Wait...Does This Count?: Issue #12

This week: processed food labels… what's being measured?
And a couple of naughty canines making questionable decisions in the backyard.

🍽 The Main Course —  What's Packaging Got Do With It?

You’re probably seeing headlines about ultra-processed foods everywhere lately. 

It's confusing, right? Like...the same popcorn ends up in two different categories.

Corn, oil, salt at home? One category.
Corn, oil, salt in a bag? Another.

Same ingredients. Different story. And it gets even better...

A cake you make at home? Fine.
A cake made in a bakery, with essentially the same ingredients, wrapped in plastic and packaged for sale?

Now it’s “ultra-processed.”

What’s driving these labels, then, isn’t the food itself.

It’s everything around it.

Where it was made.
How it was packaged.
Whether it moved through a larger production system.

Not just what’s in it.

Those aren’t the same thing.
But they get treated like they are.

And this is where it all starts to get a bit wobbley: somewhere along the way, those two things got blurred together.

And what you’re left with is a rule people follow pretty confidently:

More processed = bad
Less processed = better

It feels decisive. Responsible. And… it doesn’t hold up for more than about 30 seconds in real life.

The same foods move between “bad” and “good” not because of what they are or what they do in your body. Just… where and how they were made.

Yes. Of course... there have been real shifts in the food environment. Highly engineered, hyper-convenient foods exist.
No question.

But that doesn’t make this a clear “good vs bad” system.

And yet… we’re using it like it does.

We’ve seen this pattern before.
Fat.
Carbs.
Sugar.
Now “processed.”

There’s always a category that promises to simplify things.
And for a minute, it feels like it does.

The second-guessing starts when a rule doesn’t quite make sense…but you try to follow it anyway.

“Is this one okay?”
“Wait, does this count?”
“Did I just choose wrong?”

If the same popcorn changes categories depending on where it’s popped…
If the same cake shifts labels depending on whether it’s wrapped in plastic…

Then the food "rule" isn’t as solid as it sounds.

And yet, it’s still being used to decide what to eat.

No wonder it gets confusing.

🍿 Flavor Boost: Fuzzy Rules

Next time you find yourself in that
“wait… does this count?” moment it might not be a sign you need a better answer.

It might just be what happens when you try to apply a seemingly simple rule to something that isn’t that simple.

Sometimes it helps to just zoom out for a second.

What actually matters here anyway?

Taste.
Satisfaction.
Convenience.
What you have access to today.

Real-life stuff.

🐶 Sweet Moment(s): Meanwhile, Outside....

Sigh. Spring weather means more time outside (yay). And...

Benny and Ramona have picked up where they left off at the end of last summer... eating the irrigation system.

They’re fine. The irrigation system is not. A few plants are… hanging on.

It's maddening. But I can't help but laugh at their guilty faces when they get caught. 🤣

Until next time - more dogs, less dogma. Always.

Carol

P.S. New here? Welcome! Curious about past issues? You can find them, here.