Cereal Offender
I’ve commented before on the need to look at the “fine print” on food packages – that is, the list of ingredients and nutrition information. A product isn’t necessarily a good buy just because it says “healthy” or “low fat” on the front… the devil is always in the details. You just can’t make assumptions.
As it turns out, this is a point I need to stress more strongly… not just here on the blog, but in my own home!
John and I were traveling last week – his mother, Freda, died, and we had to go to Salinas, CA for her funeral. We left the kids behind, however… they barely knew Freda; and Nick had to go to school, anyway. Ryan was pretty much in charge while we were gone, since he’s well-trained in the arts of cooking and grocery shopping.
Or so I thought…
When we got home, I noticed a couple of unfamilar cereal boxes on the counter: “Healthy Valley Corn Crunch ‘Ems.” Naturally, I took a quick look at the ingredients… and discovered that the first one was “milled corn” – that is, the corn equivalent of white flour. It also contained a small amount of corn bran and “evaporated cane juice” (aka “sugar”). It was low in sugar and fat, but that’s about it.
At first, it made me laugh: basically, the stuff was Corn Chex, except it wasn’t quite as good. Seriously: at least the first ingredient in Corn Chex is “whole grain corn;” and it’s fortified with additional vitamins and minerals.
You’d think that a self-proclaimed “healthy” alternative would be better… not worse than conventional alternatives! It wasn’t even organic, for crying out loud.
And then I got mildly annoyed, since he obviously bought it in the health food section of the store, so it probably cost more than your typical box of Corn Chex (the cereals in the health food section average $1.00 – $2.00 more than their conventional counterparts). I don’t mind paying more for a quality product, but “Corn Crunch ‘Ems” ain’t it.
Just goes to show you how easy it is to get fooled by packaging and product placement. At any rate, it looks like we need to do a refresher course on label reading before I cut the kid loose again, lol. If he’s gonna buy junky cereal, at least it should be a deliberate act, and not because he got snookered by a pretty box.
