The other night I was preparing dinner at a client’s home and needed a little mayonnaise to make a sauce for shrimp cakes. Ordinarily I’d have made the sauce in my fully stocked kitchen and brought it with me but I had only decided to make this yummy coconut lime mayo on my way to the client’s home. Not a problem since most people keep some form of Mayo in their fridge.

What I found was Hellmann’s Light Mayo–formerly Reduced Fat mayo so the label tells me. Now if you know me at all you know that I don’t use low fat products as a rule. It’s a taste, texture and real food vs filler ingredients based decision.

Since I have this bias about the ingredients in low fat foods–one of the ingredients I find all too often is sugar–I took a look at the label. I wasn’t prepared for what I found at all.

Here is the list as it appears: WATER, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, SOYBEAN OIL, VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, EGG WHITES, SALT, SUGAR, XANTHAN GUM, LEMON AND LIME PEEL FIBERS, COLORS ADDED, LACTIC ACID, (SODIUM BENZOATE, CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA) USED TO PROTECT QUALITY, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS.

Sugar appears 3 times–modified corn starch turns into sugar, then there is the HFCS, and finally plain old sugar. Soybean oil is one of the dastardly vegetable oils that has been shown to contribute to heart disease and diabetes.

Let’s take a look at Hellmann’s real mayo: WATER, WHOLE EGGS AND EGG YOLKS, VINEGAR, SALT, SUGAR, LEMON JUICE, NATURAL FLAVORS, CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA (USED TO PROTECT QUALITY). Where’s the sugar? It’s there but it’s the 6th ingredient. Yes, you get more calories in the real deal but you also get real eggs, and egg yolks–the cholesterol in the eggs by the way helps raise good cholesterol and power the metabolism among other good things.

In the Light Mayo you also get 2X the sodium and a gram of carbs per tablespoon vs 0 carbs in the Real mayo. Are the extra calories worth it? Absolutely! One of my mottos is “Buy the best and use less.” You can’t beat the flavor of real anything over the reduced fat, overly manipulated versions. And why add extra sugar to your diet? Sugar is a killer and it’s one of the catalysts of aging and wrinkling. Save your sugar fix for something really delicious like dark chocolate, a glass of wine or beer, or a cookie now and again.

Suspend your belief that adding some real foods with more fat into your diet will make you fat. I can prove to you that it will do the opposite. Want to learn more? Drop me an email and let’s have a conversation.