Last week when I was visiting my folks in California, I went grocery shopping with my mom. I stepped dead in my tracks when I saw an end cap filled with Nilla Wafers and cans of Easy Cheese. That wafer and cheese combo reminded me of my college days when I would eat almost half a box a day of those Nilla Wafers with the spray on cheese.Those were also the days when I weighed my heaviest, when I was a good 50lbs overweight.
And yes, I'll admit it out loud, sometimes, I did squirt the cheese-in-a-can straight into my mouth. I mean really, how could you not? Squirting cheese is a total novelty. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying, how can you not help yourself? Well, some of you could but not me!
Back then, I didn't care whether the cheese was real or not, I just enjoyed the salty, fatty goodness. Today, I don't want to can't imagine what the ingredients are of that spray-on-cheese. On the Nabisco website, it says that Easy Cheese is made from real cheese, but I'm wondering if that's like how high fructose corn syrup is made from real corn. Ok yeah, I'm cynical. One of the Easy Cheese ingredients is APOCAROTENAL which is a coloring. Sounds like a disease symptom actually.
Today, I still eat junk foods because why not? I'm no food purist. We follow the 80/20 guideline, and so on my 20 days when I eat whatever, my junk foods at least contain better quality ingredients...or I should say, every ingredient is something made by Mother Nature versus a lab coat. And I must add, I am much better at portion management. There are no more eat half a bag moments for me any more.
In fact, one of my favorite junk foods is Dr. Lucy’s gluten-free cookies made without milk, eggs, peanuts or tree nuts. I was really excited to see snack bag sizes of Lucy's cookies at Starbucks recently - smart move coffee people!
So, what is one pair of your before & after junk foods?
