Friday, February 19, 2010

Shame on you Weight Watchers

So yesterday, at my meeting, I took a moment to look at the food they sell. Now, if you've read my post about what I consider the the Not So Good parts of weight watchers, you've seen me touch on this before. The processed food.

Weight watchers is a program that sells itself as a program that works in the real world. A program on which you can still have your favourite foods. This is all fine and good, but does this mean that weight watchers should endorse foods that have nothing healthy in them?

Right now, I'm talking about the bars that weight watchers sells. I took a moment to read the ingredient list on their mini chocolate caramel bars. I jotted down the first 5 ingredients. They are: glucose-fructose, sugar, fructooli-gosaccharides, maltodextrin, modified palm kernel oil. The rest of the list included plenty of words I couldn't pronounce, but those are the first 5, meaning the ingredients of which there are the most of.

So, in other words: sugar (that's what glucose-fructose is), sugar, sugar substitute (thank you google), sugar substitute (thanks again google), and oil (not even one of the oils that weight watchers lists as healthy oils which you should have a bit of every day.)

They also listed the percentage of your daily value of a few vitamins you get from it: Vit A - 0%, Vit C - 0%, calcium - 0%, and iron - 2%.

Seriously? This is the food that weight watchers not only endorses by putting their name on it, but they actually sell at meetings? Okay, I get that you have to live while you "diet". I get that you still have to have treats. But, could weight watchers not endorse treats that have some iota of nutrtional value? Is there any reason they couldn't do that?

Ah yes, the almighty dollar.

Shame on you weight watchers. Shame on you.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, that's a great example of completely empty calories. No redeeming value whatsoever. Might as well eat a spoonful of sugar.
    Janet

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  2. Deb, this is such an awesome blog! I am so proud of you and your journey! HURRAYYYY!!!! xoxo!!

    Ahhh... the sugar & artificial sweeteners, etc... I'm with 'ya! There's something just not right about that.

    My old roommate was on weight watchers and I was stunned to see the ingredients on -- just as one single example -- the Fibre One bars she was so fond of. One of them was something to the effect of "confectioner's shellac"?! Who eats shellac!??!

    Now, I don't know what everyone's belief is here, but I have a small story to share.

    I go to see a guy who does energy work. A lot of his work is with organ systems & helping them to function healthily. The man is incredible and has picked up on things in my body that astound me. Yesterday, he mentioned he was doing a bit of work on my liver and was wondering whether I drink soda or eat anything else that may contain aspartame. Weird... I don't drink any type of pop, let alone diet pop, or any other products with aspartame, with the exception of the one (yes, ONE) piece of Excel gum I had chewed on the way to my appointment. That little hit of aspartame was enough to make him feel a specific type of energy in my liver. He said that the sensation in his hands from that presence of aspartame in my liver equated with the tingling of a mouthful of Pop Rocks. Strangely enough, there had been a similar tingling sensation in my hands as he worked. And when he pinpointed that, he worked on my liver until that energy subsided and my hands felt normal again.

    And how does this pertain to dieting? Well, I have seen friends on diets chug diet pop, eat low fat "sugar free" yogurt, eat sugar free chocolate, eat margarine, eat ANYTHING that a diet program endorses that really has no nutritional value whatsoever, but simply fits the bill as a "low calorie" food item.

    As a very wise man once told me, "Anything that man created, avoid. Anything that God makes, eat." Whether you believe in God or not, it's all about processed vs. unprocessed. Eat butter, not margarine. Eat sugar, not artificial sweeteners. And if it comes to dieting, just moderate. Though the temptation may be to eat those things that claim they will make us look good on the outside, what it is doing on the inside of us is much more destructive.

    And that's all I've gotta say about that. :) ;)

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  3. You are smart to pick up on that. They know how desperate some of their members are to have dessert items and use it to feed their Almighty Profit Margin.

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