Welcome to my World

Yesterday evening, we went to the Marshfield Fair, which is an annual late summer event here on the South Shore.  It has all your requisite Fair components: daily events like demolition derby and ox pulling (yesterday was motocross competition; the first time I've really ever watched the sport and I fully understood why, when I worked at the local ER, we had half a dozen motocross boys come in, usually via ambulance, without fail every weekend in the summer), agricultural stuff like 4H ribbon winners for vegetables and animals, exhibits of art, quilting, other crafts; people demonstrating bee-keeping, and, of course, a huge midway full of hurl-inducing (more on that later) rides, creepy carnies, the most interesting assortment of the general public you could possibly find in one place, and, of course, at least 70 different food vendors.

To its credit, carnival food doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. It proudly owns its status as TOTAL JUNK CRAP.  It doesn't put itself into boxes with rustic drawings of idyllic farms on it and call itself "Healthy Natural Crunchies," while hiding a chemistry lab list of ingredients in small print on the side.  It doesn't call itself "Lite Fruit Frozen Treat," when it's just a cup of ice (made from questionable water, no doubt) drizzled with an artificially-colored, potentially carcinogenic, artificially-flavored ("tropical" might be a flavor), sugar syrup.  It proudly wears its heart on its sleeve, be it Cotton Candy, Corn Dog, Deep-fried Oreo, Dark Chocolate Fudge, Sno-Cone, Bucket of Fries (they had that).

Now I know a lot of you, regular readers, lurkers and haterz alike, STILL EAT A LOT OF DIET JUNK FOOD even though I and common sense and above-second-grade-reading ability have been telling you for YEARS why you shouldn't.  You "need" your reduced-fat Ritz Crackers with your sugar-free Polaner all-fruit for your 10:30AM "snack" to "keep your energy up!"  You "need" your "fat-free" pretzels (no cholesterol, either, Norma! I'm "being good!") dunked in some Lite Ranch dressing (I made a good choice! The "old me" would have had potato chips and sour cream dip! I'm "saving" 300 calories right here!) so you "fit in" at a party.  And then, of course, there are the sweet "treats," the Fiber One brownie bars, the sugar-free Russell Stover chocolate gift box assortment, the fat-free Cool Whip (it's flammable! So you know it's good!) and the worst offenders and most pointless of all, THE FAKE ICE CREAMS.

Caron wrote about a very interesting discovery she made earlier this week related to just those Frankenfoods, the utterly icky, totally-not-worth-it, laboratory-created, unpronounceable ingredients diet frozen desserts.  As I've mentioned before, nutrition labeling is more about what they can get away with rather than what's actually accurate; the industry is allowed a 20% margin of error when calculating calories (and that's sort-of understandable, I guess...calculating calories even in a lab setting is never going to come out exactly the same way twice, much like calorie burns calculated by body monitors, exercise machines or fitness calculators online...but 20% is a lot).  Caron found out that a certain totally gross-sounding, why-the-fuck-would-you-eat-that frozen "treat" is off by...SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT.  I did a little hunting around myself looking for ingredient lists and nutritional information on the big players in the diet frozen dessert market...lots of hydrogenated things, lots of palm oil, lots of fake colors, fake flavors and so many forms of natural and artificial sweeteners it'll make your head spin.  I wasn't going to take up this flag as a post myself but then I read a post by another blogger this morning that mentioned this "Everyday Indulgence" (that's Skinny Cow's tagline...someone please explain WHY YOU NEED TO "INDULGE" YOURSELF EVERY FUCKING DAY??? The concept of "indulgence" implies OCCASIONAL or RARE...) and was proud that her children/family like this "low calorie, no sugar, that's all we allow!" frozen pile of SHIT.  I know this blogger reads me (or at least used to; I think I'm still on her blogroll) and this blogger is someone who should know better.  I'm honestly a LOT less worried about my kids having a small cup/cone of REAL ice cream (you know, the one made with cream...sugar...chocolate...fruit...vanilla beans...all those weird things that grow from the earth) once a month (because that's what a treat or indulgence is...a RARITY) than I would be about giving them this: