Whole Grain Junk Food - A Cookie by Any Other Name...

There's a huge trend in the food market to jump on the latest nutrition bandwagon. For example, during the low carb craze every food manufacturer introduced low carb versions of their most popular foods in order to keep customers and drive up their profits. Now that people are beginning to realize how important it is to have a balanced diet, complete with complex carbohydrates and fiber, the food companies are creating junk food made with whole grains. They're banking on the ignorance of the public to believe that because a food is whole grain it must be healthy. The truth is that junk food is just that. Even when you add some whole wheat flour to the mix it's still packed with sugar, sodium and fat. In fact the nutritional differences in these foods are virtually indistinguishable.

One of the most heinous examples is the new whole wheat Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. Really, who are they kidding? Compared to the original glazed the whole wheat version only has 20 less calories, 1 gram less of fat, and 3.5 grams trans fat instead of 4. Your gain for choosing the wheat doughnut? One whole extra gram of fiber. Please, if you're going to eat a doughnut just eat the one you really want. Everyone knows they're not health food.

Nabisco is now making whole grain Chips Ahoy and Fig Newtons, among other things. They say that the Newtons provide 9 grams of whole grain per serving, but that's only 2 grams of fiber and they still have 13 grams of sugar. Let's face it; a cookie is still a cookie by any other name.

There's also the two bowls of cereal a day weight loss plan, created by Special K and then plagiarized by other brand names. Most cereals contain at least 12 grams of sugar, so that's not really the recommended way to lead a healthier lifestyle. I also don't know many people who are seriously satisfied with a serving of cereal for breakfast, one for lunch and then nothing until dinner. A serving of cereal is only ½-3/4 cup. Of course you'll lose weight but you'll gain it back as soon as you get back to eating real food again.

The minute a study came out about dark chocolate having health benefits dozens of varieties of dark chocolate candies, bars, cookies and other products hit the stores. People saw it as a red light to market chocolate as a health food, and some consumers believed they eat it every day as part of a healthy diet. The key to those studies though, was that it has health benefits in extreme moderation, and the less sugar in the chocolate the better. Moderation is not exactly the American style.

Food companies always latch onto a trend in order to market to mainstream America. As long as we read food labels and ignore the claims on the TV and boxes we can avoid the pitfalls they constantly through before us. There's a place for cookies and snacks in a healthy lifestyle, in moderation. Before you decide to buy into the latest trend, remember that life's too short to eat fake cookies!