For several years now I have been threatening to boycott a certain frozen-food company unless they changed their name to “Healthful Choice.”  Perhaps because I never let them know about the impending calamity to their profit margin, they have not seemed particularly intimidated.

“Healthy,” for decades, has meant having good health, being fit, being free of disease.  “Healthful” has meant producing good health, being beneficial to the user or practitioner.  Healthful exercise and healthful food help ensure a healthy body.

The food you eat may or may not be healthful, but it most certainly is not healthy.  It’s dead.

Last night I saw a television commercial for a cat food called Healthful Life.  The tag line was something like, “Healthy can taste great.”

So in – what? — ten or twelve years we’ve turned 180 degrees.   The two words have apparently reversed meaning.