My husband is super smart. Sometimes I call him Einstein, which actually works out, since our kid is Einstein Junior here in blog-land. Anyway, my husband has these opinions, and most of his opinions are founded pretty firmly in common sense. Once in a while, though, he gets carried away and I'm reminded of a fellow high school student who would make up important-sounding information, just to see if anyone would believe him (and since it had a lot of big words and he delivered his speech with nary a smile, people believed him a lot, which only encouraged him to dupe people more often, like a never-ending cycle that only slightly resembles the length of this sentence).
So I did a little research. And when I say research, I mean, I started reading the labels on stuff. Before, I had never read a label. I thought label-reading people were psychos. I was sure they had a hoarded stash of those military rations that taste disgusting in their spare bedroom. They all looked at us ignorant people and would pity us if they didn't think we were all conspiring against them. No way was I going to turn into that!
But then people started talking about all the bad effects of aspartame, and I did really think high fructose corn syrup was a little unnecessary. So very discreetly I started reading labels. I was floored at what I found.
I started reading labels last year. I honestly can't say that I've noticed any difference whatsoever in my health or those living in my household. In addition to cutting out aspartame and limiting HFCS (I can't cut it out entirely, because it's in some things that I'm just not willing to let go--vanilla wafers.), I also try to limit artificial food dyes like red 40 (again, can't cut it all out--strawberry milk flavor--and I even did an experiment with EJ: we got a box of red 40 fruit snacks and a box of all natural fruit snacks, and I observed his mood and behavior after each type [making sure the fruit snacks were the only thing he ate in a 6 hour block of time so nothing else would skew the results]. Honestly? No difference.). I draw the line, however, at food with ingredients like silicon. {NOTE: After I took pictures and put them up, I noticed that the muffin mix has silicon dioxide.) I am totally not joking. I was buying mac and cheese the other day, and some off-brand had silicon as a last ingredient, with "anti-caking agent" in ( ) to, I don't know, validate?! the presence of sand in food. (According to the internet, a lot of salts, soups, and coffee creamers also have this ingredient, and to hear them say it, a little sand never hurt anyone at the beach, so it's probably fine at the dinner table also.)
So, my conclusion to all of this: I know there is stuff out there that is super-bad for your health, and I'm definitely not going to put it in my body at every meal. However, I'm not going to stress myself and my budget out by eating completely off the grid. I've heard stories of how children's moods do a 180 when certain things are cut from their diet, but I don't think that's my kid. I do check the label of 90% of what goes in my grocery cart, and if I think I can do healthier, I certainly will. Sometimes, though, I sigh, cringe, and throw it in anyway. I'm not going to let a little hyped-up sugar and man-made colors run my life. I have more important things to do, things like spend three hours writing about them, instead!