Fat, Fat, Fat, Fat, Fat

I am not talking about a person, just the nasty substance which courses through our blood vessels, looking for any open opportunities to build up and kill you over time. (Just say the title of this post to yourself as you hum or sing George Michael's "Faith". I guess that idea is due to karaoke. The microphone we bought features the song and I think I do a decent rendition.)
I am a label freak. If some food item, canned or bagged, has a nutrition label on the package chances are I have read it and know what's in it. My wife hates it, but she and the media have created a monster. I am more like Jekyll and Hyde. Some things are easily avoidable, but others call out to me like the Sirens..."Eat me, eat me!" I avoid fast food at just about all costs, but going out for dinner at an actual sit down restaurant usually turns into an unhealthy adventure. My snacks around the house have gotten healthier and I have stopped buying things that I should not eat and at school most of what I have to eat is free of the worst things. It's amazing how many of our foods have either added sugar, salt, or fat throw into them to help make us crave them more. Some claim that it almost makes the food addictive to some. If you want more information on that, read the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and check out the documentary Super Size Me. It's not too difficult to avoid fast food restaurants. You have to actually drive there to get the food, so if you don't go out, you won't get the stuff. When you go to the store it gets more complex. There are so many different terms for ingredients that you could be reading it and need an interpreter to figure out what's actually on the label. The most confusing one is trans fat, probably the worst thing you can actually put in your body. It's so bad for you that the government has mandated that manufacturers list how much of it is in any food product. The trickiest part of the label issue is that a product can have under 0.5 grams trans fat in it and still be listed as zero. It's only listed if the product is higher than 0.5 grams trans fat or higher. So in theory, you could eat 5 bowls of Bluebell Ice Cream, each bowl listed at 0 grams trans fat, that should be 0 grams of trans fat. But, pretend that each bowl of Bluebell has nearly 0.5 grams of trans fat in it, you could actually be eating 2.5 grams of trans fat and not even know it. Kind of scary isn't it? That was how the law was passed. I have been eating a ton of Bluebell, my favorite ice cream, because I am eating through all junk food which doesn't have a ton of trans fat in it. Once it's gone, I don't plan to buy anymore. Bluebell has partially hydrogenated fats and/or oils in it, which is another name for trans fat. The instant hot chocolate, my wife's coffee, baked Cheetos, Doritos, most candies with chocolate in them, and anything listing shortening as an ingredient. I didn't realize it until I started hunting through the info on the labels. Fully hydrogenated oils/fat are supposed to be safe, although they contain some saturated fat and my peanut butter had plenty of it in it. I started researching to see if my peanut butter was safe and that's how I ended up typing all of this off the cuff. Amazing how a taste of peanut butter brought upon all of this thinking.