When traveling down the isles of of the grocery store it is hard not to notice the huge influx of what should be called "diet junk food." Previously diet food meant bland, or barely edible low calorie food. Diet snacks used to mean something akin to a styro-foam textured rice cakes, or a half the flavor and half the calories baked potato chip. Recently the food marketers have discovered that by simply shaving a few calories off of a cookie, or dropping a gram or two of fat out of a rich ice cream treat,
they can label their food as a "healthy alternative" to regular snacks. Apparently the average consumer, anxious to give the appearance of eating right but not wanting to sacrifice anything in doing so, will snap this cleverly marketed junk food right up.
The diet junk food I observed during my recent trip to the grocery store consisted of three categories. The first was the 100 calorie portion size. The second was the deceptively labeled "lean" or "low fat" product. The final one was the just plain disgusting junk, put under a label like "healthy choice."
The hundred calorie portion bag isn't a bad thing at first glance. But it relies on an asset few obese people have. This asset is called "self discipline." If a person has a great deal of self discipline, a "100 calorie" bag of chips is a nice treat during the day. Unfortunately an obese spouse will consume several 100 calorie bags all day long. When someone asks about their consumption of Doritos while on their "diet", they will pipe up, "These are only 100 calorie bags." What these fat people fail to understand is that three one hundred calorie bags of Doritos requires a half hour of intense exercise on an elliptical to work off! Not to mention that a hundred calorie bag of Cheetos is still a 100 empty calories. Oreos are crap whether they come out of a 100 calorie bag or not!
