Lying with The Truth

We were talking about causes of obesity when an acquaintance contradicted my assertion that getting and preparing healthy food is more labor-intensive than fixing junk food and how that factor weighs in when people make their dietary choices.  She maintained that I was perpetuating a myth and that it was perfectly simply to manage healthy eating in a household.

I had been working hard outside preparing and planting a new garden all week, to ensure a supply of fresh organic greens and vegetables,  so my view was that although delightful and full of potential rewards, acquiring your own healthy food is hard work indeed.  She bought hers at an expensive market and thought it was easy.   I maintained that even when shopping at the so-called natural stores one has to put forth a fair amount of effort to be sure that the food is what we think it is.  I grow my own to the extent that it is possible, because of my belief that one really has no way of knowing for sure that the food marked “organic” in the markets is really organic just because it costs more.  In theory, my friend was correct.  But in practice I believe that the way language is being used to distort reality these days, we need to expend quite a bit of labor just protecting ourselves from the deception.  That may be even hard than hauling bricks and digging.

It is hard work deciphering the content labels on packaged food.  For example, I have long held the opinion that buckwheat noodles are healthier than the ones made from wheat flour, even whole grain wheat.   It is said to improve cholesterol, regulate blood sugar, and even prevent gall stones.  To me, the name Soba on a package of noodles means they are made from buckwheat and yam flour, but recently I bought a package that said it was “100% Organic Buckwheat SOBA Noodles.”    That is what it said in huge letters on the front of the package I noticed there were 40g of carbohydrates and only 1g of dietary fiber.  How could that be? 

A list in very small print on the back of the package revealed that the first ingredient was white flour.  They did not, however, call it white flour.  They called it “organic wheat flour” which many people might mistake for whole wheat flour.   Further, yam flour and buckwheat flour, if processed honestly, are gluten-free, whereas wheat flour is not, so for some people this would make a very big difference.   But for me the most egregious part of the advertising was that one would have the tendency to believe that if a product is labeled 100% organic buckwheat that it would contain just that and no other ingredients.  The label does not read “wheat flour with buckwheat added.” This is but one example of many, but this kind of deception seems to be increasing day by day.

I maintain that because of the dishonestly in advertising it is harder for people to have healthy lives.  That does not mean in the least that I advocate giving up.  Vibrant health depends on wholesome nutrition.  What I am saying is that we should beware of downplaying the effect that corrupting our language has on health, and be ever vigilant of how others try to manipulate us.  I think we need to stop pretending that easy means good and admit that we have a responsibility to ourselves and to society to work at being healthy.

Darrell Huff told us in 1954 that there is “terror in numbers,” and I maintain now that there is an equal terror in words.