The other day Sally tuned in to hear a guy on Oprah's show talking about how we should be avoiding processed foods. He is a college professor who wrote "Food Rules" (which Sally immediately bought) and is apparently wildly popular __ I mean, he's on Oprah, right?
Basically his deal is that if you can't pronounce any of the ingredients on the lable, don't buy it. In other words, most stuff is processed and full of nasty things. What you should really do is ignore the floorplan in your local supermarket ___ meats and veggies around the permimeter, processed stuff in the middle ___ and do your shopping around the outside, where the healthy, unprocessed food is.
This doesn't work out as a vegan thing but mac and cheese did not make the cut. Or cookies, either (I [snuck,sneaked?] a box of maple cookies into the basket at Trader Joe's last week and they are the most luscious cream-filled cookies I've EVER had. I'm really going to miss them).
As you might imagine this led to a flurry of label-reading activity and the results were not good. Food we previously thought was healthy did not fare well. Even basics like chicken broth for example hit the wall because not only did the can have 970 mg of sodium (40% of the daily limit) but, hold your breath ___ MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE ! That's right, a tongue-tangler in the flesh.
As it happens though I can pronounce this one because I used to work for the company that made it when I was in high school. so we're going to continue to use chicken broth. I mean, the label also brags that it's 99% fat free so there you go.
There were a couple other words that gave me pause too: does anybody know what "autolyzed yeast extract" is? Or "invert sugar"? Upside down sugar maybe? But at least I can pronounce them so I'll ignore them and sleep soundly after a delicious meal of chicken broth.
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