading is giving me a headache.