I realize that every profession thinks its practitioners are uniquely qualified and us "plain folks" can't hope to plumb the depths of their knowledge, but sometimes the attitude drives me crazy.

Today, I was reading an article about labeling foods with trans-fat content. The gist of it was that products may be advertised as trans-fat free if they have less than a half gram per serving. Fine. I think most people have come to realize this, but maybe not, and it doesn't hurt to be reminded.

Then, they had the obligatory comment from a nutritionist, who said the reason she didn't like products to be allowed to call themselves trans-fat free because "the average consumer thinks that means the product has no calories."

Now seriously, do you know ANYONE who thinks that? I know some people still think "fat free" means "low calorie," but is there actually anyone with enough intelligence to be in the supermarket unsupervised who thinks trans-fat free means "contains no calories"?

I dunno...it just made me feel talked down to

Aderyn (feeling curmudgeonly)

I'm not stupid enough to think that transfat free is calorie free. I don't think a 12 year old would think that. I think that nutritionist thinks she's an expert because she's "studied" nutrition; however, most nutritionists have no real clue about nutrition. Otherwise, when you are in the hospital, you wouldn't be served such awful meals put together by a nutritionist. My mother-in-law, in hospital for complications of diabetes, was routinely given high starch meals, potatoes, peas, white bread, etc. This was in 1969-72. Even then, I knew those weren't good foods for a diabetic. But, hey, I wasn't a nutritionist, what did I know?

According to Carbwire, now nutritionists are blaming low carb diets for low folate in young women because they don't eat enough bread, even though bread isn't a great source of folates, you get lots from the vegetables you eat on low carb, your best source of folates is supplements, and besides, not a lot of young women are on low carb diets, anyway. Just a way to bash low carb diets.

Nita (feeling too stupid to understand those highly educated nutritionistas!)

As far as allowing a minute amount of transfat and still be transfat free, it's the same for sugar free products. Sugar free Coffeemate has corn syrup in it. But they claim it's such a small amount that it can be considered sugar free. But if you are allergic to corn syrup (I am), then even a small amount can be hazardous. They can't call a candy bar peanut free if it's processed on machinery that might have processed peanuts, even if it was cleaned, so why can products be called transfat free or sugar free if they truly are not? Makes no sense to me!

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Nita

The only way you can make sense of it is to think "powerful food lobbies."

Aderyn

yup.

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Shelley
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