Patina
Sat, Mar-12-11, 09:41
Last week my husband I were grocery shopping and he has chosen to continue eating carbs but he is trying to limit them and make what he calls "healthy" carb choices.
So he decided he needed some hot dog buns to go with some hot links we were buying. I watched him as he scanned all the choices in front of him and he finally picked up a pack of buns called "Fill'ems Sandwich Thins" which says they are "New" and only 100 calories and made with 100% whole wheat. They are long like a hot dog bun only flatter...sort of a skinny bun.
Anyway, my husband looks at me with that look of "are these okay? They look healthy" and all I asked him was "how many carbs are in one of those?". He looked at the label and he says "21 grams of carbs and 5 grams of fiber." I said "Okay so that's a total of 16 net carbs per bun. How many carbs are in one regular hot dog bun?" He grabs a pack of white flour hot dog buns and says "21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber." He thought about it a moment and then he said "You know what? These advertisers are really sneaky! When I look at the skinny buns they have packaging and words I associate with a healthy choice but when you really compare the two, they're pretty much the same!". He genuinely seemed shocked!
He ended up buying the skinny, whole wheat buns because he just felt better about them and he was really drawn to the healthy looking packaging. But a couple times since he bought them he has mentioned how he can't believe that they really weren't much healthier than their white flour counterparts.
I just gently remind him that a carb is a carb no matter if it comes from white flour or whole wheat flour. But it really was interesting to see him actually THINK about what he was seeing on the labels versus what he was reading on the packaging. Really did hit home for me how powerful packaging can be and why companies do spend so much money and research designing their product packaging. Obviously companies love people who don't read labels!
So he decided he needed some hot dog buns to go with some hot links we were buying. I watched him as he scanned all the choices in front of him and he finally picked up a pack of buns called "Fill'ems Sandwich Thins" which says they are "New" and only 100 calories and made with 100% whole wheat. They are long like a hot dog bun only flatter...sort of a skinny bun.
Anyway, my husband looks at me with that look of "are these okay? They look healthy" and all I asked him was "how many carbs are in one of those?". He looked at the label and he says "21 grams of carbs and 5 grams of fiber." I said "Okay so that's a total of 16 net carbs per bun. How many carbs are in one regular hot dog bun?" He grabs a pack of white flour hot dog buns and says "21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber." He thought about it a moment and then he said "You know what? These advertisers are really sneaky! When I look at the skinny buns they have packaging and words I associate with a healthy choice but when you really compare the two, they're pretty much the same!". He genuinely seemed shocked!
He ended up buying the skinny, whole wheat buns because he just felt better about them and he was really drawn to the healthy looking packaging. But a couple times since he bought them he has mentioned how he can't believe that they really weren't much healthier than their white flour counterparts.
I just gently remind him that a carb is a carb no matter if it comes from white flour or whole wheat flour. But it really was interesting to see him actually THINK about what he was seeing on the labels versus what he was reading on the packaging. Really did hit home for me how powerful packaging can be and why companies do spend so much money and research designing their product packaging. Obviously companies love people who don't read labels!