Am I Really A Food Nazi?

Marriage involves a daily tango of negotiations, some big and some small. Sensing your partner’s lead and moving together takes skill and patience. As a physician, a wife and a mother, I care about my nutrition, and of course I also take much responsibility for the diet and health of my family. Today our tango imploded into a tangle of awkward missteps when my children reprimanded my husband. The girls explained that he was being unhealthy by eating fruit flavored Greek yogurt for breakfast. Ouch!

Greek yogurt is certainly all the rage, and I’m a fan, but most people aren’t eating the plain yogurt decorated with their own fruit to add sweetness. Instead, many people buy the fruit flavored varieties. Don’t be fooled: organic cane juice is just a fancy way to say sugar. I try to read labels and educate my kids about what I learn. In the medium size tub of Greek blueberry yogurt we have in our fridge, there are two servings. Each serving packs a whopping 27 grams of sugar. Odds are, my husband will eat the full container, giving him a full 54 grams of sugar. For comparison, that is 10 grams MORE than you’ll find in a bag of Skittles.

I talk with my kids about the fact that eating a little bit of unhealthy food is OK every once in awhile, even once a week is fine. However, I would argue that we don’t do ourselves any favors when we let marketers influence what we think is healthy without reading the labels and learning for ourselves. I may be a food nazi, but my kids are going to know how to read a label and make healthy choices as they grow up. I don’t plan to throw away the yogurt, but I will treat it as a Saturday night dessert, because anything that contains 27 grams of sugar per serving is definitely a dessert!

Now back to the business of the tango. I plan to rustle up some healthy and delicious breakfast options this weekend. I need to creatively distract my dance partner from the fact that I’m hiding his yogurt in the back of the fridge behind the berries and pineapple slices.