a peek inside the fishbowl

This is the KMDM activity we did this past week:

Read the nutritional panel and ingredients of every grocery store product for the week. Did you know that the vast majority packaged products contain crap that isn’t very good for you? 

Once again I must re-iterate that this tip was one of my own. The kind folks behind this campaign would never use a word like “crap.” ;)

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Canadian Living (a magazine I really like and respect) has a regular feature called “Off the shelf.” The author of this column is Cara Rosenbloom, R.D. (Which stands for Registered Dietitian.) The July  column is about ranch salad dressing. 

“Our nutrition expert looked for ranch dressings, and here’s what she found. (All comparisons are for one tablespoon of dressing.)”

The article compares four brands: No Name, Renée’s, PC Blue Menu and Kraft Fat-Free. There’s a breakdown of each brand in bullet list format which briefly covers (1) calories/sodium/fats (2) main ingredients (3) points of interest for each brand i.e. one brand might be a source of omega-3, has the lowest amount of sodium per serving etc.

Canadian Living is such a respected publication. It is the final word on so many issues and can bring about huge changes in our society. The “off the shelf” column is a perfect opportunity for Canadian Living to really step up to the plate and inform people about healthy eating – what’s good, what isn’t – and how to read a label. Yet in this column, there is no added editorial information (Cara! You must have an opinion!) to help people understand why one particular ingredient in a bottle of salad dressing is better (or worse) than another.

Is it because they don’t want to alienate potential advertisers?

Renée’s is tied with No Name for the highest number of calories per serving (at 70/tb) BUT Renée’s contains canola oil, buttermilk, sour cream, egg yolk and spices. The Kraft Fat-Free Ranch contains water and corn syrup. It also contains the most sodium … YET many people will buy it because it’s deemed to be “fat-free.” But at what cost?

If you are reaching for the fat-free version of your favourite food it almost always means you are trading fats for highly-refined sugars and/or an extra dollop of sodium. And that, my friends, is what’s making us all so fat, and many of us so ill.

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There was a scene in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in which he confronts the lunch ladies about the pre-packaged chicken they’re serving to the kids at their school. The camera zooms in on the list of ingredients on the side of the box of frozen chicken. The small type basically covers the whole side of the box. Jamie Oliver asks the lunch ladies if they are concerned about any of these totally unidentifiable ingredients.

No, they said, it says CHICKEN.
But what about all these other things, he asks.
Doesn’t matter, they say, it says CHICKEN.

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I consider myself a regular label reader. When I’m looking at a label I look for the following things:

• The ingredients. Does it contain a bunch of ingredients I don’t recognize and can’t pronounce? Does it contain glucose-fructose? Anything that ends with the letters o.s.e.? Does it contain anything hydrogenated? Or made out of palm oil? Anything derived from corn? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, I put it back.
• The nutrition panel. I check for sodium, sugar and fibre. My motto: IF IT’S OUT OF WHACK, PUT IT BACK

I also read the labels on our dog food and dog treats, because I don’t think dogs should be eating corn or flour. We try to keep her diet as unprocessed as we can too.

So yes, I’m a big-time label reader. Yet at the same time, there are a few products – for whatever reason – that I’ve just taken to throwing into my grocery cart without a second thought.

Like margarine, for example. I finally took a close look at the label of Olivina. Ugh. And jam! I was shopping for jam (it’s not something we normally buy, we are lucky beneficiaries of Nana’s homemade jam supply) but holy crap, almost every brand has glucose-fructose in it instead of sugar. (I prefer the sugar!) 

And salad dressing. And Heinz tomato juice (ugh – check that sodium level, it’s terrible). And bread. I am having a bread crisis right now and am having problems finding one I like. We were buying rye for awhile but it’s just as refined as anything else. I’ve been buying “bakery bread” lately (as opposed to big factory loaves) and the seedy whole-grain Euro loaves. It’s too hot to bake my own right now. And I just haven’t had time.

Sarah asked for lemonade when we were at the grocery store, so I picked up one of those containers of frozen stuff and showed her the ingredients. I pointed out all the stuff that didn’t need to be in there, and then reviewed the ingredients of the lemonade I make at home. I think she got the point.

Related: I’ve stopped reading magazine and newspaper articles about so-called “superfoods.” The media has a holiday every time a new study comes out. It’s impossible to keep track. One week it might be walnuts, the other week it’s pomegranate. I think we all know what they are now. MAYBE walnuts are marginally healthier than almonds. Or is it the reverse? Regardless, LET’S JUST EAT MORE NUTS AND VEGETABLES and WHOLE FOODS AND CALL IT A DAY.

I think it’s loony, our obsession with superfoods, yet the entire grocery store is filled to the rafters with processed pretend foods trying to trick us into thinking they are good for us because they are “FAT FREE.”

What do you think?
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This post is part of the Know More Do More initiative spearheaded by the Champlain Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Network. KMDM is about empowering parents and inspiring them to take charge of their children’s health by taking easy steps to increase activity levels and improve eating habits. I’m one of two champion families who has been asked to take this challenge. You can join too. Check out the official website for more information. You can also get healthy tips by following @knowmoredomore on Twitter. If you’re blogging about your participation, please let me know so we can cheer each other on!

My recent post about freeze-tag reminded me of something… when you were a kid and you were playing these kind of tag games, what method did you use to figure out who was going to be “it” ?

In my day someone would quickly call out “KING COUNTER NO HIGHER NO LOWER” and thus nominate themselves as the person who’d perform the counting-off song(s) to determine who is IT for the game we’ve just decided to play.

I thought I’d jot down the ones I remember.

One Potato Two Potato
Each person makes two fists and stands in a circle, holding their “spuds” in front of them. King Counter chants the following rhyme. (At the end to the rhyme, the last “potato” touched is out, and the rhyme starts over again at the next one. The last potato out is it.)

One potato
two potato
three potato
four,
five potato
six potato
seven potato
more.

Mickey

Mickey Mouse built a house,
How many bricks did he use?  [At this point the person picks a number and King Counter continues going around the circle, counting as s/he goes. The last person touched is out.]

Engine Engine
[This is the weirdest one. What’s with all the dirty? And the trash-talking of mothers?]

Engine Engine Number nine, going down Chicago line,
If the train goes of the track,
Do you want your money back? Yes or No?  [The person has to choose – yes or no.]
Y-E-S spells YES  [or N-O spells no]
And out you must go with your mother’s big fat dirty toe.
Not because you’re dirty,
Not because you’re clean,
Just because you kissed a boy behind a magazine.

Here’s another one I remember:

My mother and your mother were hanging the clothes,
My mother punched your mother, right in the nose.
What colour was the blood?  [The person picks a colour and it is spelled.]
B-L-U-E spells blue.

Another way of picking someone to do to something (this one came about in later years) was the nose game. More often than not it was just an excuse to clobber someone. A bunch of us would be standing around when someone would suddenly touch their nose. The last person to touch their nose would get punched. (Ha ha!)

I’ve been teaching the girls the few of the counting-off rhymes I remember. (After all, there’s something to be said for passing our playground culture down to our kids, right?) This is the one we use around here the most often. The lyrics sometimes get changed to suit the situation:

Eeny, meeny, miney, moe,
Catch a tiger by the toe,
If he hollers let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miney moe.

Other versions we’ve used include:

Eeny, meeny, miney, moe,
Catch a girly by the toe,
If she hollers make her pay,
Fifty dollars every day.

And:

Eeny, meeny, miney, moe,
Catch a girly by her toes,
If she hollers make her go,
Brush her teeth and blow her nose.

(That one was last used to decide who is supposed to go brush her teeth and get ready to bed first.)

Eeny, meeny, miney, mable,
Who will help mom set the table,
Daughter one or daughter two?
This little chick will have to do.

You get the idea. :)

Do you have a playground rhyme to share? I’m looking to expand our repertoire!

ETA: I often wonder if these rhymes are regional. If you have a new one to add or a different version of one of the above let me know how yours differs, and mention where you grew up. :)

SO McRRREARY… YA BEEN SHOOTIN’ AT MY RRRRRRRRABBITS?

* caption and photoshoppery brought to you by J.Eustace.