Page 193 - How to Be a Conscious Eater - Making Food Choices That Are Good for You

43

HOW TO READ THE FRONT

OF A FOOD PACKAGE

very item you pick up in the grocery store faces a critical
juncture, at which you decide its fate: to remain on the
Eshelf or go home with you. When I enter a grocery store,
I often think of movies like Toy Story, where the toys are fro-
zen, inanimate objects until the humans leave the room. In
the produce section, each item is alive, slowly decaying from
the moment it’s picked. Its color, texture, size, maybe its smell,
speak to us, but ever so quietly. Each one eagerly pines to be
selected, to resist the fate of being wasted at store closing.
The same goes for fresh baked goods in the bakery, and fish
and meat behind the deli counters. Well, minus the part about
being alive.
But pretty much all the other products in the supermarket
don’t merely beckon coyly—they shout at the top of their lungs.
Between the rainbow fonts and the perky cartoon charac-
ters, most food packages present a hypnotizing lack of white
space only an ink-happy tattoo artist could appreciate. It’s
no easy task, but by the end of this section, you should know
what to make of the puzzle of words and numbers that stands
between you and sturdy, self-assured decisions about what
to eat.

WHAT ’ S ON THE FRONT
Labels on the front of a product have one job: persuading you
to buy it.

182 how to be a Conscious Eater

Conscious Eater_03 PT_4th patches.indd 182 10/23/19 1:35 PM