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I recently fell for "healthy" junk food as I went to check out at Target and an end cap display full of fruit and
veggie chips with a flying pig logo caught my eye. An overly friendly Target employee saw me
staring at the display and told me how much she loved the chips. She said I definitely
needed to try these "healthy’" chips. The bag claimed there was half a serving of fruit in a cup of these chips, so I jokingly thought to myself, "Who needs to eat the
real stuff?"
Reflecting on this brings
me to the new Diet Coke Plus , or Diet Coke with vitamins. I’m sorry, but what?
Over the years, I’ve noticed Diet Coke seems
to be an addiction, as its drinkers have no problem popping a can open with
breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since I
don’t drink soft drinks, I have a very hard time understanding this. For me, I would much rather drink a nice big
glass of water and hydrate my body without any added chemicals.
All that said, I love Vitamin
Water, and I guess you could argue that it is a similar concept. But Vitamin Water just seems much more genuine than Diet Coke Plus. Perhaps I’m rationalizing, but Diet Coke Plus
appears to be adding vitamins to chemicals and pretending to be healthy, where Vitamin
Water takes something pure that your body needs (water) and simply adds a boost
to it.
Anyway, back to the fruit
and veggie chips. I bought the apple cinnamon flavor, and yes, I thought they
were quite tasty. And I didn’t feel
like a complete cow face snacking on them.
But while eating these “healthier" chips,” I wasn’t trying to cheat and
skip out on eating my real fruits and
vegetables. I fear that a lot people
will think, “Oh, if I eat chips made from real vegetables and wash them down
with my Diet Coke Plus, who needs the real stuff?”
Everyone has vices, and
if a Diet Coke addiction is one of yours, that is fine. But please don’t
pretend your vice is (or can be) a healthy choice. It is always a vice. I don’t pretend that drinking Vitamin Water
and eating fruit chips makes me healthy.
I’m healthy because I supplement my vices by getting true nutritional
value from real things like apples, oranges, carrots, lettuce, etc. So,
while Diet Coke can “plus” themselves all they want, it still doesn’t replace
a true nutritional diet.
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As for the chips, I think I'd rather just eat the real fruits and veggies and occasionally snack on SunChips or Doritos. :)