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Community Corner

Organic or Just Plain Junk?

Don't let food packaging dumb you down.

 

Every now and then, a food trend comes along that plays to our deepest desire for an easy way out.

The “fat free” movement was like a magical invention causing us to lose our collective minds.

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These two little words seemed to lull us all into a false sense of healthfulness. Suddenly, everyone believed it was not just harmless, but responsible to feed children large quantities of nacho chips and cookies as long as they were labeled, "fat free."

We all rejoiced in the collective lack of guilt.

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Then, along came the Lunchables. These meals featured fabulous compartmentalized plastic containers. The cute factor overwhelmed all rational thought. Every kid wanted one.

Closer examination would reveal that they had enormous amounts of salt, fat, calories and didn’t contain that much food. If you took the food from a Lunchable and put it on a plain old plate, most kids would say, “That’s all?”

The 100-calorie movement is sweeping us too. Every possible snack is crammed into a bag labeled 100 calories. Some are remade to taste much worse, but only 100 calories.

And now, my favorite, the sliced apples in little bags designed for a packed lunch.

When I cut up an apple, it turns brown within five minutes. I am not sure I want to know what sort of solution prevents these packaged apples from turning brown.

While one part of our culture seems to want to be greener, another seems to be moving in the other direction. Green would be a real apple, eaten fresh versus an apple soaked in preservatives and wrapped in a plastic package.

I fear the organic industry is playing to the same gullibility. I am all for produce and meats without pesticides and antibiotics, but when organic food is bright orange, it should be a red flag that something not found in nature snuck into this food.

If organic versions of Lucky Charms or cheese doodles seem too good to be true, they probably are.  Unless, of course, you want to feel good about a sudden shift to marshmallows in your breakfast cereal.

American children face the highest rates of obesity in the world. Today’s children show risks for diet-related diseases like high cholesterol and diabetes usually found in older people.

We see children constantly being diagnosed with attention deficits. Does any of this relate to their diets?

We must keep our wits about us when we shop. We should always be questioning. We are all busy and love short-cuts, but let’s not let the food industry dumb us down.

Of course, if you need to perk up, there will always be a two-ounce energy drink right at the cash register to tempt you. It will be the conventional kind at the gas station, but organic at Whole Foods.

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