If you're like me, then not a day goes by without some well-meaning coworker, classmate or friend sending out a "funny" email that has more >>>> along the left margin than actual content. If I'm feeling especially cranky and on the receiving end of an email urban legend, I hit Reply All and dash off a lengthy treatise on exactly why the content of the email was completely and utterly false, complete with links to Snopes, showing exactly why things were wrong. Yes, I am sometimes an ass, but damn, it feels good to be right.

So let's look at some prolific urban legends about diet and food, shall we?

Hey, aspartame? Did you know that it caused more deaths than the Iraq war? Except that, well, nothing has been proven, despite all the scary news in that email from Aunt Jenene. Hey, I'm not saying the stuff is good for you or anything, but rather, if you've got a Diet Coke addiction, you can cross "worries of lupus" off your stress list. Speaking of Diet Coke, it really does have a little less than just one calorie, but it wasn't developed as ant poison. And while it's funny to think that TAB is called TAB because it's an acronym for Totally Artificial Beverage, it's just a rumor. You'd think the rule of thumb would be to ignore any and all rumors about diet soft drinks, but then you read one about lemon wedges in your tasty bev and you have to reconsider.

One of my favorite urban legends is about poor defenseless canola oil, that heart healthy alternative to corn or generic vegetable oil. The email is usually particularly gruesome, detailing that it's really rapeseed and then describing a parent touching their young daughter's arm and having the hand sink through the skin, bringing images of zombie movies to the mind of the reader. You just have to love the showboating in that one, but no, canola oil is perfectly fine!

That one's right up there with the suggestion that baby carrots are just big old gnarly deformed carrots, soaked in chlorine (it IS true that some baby carrots are shaved down regular-sized carrots, but they're not soaked in chlorine).

Food urban legends aren't all incorrect. Remember hearing about celery having negative calories? Well, it pretty much does! Totally makes those ants on a log a little more delicious.