I was picking up some food today at the grocery store. As I said before, I’m on a bit of a health kick and I want to make eating better part of my routine. I went to pick up some tortillas (mmm… I love tortillas) and noticed that they had a whole wheat package available as well. I was excited and depressed at the same time: excited that there was a healthier choice available, but depressed that it probably tastes worse than the stuff I’m used to.
Here they are.
Notice that the whole wheat tortillas, pictured left, bear the Health Check symbol. This means they’re better for you, right? Well, according to dieticians at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, anyway. But I wondered: how much better, exactly, are the whole wheat tortillas than the regular tortillas? So, I flipped the package over and looked at the nutrition information.
As you can see, the whole wheat tortillas contain 2g more fibre and 2g more protein. Score!
But they also contain more:
- Calories (30)
- Fat (1g)
- Saturated fat (0.7g)
- Sodium (80mg)
Now I’m not a nutritionist or a dietician or a doctor or even someone who knows anything about eating right, considering I’ve only been doing it for a week. But I have a question: more calories, fat, saturated fat, and sodium is healthier for you? What kind of crap is this? They actually give a reason on the back of the product: it earned the Health Check symbol because fibre is a part of a healthy diet. No kidding, eh? That’s too bad, because if I was getting all my daily fibre intake from tortillas, I’d be pretty screwed.
In closing, I’d like to thank the good folks at the grocery store for realizing that I need to save my hard earned cash. Thank you so much for giving me the steal of a century:
I love it.