I need to vent some ire for a moment. There seems to be a movement happening these days towards more healthful options available for purchase. And I love this. I think it’s great. I’ve done a lot in the last few years to try to improve my health situation in general, and the more I find out about all the crap that’s out there and how nasty it can be for you, the more I sort of shudder at how long it’s taken us to realize that. I think there’s a kind of complacency in numbers. …We all kind of figure that if everyone is doing it, it really can’t be that bad, right? And surely if it was somebody would have caught on to that and stopped it. Like smoking in the 50’s, I guess.
Anyway, new products good. But I have reached the stage where in addition to reaching for the “healthier option” products, I then turn them over and take a glance at the label. And holy crap do I want to strangle merchandizing executives sometimes. The number of things out there that are clearly designed to appeal to the health conscious but are completely devoid of any redeeming qualities is disgusting. I feel so sad for all of the people who are buying this stuff, clearly because they care about their health, and are getting taken. Bah.
The first thing to really steam me up was lip balm. I am a chapstick addict. I will admit this. I have been through twelve step programs, in which I spend the first six steps breaking free of my dependency, and the following six running right back. I have a tube within reach of pretty much everywhere I figure I will ever be. There is one in the living room, one in the kitchen drawer, one in our entry way, one in the office, one in the bedroom, several in the bathroom, two at work, and at least one tube in every purse or handbag I own. And if I’m leaving the house without a purse, the one thing I check whether my husband has with him is lip balm. I have varied through different brands in my time. Sometimes my lips will start to build up a resistance to my current favourite, and I will have to change in order to get the same effect. You know. Like crack.
Anyway, unfortunately for me, a while back I happened to catch part of a TV show on the negative health consequences of beauty products. And in addition to avoiding face powder like the plague except on special occasions… Well, okay, in addition to now cringing a little on the rare times that I would bother with face powder anyway (the newer minerally ones have got the same tiny particles in there as the stuff miners wear masks to keep out. …Because otherwise they’ll develop severe lung damage. …Like the kind they’re starting to find on women who’ve been using this stuff for a while. Ack!), I had my stomach turned a little at the image of exactly how much petroleum the average lip balm or lip gloss wearer is swallowing every year. Picture a giant tub of petroleum jelly. Like that. Ick. That can’t be good.
So I immediately went to the store to replace my stuff with the natural, non-chemically versions that are supposed to be okay to eat. …If one wanted to do that. And I was totally disgusted. I flipped over package after package that was boldly labeled “NATURAL!” or “ALL ORGANIC!” or “MADE FROM REAL BEESWAX” or had pictures of leaves or hemp or recycled products, or something eco-friendly on the label. And the first or second ingredient in all of them was petroleum. Often the ingredients list looked exactly like the other stuff, except the very last ingredient would be token amounts of beeswax, or rosemary, or some plant oil, or whatever it was they were claiming the product was based around. Even “Bert’s Bees” was actually made of petroleum. WTF?? In the end, I found only two products that seemed to actually be as natural as they appeared to be from the outside, one of which was manufactured by a major company (which surprised me), and the other that was on clearance because it had already been discontinued.
The other thing that really gets me is some of the “vitamin waters” out there. …Which seem like a really good idea until you flip over the label. Some of them seem to be moving towards more transparancy (in information, not colour. …which I don’t have nearly so many strong feelings about), which is great, but others not so much. First off, they apparently don’t actually have to list the calories like every other beverage because they’re calling themselves a “natural supplement.” Which is shifty because they’re super sweet and probably more calories than the cola beside them. What really gets me, though, is that some vitamins just don’t taste good. They don’t. In fact, some of them taste downright nasty. And the manufacturers have discovered this. But rather than leaving those vitamins out, they’re putting in completely negligible amounts of them and brandishing the contents across the label. On the last road trip I took with my husband, we stopped at a gas station to pick up drinks, and I flipped over a bottle designed as a supplement of B6, B12, and potassium. I’m kind of low in both B12 and potassium, so I figured I might as well get a little extra where I can. I take a B12 supplement every day. It has 1000 mcg of B12. This bottle listed something like 20. Alrighty then. The B6 was even more pathetic. Which makes sense, because B6 tastes like shit. But just leave it out then. Don’t put in the tiniest amount possible and then proudly say it’s in there. The only thing it had in it in high quantities was potassium. In fact, it had seven times the maximum amount of potassium that a multivitamin is allowed to contain. Because too much potassium can kill you. But it tastes okay. Great.
Which brings me to this morning, when in a moment of kitchen-related boredom, I flip over the box of green tea bags I bought and read the ingredients. The box is plastered with its flavonoid content and stuff. Clearly they’re trying to appeal to the health-conscious. First ingredient green tea (I hope so). Second ingredient corn maltodextrin (…the fuck??), followed by….sugar… (there is sugar in my teabags??), followed by maltitol (which I have never heard of, but sounded shifty. …A quick Google search tells me both that it’s a sugar substitute, and that there are some issues with it), and then the flavourings and fruit-related stuff. Seriously?!?? In a TEA BAG??? I checked the other flavour I purchased, and it seems just fine. So do my other teas. But seriously, I never would have guessed that I needed to check the label on a teabag. I will apparently be doing this from now on.
In the mean time, at least I know what I’m getting into with this Lipton Superfruit green tea.
Yeah. Malodextrin in my teabag. Super.
