Along the lines of the vegetarian pizza, I love the people at the Chinese restaurant who order the (fried up in oil) ‘Buddha’s Delight’ since it is all vegetables. I think we can all agree, if it tastes good, it’s pretty much bad for you.
If it tastes like dirt/shit, it’s probably good for you.
If it used to taste like dirt/shit (i.e. brussel sprouts or salad) but no longer does because of the edition of bacon or dressing, it is now bad for you.
Caveat: it is smells and tastes like a hairy scrotum after a ten mile run in spandex during the summer (i.e. many fancy cheeses) that trumps dirt/shit and is once again bad for you.
Well, you hit most of my biggies: fruit juice, granola bars and sweetened yogurt. But what about breakfast cereal? I HATE that the cereal manufactures are touting “whole grains!” in their sugar-saturated breakfast bombs.
Don’t products have a little information box, which gives the fat quantities etc. by serving size, and per 100g? I’m presuming it’s by law in Australia, as pretty much everything has them.
Exactly: the serving size was a tablespoon, and the per 100g information was probably on the back of the box.
I’ve seen Tesco label products like this before, it was just weird seeing a pasta meal with a tablespoon serving. Playing devil’s advocate maybe it was a labelling error.
While an expensive reverse osmosis unit will remove fluoride from tap water (along with just about every other mineral in the water), the typical activated carbon filter (such as a Brita filter) used in most home setups does not remove fluoride. (I researched this when I installed an activated carbon filter on our tap water to remove residual chlorine from the municipal disinfection process.)
As for bottled water, there’s generally nothing particularly unhealthy about it, but it’s very expensive and less regulated that the water piped directly into most people’s houses. You’re correct that most bottled water is not fluoridated, which can be a problem, especially for children.
Actually, a recent study mentioned here in Time magazine indicates that moderate drinkers have lower mortality rates than both heavy drinkers as well as people who abstain from alcohol. However, amazingly enough, the abstainers actually have the highest mortality rates of the three groups, even higher than that the heavy drinkers!
From the “Eat this not that” series of books and Today Show segments, the worst offenders are usually salads. They start off with lettuce and tomatoes and add tons of calories, fat, and salt with creamy dressings, cheese, and various other things.
Maybe not outright “unhealthy”, but certainly falling into the “not as good as you might think” department are reduced fat varieties of food. The problem is fat is what gives food it’s flavour and texture, so when manufacturers take it out they often have to add sugars and fillers and stuff to make it taste right. If you compare the labels, the end product often has only marginally fewer calories (it’s not fat grams that make you fat, it’s calories that make you fat) and a lot more chemicals than the standard, full-fat version, and still might not taste as good.
15 Atrocious Salads, for anyone who thinks a salad is always a healthy choice at a restaurant.
Not per 100g in the US, but they do list by serving size in the Nutrition Facts label. I think this is required for any food sold in a package in the US.
AFAIK, manufacturers are free to set their own serving sizes. Sometimes, they will make something sound lower in calories and fat by choosing a serving size that is less than most people would eat. They do have to list the approximate number of servings in the whole package.
Because if there were no cooked spinach, there could be no hot spinach-artichoke dip.
I had noticed in the cereal aisle that the “serving size” for Total is about five times that for Trix, but a tablespoon-sized serving of pasta is just absurd.
The reason the serving sizes seems small is that it is based on food surveys done in the late 70s and 80s. [del]When our nation was not such a bunch of fat-asses[/del] When serving sizes were on average, smaller.
When the NLEA of 1990, which created the current “Nutrition Facts” labeling, went into effect, lots of products suddenly got outed, because they were no longer permitted to choose their serving size. I remember Kellogg’s Low Fat Granola to be a particular offender.