Healthy Cookies

Ooh! There's a fruit and nut instant oatmeal! Acai infused juice drink! Cranberry oat cookie!

I recently saw an article which highlighted a recipe for a "healthy chocolate-covered marshmallow." Folks, I hate to burst your sweet, sweet bubblicious bubble, but that "healthy" marshmallow is still a sugar-filled marshmallow. It's not healthy, no matter how you spin it.

These are examples of people getting duped by marketing. Or just food manufacturers. Either way, they're getting one pulled over their heads. I don't blame them, though. I used to do the same thing: drinking chemical-laden protein shakes, eating sugar-filled low fat foods, consuming massive amounts of oatmeal or protein bars, primal-style desserts. These were all supposed to be things that were "healthy" and "good for you." They had ingredients like "whole grains," "real fruit" and "24 grams of whey protein." 

I forgot the most important element of food: whole food. And I don't mean grinding your own almond flour to make your low carb cookies, I mean eating food that is actually completely unprocessed, aside from perhaps a little heat. When was the last time you could actually see every single ingredient in your food? Or a big hunk of real meat that came from an animal that lived a happy life? Or even just ate an entire carrot? These are real foods. They are readily available everywhere, but might seem less enticing than that diet cookie down the aisle. Do yourself a favor and skip those aisles in the grocery store. They don't have anything good there. Stick to the produce, meat, and seafood section, and make sure those haven't been altered, either (good quality, fresh, unadulterated things that used to live as an independent being). Cook with fat that came from a healthy, happy animal (like lard or ghee, or even good quality butter). Plants are really bad at making fats, by the way. Do you know how many canolas it takes to make a tablespoon of canola oil? I don't either. I don't even know what a canola is, but I know that it sucks at making fat. Pigs and cows make fat pretty well. Stick to those. 

When things need a label to convince you to buy them, there's a reason why they need that sales pitch. "Why buy this cookie? Because it has apple bits in it!" Well, guess what! An apple has apple bits in it, too! And nothing else! With an actual apple, you won't get all the other 23 bits that the label fails to mention, like sugars, chemicals, and weird things derived from parts of insects. You just get an apple. And that's really what your body needs. 

Be able to see what things really are, rather than how you want them to be. Just because a cookie has fruit in it, doesn't make it healthy. It's still a fucking cookie.