How to Be a Conscious Eater

43

HOW TO READ THE FRONT

OF A FOOD PACKAGE

E

very item you pick up in the grocery store faces a critical

juncture, at which you decide its fate: to remain on the

shelf or go home with you. When I enter a grocery store,

I often think of movies like Toy Stor y, 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.

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