Riot and Frolic

"Healthy."

I've been scanning Pinterest and the Googles for new recipes lately and it seems I have a very different definition of what "healthy" means when it comes to food.  As I am a born-and-raised Minnesotan (with an inate love of hot dishes, Midwestern meat-and-potatoes sensibility, butter, and bread), I am surprised that I am the skeptical one, as I read recipe descriptions.  Nevertheless, here are some guidelines I thought were obvious:

• Just because a food is "baked, not fried" does not mean it is healthy.  Example: baked mozzerella sticks, baked potato chips.
• If a recipe has a vegetable clearly stated in the title, it is not necessarily healthy.  Example: zucchini bread, carrot cake.
• If there are equal parts vegetable and sugar, a food is healthy.  Example: see above.
• When cheese, mayonnaise, and/or pasta are the majority of the main ingredients, the food cannot be classified as healthy.  Example: most Italian-American food, Minnesotan casseroles.
• When there is no identifiable vegetable in a recipe, it may not be labeled healthy. Example: meatloaf.
• If a vegetable is identifiable, but is smothered, fried, or mostly obscured by cheese, it is no longer healthy.  Example: stuffed mushrooms caps.
• When the label touts low sugar/sugar-free or low fat/fat-free, "light", or "diet", it is probably not healthy. Example: Diet Coke.
• If cereal AND marshmallows or corn syrup are involved, it is not healthy. Example: rice krispie bars.

Someone tell me I'm wrong on the cereal/corn syrup one, so I can write off all my breakfasts in my 20s as wins.