Be wary of anything that sounds too good to be true.

jessieinblue

Thank you for posting this! I knew it had to be terrible for you! My mom is obsessive with this stuff and somehow thinks it tastes good. She also doesn't seem to care about chemicals being in food, so I'm not too sure how to make her listen to reason.

Is your mom a reader?

thebigwindmill

Yes but also older so it'd have to be... simpler? She's really smart but I had her read something before that talked about the nervous system, and she just got lost and discredited it. But I'm open to any suggestions you have (I could certainly use more knowledge myself). Especially anything promoting organic.

halobender

To be 100% honest, at this point in my life, dropping pounds IS all I care about. If I happen to improve my health and longevity as well, so be it. Call me crazy, but I have no problem eating chemicals with no nutritional value whatsoever if it'll keep me from eating a bunch more calories.

(And besides, eating low-cal foods that are full of chemicals and what-have-you is probably still preferable to sticking with the kind of diet I had before beginning my weight loss journey.)

I swear I'm not a nut-job about health foods and stuff, nor do I eat entirely clean, but this kind of made me sad to read. I've always been chubby and yet never wanted to be -thin- over -healthy-.

But as you said, to each their own, and I really won't judge you on it; it really probably is quite a bit better than what you were eating before, and that's more than just "something," it's an improvement.

taletreader

OK. In theory I agree with you all. In reality I eat quite a bit of processed foods. (Way less than I used to but still to much) My goal from the beginning of this journey has been just that...a journey, making changes along the way. I have made quite a few...adding lots of fruits and veggies whereas I used to eat very very few. My next challenge is to get rid of or at least knock way down my use of splenda. Unfortunately I like some things really sweet...like my morning coffee. Any suggestions? What do you use to sweeten?

The good thing is that you're eating less than you used to and are thinking about your choices.

I use sugar to sweeten, and keep a jar of light brown sugar in my kitchen for my sugar needs, but my consumption has gone down a lot. It seems to me that our taste has been swinging towards the sugary, especially for drinks, which I find extraordinarily sweet. I don't use sugar in coffee (haven't even before I started losing weight for some time, and before that I would use 1/2 to 1 of the packaged portions of brown sugar), but I use milk and find that the sweetness is quite enough. I used to drink more high-quality tea in the past and think anything in it destroys the taste. If the tea bag's too mediocre, I add a drop of milk. Now my friend's different -- she likes her tea *sweet* and *strong*, and that means 6-8 tsp of sugar in a mug after steeping for 10 min. But she's also been skinny all her life and only now with middle age and menopause has the put on enough pounds to get to the "normal" BMI range. She *still* may have to watch her intake one day, who knows.

I think that using an artificial sweetener in your situation, out of choice, is a lot more acceptable than building an entire product range of fake foods based on laboratory-made chemicals to snare those who are reducing calories and therefore susceptible to the marketing of 0 calories.

jessieinblue

Yes but also older so it'd have to be... simpler? She's really smart but I had her read something before that talked about the nervous system, and she just got lost and discredited it. But I'm open to any suggestions you have (I could certainly use more knowledge myself). Especially anything promoting organic.

Going to send you a message