Do We Really Need This Many?

So this afternoon I headed over to the Giant to get the basics of light bulbs, juice, toilet paper, cole slaw (it's summer) and...whipped cream. I have a lot of strawberries, and I'm getting tired of just vanilla ice cream.

Now, as many may know, I try to avoid sugar and REALLY avoid high fructose corn syrup. So I'm over by the fake whipped cream aisle (otherwise known as Cool Whip), and they have a whole lot of kinds. Regular, strawberry, lite (that spelling gets me, but that's another rant), fat-free, and....sugar free. I don't normally like Cool Whip, but I figured I could try the sugar free one. So I pick up the carton, and the ingredients start out: "Water, corn syrup* (*adds a negligible amount of sugar), lots of diglycerides, some kind of palm or coconut oil....." Firstly, this was the same list of ingredients as the regular. And secondly IN WHAT UNIVERSE DOES A PRODUCT WHOSE SECOND INGREDIENT IS CORN SYRUP count as sugar free? So this stuff is doubly bad for you -- it's got the same amount of carbs and sugars plus they add some artificial sweetener, probably my favorite headache inducer aspartame.

So then I head over to the reddi-whip in the can (I just don't feel like making my own at the moment, and Giant has lousy chemical whipping cream anyway). They also have a billion kinds -- regular, extra creamy, fat free, light, and chocolate. I pick up the regular and the extra creamy, and notice that they have the same calorie count, but the regular is made with cream, non-fat milk, corn syrup, sugar and stabilizers. The extra creamy -- the eventual winner -- is made with heavy cream, non-fat milk, sugar and stabilizers. No high fructose corn syrup! It's actually the healthiest one in the bunch. Had fewer calories than the sugar-free Cool Whip, and the least fake stuff.

But to be fair, how many kinds of this stuff do we need?