onarliog: Just need to vent a bit...

I'd been a reckless eater most of my life, but a few years back I took up weightlifting, which naturally comes with a calorie restricted diet and protein intake requirements. Henceforth, I started reading labels on food stuff in grocery stores, and I've been pissed ever since.

1) Real vs. Unreal food

The bottle says: Mayonnaise
Fine print at the back: Mayonnaise-flavored cream dressing
Ingredients: Shit I can't read

No sir, you need to buy the stuff on the next shelf that says "Real Mayonnaise". Apparently, putting mayo on the label doesn't require that you actually put the real stuff in the package.

Applies to many other stuff, e.g., ice cream (ice-cream flavored cold dessert), croissants (croissant and butter-flavored bread pastry [wtf does that even mean?]), ricotta (cheese-flavored soy curds). All have "Real" varieties available if you know to look for them.

2) What the label says: "No added sugar!"

What it means: We instead added a shitload of sucralose to make it even sweeter than the original. Served with a side of cancer.

3) What the label says: "Skinny/Non-fat/Light <insert food>"

What it means: We removed all the fat... except that 99% of the calories in this certain product came from carbs anyway, so you end up consuming 297 calories per serving instead of 300. Good job.

4) The label: "X% less fat!"

Fineprint: "...not from our original product, but from a competing brand"

Potato chips do this all the time. There is the original, there is the 40% reduced fat version. However, the actual fat reduction is about 10% at best, fine print says they actually compared the light variety to Lays... I say fuck you.

5) The calorie challenge: I'm about to receive a PhD in computer science in the coming months, but I'll be damned if I can compute the amount of calories in a single microwaveable bag of popcorn. I dare you, go read the back of a 3-pack box and try for yourself.

Ok, that felt good.