Can't Read, or Fifth of July

I like to think I'm a fairly literate person. It seems I almost never have problems comprehending or remembering what I read. But I'm a bit baffled now (in a different way than by Kinnie R).

Independence Day came and went, and I was officially a Bad Mom. The tyke was terribly distraught because I made turkey burgers and hadn't even given a passing thought to HOT DOGS! How can you haave a Fourth-of-July cookout without hot dogs? (Eeeewww. We NEVER buy hot dogs!) He protested loudly as though I were abusive, despite the protest noises of his big brother, who kept saying things about gross chicken lips and other awful offal.

And to add insult to injury, I had also forgotten MARSHMALLOWS for roasting on the barbecue. Bad Mommy, Bad Mommy! Dispatch her to the dungeon.

Honey made some excellent potato salad and even a Mediterranean pasta salad. I made fruit salad, burgers, and toasted multigrain buns. In the tradition of unsconscious Americans doing things large, we pigged out in fine style, with a red table cloth and little paraffin oil candles held in tiny metal buckets with beach glass.

Well, I felt guilty becaue the tyke is good at keeping grudges alive and the next day when I had to go to the grocery for milk, I decided to pick up marshmallows and at least investigate the weenies. It had to be a decent brand.

Now here is where the reading challenge comes in. I was able to reject brand after brand by reading packages. What I wound up with was sort of the brand containing the least of many obvious evils. I chose what seemed ultimately to have nothing in it. Here is how the "frankfurter" label reads:

• Keep refrigerated
• Heat before serving (but it doesn't say whether they're already fully cooked or not! Hmmm)
• Sugar free
• Lite
• Skinless
• 40% lower sodium: Sodium reduced from 460 mg to 270 mg compared to the USDA data
• 50% lower fat: Fat reduced from 13g to 6 g per serving compared to the USDA data
• 40% lower calories: Calories reduced from 140 to 90

Okay, lower fat and calories, and sugar free. But here's the part I really don't get:

• NOT A REDUCED CALORIE FOOD

Wait! I thought 50 calories were eradicated. Isn't 50 fewer calories "reduced calories"? What, are they hanging around as phantom calories, like an amputee's limb? Can you still gain weight from the absent calories?

Hep me. Hep me, pleez!