Blame It On the Labeling...or Low IQ

I'm in kind of a bad mood lately. Just ask DH. ;)

Speculating with him about possible reasons for my crankiness and general ill-will towards everyone, I realized that part of the problem is that I keep accidentally eating things that I shouldn't. I think I've been doing a great job eating what I should and avoiding what I should, when in reality I'm really eating something from the No-No List. I get sick from something and I can't figure out what the heck it is.

Two days ago I had roasted almonds as a snack. Almonds are supposed to be good for us! Heart-healthy! Or whatever the current propogranda is. But I didn't feel well, so I re-read the ingredients. They are roasted in "peanut oil and/or soybean oil."

Let me pause to say that I think the phrase "and/or" on a food label is a load of crap. It means everything and nothing. It gives you no further information about the product you're consuming. And it must be grammatically incorrect because isn't it really saying 'and-or-or'? So should there be a comma in there, like this: "and/,or"? :)

Annnnnyway, the point is that food manufacturers can be intentionally vague. They use phrases like "food starch", "vegetable flavoring", or "natural flavoring". MSG is "natural", but that doesn't mean I want to eat it.

The other problem I have been having is that I forget what I'm not supposed to eat! The list is so long right now that I literally can't keep it all in my head. Remember how I learned the other day that eating strawberries might not be in my best interest? Well, I had a lovely bowl of frozen pineapple and strawberries yesterday and I ATE A STRAWBERRY because it was all mixed in with the pineapples, like a little incognito strawberry. A strawberry in diguise as mixed fruit.

I'm not too quick on the uptake. It took me an hour to realize that I was trying not to eat strawberries too.

Between the shady ingredient lists and my own stupidity, I have been made quite irritable.  

Strawberries and pineapples