Fake food

Anyone else not a fan of fake food? If I'm going to eat something, it's going to be real food with real ingredients. No Cool Whip for me -- pass me the whipped cream instead, please!

I don't know that it's really fair to label low fat dairy products as fake food.  Unless you want to call Lactaid fake food as well.  Some of us can't eat full fat dairy; it makes us physically ill. 

I'm funny when it comes to "fake food".  Most of it I want no part of - I'd much rather have whipped cream than whipped oil (i.e. Cool Whip).  On the other hand, I have no problem with diet pop or Crystal Light because, without them, I'd be consuming hundreds more calories a day in juice products.  There's only so much water a person can drink!  :-)  I think it's a question of "all things in moderation".  If consuming a small amount of fake food lets you be good the rest of the time, I think that's a good compromise.

I agree about the dairy.  Skimmed milk is just milk with the cream skimmed off - which doesn't really make it 'fake'.  I liked author Michael Pollan's ideas on how to spot a 'food-like substance' ... one being that if something has more than 5 ingredients, it's probably not a food.

That's true, 100 calorie popcorn shouldn't count as fake food.  I thought it probably had some hydrogenated poison in it, but I just looked at the ingredients on  the box I have and it doesn't.  Of course, I can waste less packaging when I get the motivation to use my air popper, but sometimes the ease of the microwave bags are what keep me from eating something more calorie-filled.  Somehow the microwave bags just taste better, too.  

I don't think of skim milk or low fat dairy products as fake usually.  Some low fat or lower calorie ice creams taste as good to me as the higher calorie stuff.  I don't usually like low fat cheese unless it's in a dish with a lot of other ingredients.   

I've found the middle products tend to be good for me. Like the 2% cheese, instead of fat free cheese, or the low fat sour cream dip instead of the fat free sour cream dip. Meijer has a middle syrup choice that's higher calorie than the sugar free kind but less than the regular kind and is tastier than the sugar free kind.

I have no objects to sugar substitutes. Sugar as we know it is a pretty refined product already compared to say evaporated cane juice. An immediate difference between sugar and a sugar substitute is sugar will rot your teeth and most sugar substitutes won't.

Eggs I won't substitute though. Give me a whole egg anyday and keep those egg beaters for yourself. Ick! And the calories in whole eggs aren't even atrocious anyway.