Who do they think they're fooling?
- September 11, 2008 1:40 PM |
- By Kevin Yarr
by Kevin Yarr, CBCNews.ca
I was at the farmer's market the other day and my son asked me for money to buy a smoothie. Sure, I said, handing over a few dollars. He was back a few minutes later.
"What kind did you get?" I asked.
"Chocolate banana."
Chocolate banana. I went to the smoothie booth, and saw one of the attendants making up another batch of this, digging deep into the ice cream bucket. Add some chocolate syrup, some thick slices of banana, throw it into the blender, and voila!
It's not that I have anything against milkshakes. I am, in fact, strongly in favour of milkshakes. But on any given day at 9:30 a.m. if my son comes and asks me for money for a milkshake, I am very likely going to say no.
People want to eat healthy foods (thus the invention of the smoothie to begin with) and food marketers have taken note of this. They have also long been aware that people love sugar, salt and fat. This collision of realizations has brought us a whole new category of products: mock health food — energy bars, vegetable chips (aren't potatoes vegetables?), chocolate chip muffins, organic sugar cereals, protein supplements (like the North American diet is low in protein), in addition to a raft of suspicious smoothie flavours.
Some of these products are pretty good. I'm sure that chocolate banana smoothie was tasty, and I like vegetable chips. I just don't want anyone to think I believe for a moment that I'm doing anything more than indulging my urge to consume something sugary or salty, with some lovely taste-enhancing fat in the mix.
But energy bars? A quick survey shows these vary between 200 and 250 calories, compared to a chocolate bar with, ummm, 200 to 250 calories. Actually, that's not entirely fair. There are a number of chocolate bars that have fewer than 200 calories.
Maybe a chocolate bar to fill that gap right now, and a nice, fresh peach later.
What mock health foods have you encountered?
About the Authors
- Elizabeth Bridge is a producer with CBC's Digital Archives project. She got her start in the kitchen baking brownies and making fudge but is still trying to get pastry right.
- Andrea Chiu
is an associate producer at CBC Radio Digital. Though she loves to eat, cook and discuss food,
don't ask her to bake. It never turns out well. She tweets as @TOfoodie on Twitter and organizes food and wine events in Toronto called FoodieMeet.
- Amber Hildebrandt
works for CBCNews.ca in Toronto. Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, she acquired an insatiable appetite, but it was during a stint in Japan that she developed her discerning tastebuds and foodie ways.
- Tara Kimura
is a multimedia producer for CBCNews.ca.
- Andree Lau
is a CBC web reporter in Calgary. Her journalism career includes seven years as a CBC-TV reporter. Her own blog called "are you gonna eat that?" chronicles her eating adventures (including sampling snake and camel hoof tendon).
- Jessica Wong
is a CBCNews.ca writer who loves to eat and cook, as well as discuss, read and watch programming about food, sometimes all at once.
- Kevin Yarr
, CBCNews.ca's writer in Prince Edward Island, wrote about food and beer for national and regional magazines before joining the CBC. He acquired a desire for new tastes on his first trip to Europe, and an appreciation of eating locally and in season when he finally settled down on P.E.I.
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Comments (3)
"healthy" breakfast sandwiches that have as many calories and sodium as a fast-food meal!
and those "cereal bars" (to save time in the morning) that have some sort of icing on them. i don't usually eat icing with my cereal.
Mock health food is right. A bit of advertising, using words like "pro biotics" and the public literally eats it up.Energy bars all taste like sawdust. Prefer real food like eggs, toast with real butter (not that over priced whipped oil called margerine)Food fads come and go, but eating should be enjoyable and taste good or why bother.
I was amazed at the amount of sugar put in some of the high fibre cereals out there. It seems the ones with the most fibre need to load up on sugar or a sugar substitute to cover up the taste of cardboard. I think I'll stick to making my own oatmeal, and not the instant stuff. I can add as much or as little sugar as I need.