Rule 9 - Avoid food products with the woidoid "lite" or the terms "low-fat" or "nonfat" in their names.

Michael Pollan has a point here:

...by demonizing one nutrient - fat - we inevitably give a free pass to another, supposedly "good," nutrient - carbohydrates in this case - and then proceed to eat too much of that instead. Since the low fat campaign began in the late 1970s, Americans actually have been eating more than 500 additional calories per day, most of them in the form of refined carbohydrates like sugar.

How many of you know someone who eats nonfat food items yet consumes an entire bag of jelly beans? Jelly beans have zero fat, but 1 serving size (10 beans) has 8 grams of sugar. 8 grams of sugar converts to 2 teaspoons. Eating 2 teaspoons of straight refined sugar *might actually* be better for you since there would be no artificial coloring and flavoring. And WHO eats just 10 jelly beans in one sitting??

I looked at the Yoplait Light yogurt label. 6 oz of yogurt is 100 calories. Not bad, right? Zero fat, 14 grams of sugar, but this is ingredient list:

Cultured pasteurized grade nonfat milk, high fructose corn syrup, strawberries, modified corn starch, nonfat milk, kosher gelatin, citric acid, tricalcium phosphate, aspartame, potassium sorbate added to maintain freshness, natural flavor, red #40, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D3

WRONG! High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) AND aspartame? How sweet is this stuff??? We know the effects of HFCS, and how it actually paves the path for fatty acid synthesis in the body. Aspartame is the highly controversial artificial sweetener which is "safe" accordingly to the government, but there are claims to cancer, depression, and insulin resistance. Google that, Diet Coke drinkers!

In my house, we are addicted to a sheep's milk yogurt with 7 grams of fat and 12 grams of sugar in the 6 oz. Ingredients are:

pasteurized sheep's milk, crystallized ginger, L. bulgaricus, S.thermophilus, L. acidophilus, Bifidus

Let me remind you that milk sugar is lactose (which breaks down to glucose and galactose), so the sugar source is from the milk, not from HFCS. What about all that fat? In a recent published study, Swedish investigators on coronary heart disease found that "daily intake of fruits and vegetables was associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease when combined with a high dairy fat consumption, but not when combined with a low dairy fat consumption" (Holmberg 2009). That's something to think about...

I admit dairy fat is not the best choice out there, particularly for those who cannot tolerate dairy. But our body needs fat to function (the brain is made of fat, sex hormones are derived from cholesterol, fatty acids act are inflammatory & anti-inflammatory messengers, etc). Some fats are better than others. For instance, omega-3 fatty acid found in wild Alaskan salmon is great!

This rule doesn't mean to choose fat over low-fat though. When we eat, we can choose food that is less fattening, or fats that are better for us. For instance, eat the turkey burger instead of the beef burger, or sautee in olive oil instead of butter. What this rule is meant to do is to inspire you to read the food label and ingredients list, then ask yourself: "Why is this 'lite' and what's been added to it to compensate." It's not always better for you.

Cited:
Holmberg S, Thelin A, Stiernstrom EL. "Food choices and coronary heart disease: a population based cohort study of rural Swedish men with 12 year of follow-up." Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2009 Oct; 6(10):2626-38.