Not Fat, Yet…
Well, it’s not been a fun year, but it’s getting better. Having two children who live very far apart meant pappy gets two Thanksgiving feasts each year. I’m not known as a temperate kind of guy. So after having a lousy year healthwise, I ate heartily at both feasts…
But…I’m not fat. Yet. But yes, I agree, I might be a little plump, but I’m certainly not fat. But anyway, health issues and Thanksgiving feasts aside,
Recently, because of a lack of better things to do with my free time, I’ve become concerned and upset about food labeling. Yes, it’s true, I should get a life. I used to have one, but age and health problems intervened. So, I’m going to rant about things that need to be ranted about, and food labeling is one of them. And wondrously, I’m going to try to somehow tie this all in with the Internet and computers.
Because I’m nearly fat and have nothing else to do, I sit here tonight with a box of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran and several cans of Campbell’s Soup (yes, even the one with the printed chicken) neatly arranged in front of me while writing this.
Don’t get jealous; not every night of my life is this exciting :-).
This morning, I was minding my own business, not bothering a soul, when the ghost of Fineas T. Kellogg, or whatever his name was, haunted me. I felt a sudden urge for cereal. I am not a big fan of cereal, but sometimes I just crave it. I waddled to the pantry and found it replete with a variety of Kellogg’s cereals: Raisin Bran, Frosted Flakes, Shredded Wheat, and Rice Chex (apologies to Kellogg’s – I think Rice Chex belongs to the pet food company Ralston-Purina, which probably explains why Rice Chex looks like it does.) Anyway, let me digress.
I selected Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. I poured it into a bowl (I’m sure at least some of you can relate to that) and covered it with milk. And then I did a very politically incorrect thing: I put sugar on it. I admit it. Anyway, while masticating the cereal, I started reading the box (yes, folks, I really did) and my eyes beheld what is known as the “Nutritional Information Panel”.
If you’ve never seen one (really?), It’s on the side of every cereal box (at least it is here in the good ol’ U.S.A.). Imagine my dismay when I saw “Serving Size: 3/4 Cup”. I must have poured AT LEAST 2 cups in this little cereal bowl. And it gets worse. It seems Kellogg’s, in their infinite nutritional wisdom, has determined that 1/2 cup of milk (4 oz.) is enough for 3/4 cup of cereal. I had at least 10 oz. of my cereal. Now, I’m really feeling like a pig. Kellogg’s is showing me what a pig I am, and I’m sitting here wondering if I really am. It says one serving (one of their servings – not one of mine) with 1/2 cup of SKIM milk contains 220 calories. At first glance, you’d be tempted to include Kellogg’s Raisin Bran in your New Year’s Diet.
Who uses SKIM MILK on cereal?? Nobody… you might as well use water!
But I cannot let any sham go unexposed. Kellogg’, how could you? You’re the home of Tony the Tiger, the Corn Flakes’ Rooster, and Snap, Crackle, and Pop! You’re an American icon. Unless I’m the only person who fills a cereal bowl up and pours milk on it until it at least almost covers the cereal, then we have a serious crisis here in America.
If everyone else gets measuring cups out and measures precisely 3/4 cup of Raisin Bran and 1/2 cup of milk, then I have a serious personal crisis. But I’d rather think it’s Kellogg’s fault, not mine. The sugar was my fault, and I readily admit it, but I doubt I’m the only person who puts sugar on his / her cereal, am I? And I didn’t use skim milk on my cereal; that would be like putting white water on it. I did bow to the low-fat advocates and used 1% milk, which is water-like enough for me. I got out a calculator and figured that instead of the waist-slimming breakfast of 220 calories that Kellogg’s promised me, my breakfast of Raisin Bran totaled a whopping 610 blubber-making calories (64 of those calories from 4 teaspoons of sugar were my fault).
My dreams of having a 1200-calorie day were looking glum, and it wasn’t even 7:00 a.m. yet. Hmmmm.
Nutritional labeling takes creative genius and creative writing to a new height. For lunch, I thought I’d have a bowl of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. It’s high in lycopene, and I’m a big fan of lycopene. Plus, it brings back memories of my grade school days and good old tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with two slices of gooey cheese. Plus, it tastes good, which is the main reason I eat. I suppose most people eat things that taste good. Not many go out of their way to eat things that taste terrible, do they?
Let’s look at the nutritional labeling on the tomato soup can. According to Campbell’s, a regular 10.75-ounce can of Campbell’s tomato soup contains “about” 3.5 servings. Oh really? Not in my house! First of all, if you really want good tomato soup out of a can, you never put as much water (or milk) in it as they say. But, even if you mixed one can of water with one can of soup, you’d have 21.5 ounces of soup. But, I put about, let’s say, 3/4 of a can of water (no milk) in the soup. That’s about 8 ounces of water and 10.75 ounces of soup. That makes about 18 ounces of soup. Now, I have normal-sized bowls here. I just filled one about 3/4 of the way to the top with water. I measured the water. A full bowl of soup is about 16 ounces (and “full” means 3/4 of the bowl). Now this means that since I put less water than Campbell’s says, and my bowls need 16 ounces of something to look somewhat full, I basically get one bowl of soup from one can of Campbell’s tomato soup.
A “Campbell’s” size serving in the bowl (about 8.5 ounces) barely filled it halfway; unless you have elf-sized bowls. Now, if you went to a restaurant and they put a bowl of soup in front of you, which was less than half-full, you’d think you were being cheated.
My bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup (extrapolating from their nutritional labeling) has about 220 calories (not bad), no fat (good!), 36 grams of sugar(s), 3 grams of fiber, and 2100 milligrams of sodium (read “salt”). Yikes, I can feel my blood pressure rising! 2100 milligrams of salt is 90% (approx.) of my U.S. Government “daily value”. With that much salt in one can of tomato soup, the Egyptians could have used it to make red mummies. Or I could melt the ice on my driveway.
But, the creative geniuses who devised the “serving size” for the nutritional labeling on Campbell’s soups based the exact serving size not on how much of the soup a normal person would actually eat at one time, but on the amount of sodium (salt) a serving contained. So, a serving according to Campbell’s, contains (conveniently) about 30% of your daily value. Get it? You could have Campbell’s soup three times a day (their serving sizes, not mine) and not have “too much” sodium. Assuming you ate nothing else that day with sodium in it.
The point is this: Not many of us make a habit of reading nutritional labels. If we did, we’d all be eating three tablespoons of cereal for breakfast and half-bowls of soup. I guess Benjamin Franklin had it right when he said, “Everything in moderation”. So, hopefully, we all use common sense when we eat, because it does affect our weight and our health. Food labeling needs to more accurately reflect what most people consider an average serving.
But the Internet is different. Software labeling comes in the form of EULAs (End User License Agreements). And, if you’re a wise surfer, you’ll read the license agreement of any software you intend to install.
The trend seems to be for software companies that have something to hide to write extremely long, meandering EULAs filled with legalese and run-on sentences. These EULAs are written with what seems to be the sole intent of discouraging you from reading the entire thing, and more accurately, from comprehending exactly what it says and how it may affect you.
The spyware/adware/malware companies are in a deep stew of trouble this year. Public awareness of spyware et.al. has reached an all-time high. So, you will see EULAs rewritten frequently as these nefarious companies wiggle around trying to evade the death-knell of being labeled “spyware”. One of the most serious aspects that spyware/adware companies try to gloss over is “personally identifiable information”. And, common sense tells me that anything that can be used to identify you is “personally identifiable information”. These companies try to define personally identifiable information as your name, address, email address, etc.
However, they don’t consider your IP address as personally identifiable. Trust me, it is. Every ISP keeps logs of the IP addresses of all its customers. They are required to. If, for some reason, they need to check who was logged in under an IP address at a certain time, they can, in seconds, put a name, an address, and a telephone number with that IP address. Now, to me, that is certainly personally identifiable information.
So, if you’ve installed any software lately, go back and read the associated EULAs. And while you’re reading those, I am going to go have breakfast (and maybe before you’re done, I’ll squeeze in lunch too!). I think I’ll have Raisin Bran again. I will ponder the nutrition label while I eat 3 full servings (according to Kellogg’s), slathered in WHOLE milk with 4 teaspoons of sugar on top. And today, I’m going to add a banana or two. It’s OK, I’m not fat. Yet. Right?