Does Crayola Make A Crayon In The Color “Blah?”
So, over the years, my “Food” journey has taken me many places…
Taught me many lessons…
But I think tonight I got one of the biggest “Food” revelations of my little life.
Indulge me here for a minute as I travel back in time…
I have actually been reading food labels and educating myself on food for a long long time…Far longer than my weight loss journey actually…
Way back in 96, while working in food service, I started looking at labels…Learning about Fat grams…Calories…Etc…
I worked a variety of jobs in food service…Waitressing…Cook…Catering…I LOVED the catering business…And it was around that time that I learned about fat grams…Now, mind you, not enough to actually do anything yet about my own weight, but it was enough to turn my stomach…
Its been over ten years since I have had carrot cake…Or Alfredo sauce…Based soley on the fact that one afternoon I read a label on what these items contain…
Ceasar dressing is also a thing of my past…Havent had that in over five years…
You see, theres some things that I just KNOW are bad for me…REALLY bad for me…And, well, I just dont want them in my system…(There really is a thing called knowing TOO much! LOL)
So flash forward to 2004…Thats when my journey to actually loose weight and get HEALTHY started…The healthy part is the key…I wanted to lose weight, but being alive and healthy was my ultimate goal…
So then I started learning more…Sodium…Fiber…Good fat vs. bad fat…
Reading labels and educating myself is kind of what I do…
Sometimes it takes a while to read all the info…Discuss it…Process it…And put it in to action…
So most recently I have felt driven to go another step further in my food journey…
For me, this is being fully aware of what I am putting in my body, and knowing exactly what I am eating, what it contains, and where it came from…
It’s not going to happen over night, and I am aware of that…
But I have already started…Baby steps if you will…Introducing more raw foods into my life…TONS of fruits and veggies…Weaning myself off of over processed food…I have been doing that for several months…And now in the last few weeks I have begun to shop locally and organically.
The price, I have found, is really not quite as outrageous as we are sometimes lead to believe…
So that brings us to tonight and the title of this blog…
Tonight, we decided on a dinner of hamburgers…
I was going to have a “Laura’s Lean Ground Beef” burger, that came in at only 160 calories! Is all natural, no antibiotics or steroids, and is humanely treated…(I LOVE HER PRODUCTS)
Brian was going to have a Blue Cheese Burger that was bought on a previous trip in an effor to use them up so we could bring in more healthy stuff…(Hey, I want to eat healthy but I am NOT gonna throw out food…) His packs a hefty 410 calories!!! (JUST for the burger…)
Both burgers were frozen, and pre packaged in boxes…
I open his box and mine…And open the burgers…And IMMEDIATELY notice something…I would have NEVER had noticed if not for the fact that the burgers were laying side by side…
My burger was, even frozen, a bright, deep pink color…His burgers??? Well, they were the color of BLAH…Tan? Gray? I really cant say to be honest…They kind of looked like the color of slightly drying concrete…It was fascinating…
So fascinating that we took both boxes back out and read the ingredients…His started off well…Beef…That was the first ingredient…Blue Cheese came next…Good…Good…Then comes 18 other ingredients…EIGHTEEN!!! Enzymes…Cellulose Powder…Potassium sorbate…
This one cracked me up…”Natural Flavor”…Sadly, this ingredient was listed last…
Then I read my box…
Ingredients: 100% pure beef…Thats what the box said…
And the difference in the color suddenly became clear…
We paid 4.99 for the box of blue cheese burgers…6 1/3 pound patties…I paid 8.99 for my box of 6, 4oz, burgers…
You can certainly see how people would gravitate towards the first deal. We sure did!
But man…
Seeing his burgers next to mine…It was sooooooo shocking…Burgers the color of nothing…
I think I now have all the motivation I need to continue on my healthy path…
The money I pay now will save me a life time of heartache and health issues down the line…And that is a price I dont really mind paying…
I think I am going to participate in the next Crayola “Name that crayon” contest and suggest the add the color BLAH to the box…For when the kids want to color a hamburger…
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