LEAVE MY BUTTER ALONE!!!!!!!

Ok, so I'm shopping for eggs and stuff to eat for today and when I'm grabbing my regular butter my eyes wandered and I caught a glance of Land O Lakes 'LIGHT' Butter. My first thought was, "It feels like it weighs the same to me" but then I went into low carb mode (like when am I not in low carb mode?).

All of us low-carbers already have figured out what 'Light' butter is all about; that's right, just another way to ruin the food by taking the fat out of it. So I'm standing there reading all the information on this psuedo food product and it occurred to me that the continued dietary ignorance just wont stop.

One statement on the packaging was"50% less fat and 47% fewer calories than regular butter." I'm thinking, "Uh huh, good job you morons. First off we need the fat, and second off CALORIES DONT MEAN ANYTHING!!!!." Of course I'm muttering under my breath and the people around me gave me glances like "I think this guy just escaped from some insane asylum" and they quickly scurried away. Scary thing was that most people grabbed the "Light' version of the butter and I just shuddered (yes, scaring even more people away).

So there I am all pissed off in the dairy aisle and what do I do, knowing full well it will send me into a low carb vitriolic tirade; drooling at the mouth, temporal artery visibly pulsating; I go and read the ingredient list....

Ok, so regular butter's ingredients are cream and salt. The ingredients for the 'light' version were as follows, you ready?

Butter, water, food starch-modified, and less than 2% of the following; tapioca, maltodextrin,salt, vegetable mono and diglycerides, lactic acid, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, PGPR (emulsifier), xanthan gum, natural flavor, Vitamin A palmitate, and lastly beta-carotene.

Like WTF bigtime, and most people were buying this and would soon be putting this crap in their mouth and eating it. I don't even know what PGPR is (I'll look it up for you), and as far as the rest of the ingredients, I mean come on...obviously another example of profound dietary ignorance.

Do I really blame Land O Lakes? Not really. All they're doing is trying to sell a product and are providing what they think is the, and I use this term loosely, healthier alternative. But this low fat or no fat pseudo food is everywhere; most people think it's the safer way to go and do consume these dangerous foods being masqueraded as healthy on a daily basis.

This is a major problem and is not going away any time soon. Dr. Oz continues with his low carb mantra; the Today show is in love with the writer/editor of the "Eat This, Not That' book and have had this person on their show promoting and perpetuating the "Saturated fat and cholesterol is bad myth' and continue to think that the calorie actually means something in human nutrition.

The last Today Show I saw they were comparing foods and stating which had more saturated fat and more calories and I'm there yelling at the TV, and of course Matt Lauer (spelling?), screaming "Saturated fat is good for us and calories dont mean anything, nothing, zilch, niente', neechavo" wondering if my neighbors could hear me and scaring my poor yellow lab to death. As a side note, there was a show on CNN or some channel like that that was discussing how other cultures eat dog and it is considered a delicacy, and I wondered aloud "I wonder what dog tastes like?"

She doesn't really get too close to me anymore...hmmmm....

Oh yeah, while I'm mentioning CNN they had this Fit Nation segment, of course, espousing all the wrong dietary info. and get this, it was sponsored by Whole Wheat Cheerios; woo hoo, way to go CNN, you should rename your show 'Unfit and Obese Nation.'

Ok, I guess I'll stop this non-sequitor post and leave you with one last question;

So I'm picking up my Mich-Ultra at the distributor and decide to read most of the side labels to compare the calorie, fat, protein and carb amounts of the lite beers. Turns out beer has no fat in it, that is, it contains zero grams of fat. Even regular beer has zero grams of fat in a 12 ounce serving. Most beer had anywhere from 0.5 to 0.7 grams of protein (with Michelob Light the highest at 1.4 grams of protein per 12 ounces, but unfortunately it had around 8 grams of carbs; BTW, dont confuse Mich-Ultra with Michelob Light, the latter has a higher amount of carbs).

OK, so my question is this; If eating, or in this case drinking fat is supposed to make us fat, and there is no fat in beer, then how does one get a beer belly?

I know, I know kinda silly, but it is low-carb food for thought :-)

OK, gotta go. I'm preparing rabbit for tomorrow's Easter Dinner. Yummy...

dr jim 'the shock doc'