Jezebel

That turkey wrap contains diet strawberry jello!

This reminds me of those amazing, wall-sized Italian vending machines which you can buy your entire weeks groceries from, including toilet paper and dog treats. Except that those are great and this is, um, not.

ehhh

I'd take sodium over carbs. Chips are like the worst thing in the world. Ditto for Hostess anything. I'm a huge fan of atkins/south beach. I eat a snack pack of peanuts every day. Yummers, satisfying and not entirely without redeeming nutritional value.

If my office even had a vending machine, one with cottage cheese as an option would be awesome!

@GinaRomantica: Oh my god I thought you were kidding! Ew!

Why haven't people figured out that if you eat , you will be healthy? I battled my weight my entire life - I was always a good 20-40 lbs overweight. I ate every kind of diet, lite, reduced fat, no fat, zero carb food there is. NOTHING WORKED. Then I stopped eating anything with ingredients that I couldn't pronounce. I cut out food with high fructose corn syrup. I swapped margarine for butter (and believe me, I eat the butter. Lots of it...) and I dropped the weight immediately. I'm thinner than I have ever been. Do like the French, people...it works.

I went to a performing arts high school (go ahead and poke the fun) and we had a vending machine full of nothing but NSA juice, apples and NSA hot chocolate b/c the girls in the dance program got graded on their weight.

@misscrotchety:

"Why haven't people figured out that if you eat NATURAL FOODS..." Left that very important part out. Duh.

I thought you weren't supposed to eat sugar on the South Beach diet. So why is there sugar in the turkey wrap?

@misscrotchety: We really have no idea what all the chemicals in "diet foods" do to our metabolism. I've heard before that aspartame actually helps the body maintain fat.

@misscrotchety: Thoughts on Splenda?

That list of ingredients is totally disgusting. It makes me want to become a raw foodie. And I totally thought Ginaromantica was kidding about the strawberry jello, too!

@misscrotchety: I disagree. Atkins really works for me. Hard to stick to, but it works. Although atkins does prohibit processed carbs, so maybe what I eat and what you eat aren't really that diff.

@ForeverBlueGirl: My "all natural" mom who is a nurse practitioner loves Splenda. She says it's ok because it's so close to actual sugar chemically.

Lol peoples, the lunch wraps have a side container of sugar-free jello...jello isn't an ingredient in the wraps!

I would love to have that vending machine at my work....simply b/c there are no vending machines in this stupid high rise. But I also like South Beach shit a lot....I eat their protein snack bars and frozen entrees all the time. And I'm pretty sure if you looked at the ingredients of just about everything you eat you'd be shocked....this isn't any different.

My office diet: tub o' nuts in the desk drawer, french pressed coffee, lots of Splenda, and cheese (mmmmmmm, cheese) and half and half in the fridge.

It keeps the 4 p.m. crash at bay and my ass marginally small.

@BreeKilledGeorge: Exactly. Carbs aren't bad - we all need them and we especially need fiber. PROCESSED carbs are the worst.

@ForeverBlueGirl: Please, please, please - if you are using Splenda, stop! We want you around these parts, "Forever". Hee.

@funnyface: This makes me nervous. Splenda comes from sucralose, which contains arsenic. I used to use it happily and religiously. Then my boyfriend begged me to stop for the sake of our future children. I did the research, and...it's not pretty.

That said, different things work for different people. I take half/half and a sugar in my coffee every morning. This is working for me, but that doesn't mean it will work for everyone. However, science and common sense tell us that processed and artificial foods are the devil.

Isn't Jello processed animal fat.

@scorpiojamie11: Nope. It's processed animal bones.

@misscrotchety: Yeah, I am not so sure about the Splenda thing. Because my husband, a doctor, did a lot of research about artificial sweeteners and found no medical journal articles that substantiated the claims of danger. You'd have to be consuming megadoses to get any effects. The only reason he switched back to regular sugar sodas is that people who drink diet tend to crave sweet things that negates the whole point of diet.

I'm with you for the most part, that natural, unprocessed foods are BEST, but the scare tactics about things like Splenda just baffle me.

And yeah, I put real half and half in my coffee, because real dairy helps counteract the calcium loss caused by the caffeine.

thanks knew it was processed something

While I agree that processed foods are bad, this vending machine isn't all that bad. I wish it were the vending machine in my office. I keep healthy snacks in my desk but I literally sit right next to the vending machine and sometimes the cravings are bad. Cottage cheese and wheat thins are better choices than cheetos any day.

@funnyface: Calcium also helps fat works its way out of your body without being absorbed. (Thanks, Dr. Oz!)

I guess it's a sign that I'm really hungry that I thought all the stuff in this vending machine sounds delish.

Don't know about the wraps, but South Beach "granola" bars are tasty. Especially the peanut butter ones. Yum.

@BiscuitDoughJones: @scorpiojamie11: Actually, Jello brand gelatin no longers contains any animal products, FYI. But traditionally, gelatin is made from ground up animal bones, specifically cow bones.

Pah! This ingredients list sounds just like my scrappy kid cousins-
"ADIPIC ACID (FOR TARTNESS), SODIUM CITRATE (CONTROLS ACIDITY), CITRIC ACID (FOR TARTNESS)"
Appropriate that the food inside the vending machine can't even decide what it wants. Sweet? Salty? Both.

Splenda gives me lower back pain so severe I tear up. Which I would be doing anyway because it also gives me a pounding headache and murderous mood swings.

Hand over the aspartame, pls.

@frecklefacefreak: Haha! Thanks for clearing up the side-o-Jello issue for us.
@misscrotchety: Thanks for the sentiment!

To be fair, those Breakstones cottage cheeses are the best. I have like, 15 of them in my fridge right now.

@Rachelattack: I'll just take my chocolate cover peanuts and call it a day.

@misscrotchety: I completely agree but unfortunately can't quite let go of the diet coke. I try not to read the label though.

I think all those fake sweetners are gross. Splenda is the worst. It makes me feel horribly nauseous. Butter and sugar, y'all!

Gross. I thought people learned that processed, artificially "enhanced", nutrition-free food was "bad" after realizing that eating boxes of Snackwell's did nothing for their health or waistline. Why are people still going for this crap? If you want a healthy, quick snack, eat a Kashi bar [www.drugstore.com], an apple, or cottage cheese (I buy the calcium-enriched version, since regular cottage cheese is fairly low in calcium). Eat food that tastes GOOD and that your body actually recognizes as FOOD! What a concept!

Take your stupid vending machines & shove em, South Beach people. We all know it's a marketing idea geared at making you people rich, not the people following your diet healthier. After all, the people who buy this shit are probably going to gain back all the weight anyway.

@s_crewe: Yup. I did Splenda for a while. Now I'm back to sugar, or in non-caffienated drinks & foods, Stevia powder. Stevia powder comes from a Stevia plant (I used to have one on my deck, but I killed it) with very naturally sweet leaves. Just a teensy bit of the powder will sweeten plain yogurt perfectly.

@frecklefacefreak: Actually, I looked at the ingredients of my lunch (cottage cheese, whole wheat crackers (organic wheat flour, clover honey, sesame oil, butter, sesame seeds, yeasst, and salt); pears, and a kiwi) and wasn't at all surprised by what was in any of it.

Were I eating a bologna sandwich on white bread and a diet coke, I wouldn't be surprised by the ingredients, either. I'd be perfectly aware that they contained pretty much nothing but processed, unpronouncable junk.

You guys need to not eat that fake sugar. It is bad.

Whatevs. You guys can pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

@frecklefacefreak: Oh, why must you kill my dream of diet strawberry jello-flavored bacon? Someday... someday.

I think these items are probably still better than the usual vending machine fare. The key is whether people recognize that these are still snacks and "fast food," not replacements for real food. When I eat funyuns I know it's not a vegetable.

That would be an awesome vending machine to have! As I see it, if I want chocolate/chips/whatever I'm sure I can find it. But I'd rather eat something that resembles real food I think.
Luckily, my college has an obsession with Odwalla bars. Taste good and I recognize everything on the ingredients label!