"Health Foods" to avoid

in #health7 years ago

There are a lot of supposedly “healthy” foods on the market that are anything but. Here are a few that I've stumbled across in my quest for healthy living.

neha-deshmukh-10734.jpg
Delicious watermelon. An actual healthy food! Image via Unsplash

  1. Yogurt – Not all yogurt is created equally. Some brands contain artificial food coloring and flavors – not healthy. Low-fat yogurt isn't a great choice either, since it is more highly processed and often contains more sugar. If you're wondering how to choose the best yogurt, look for a full-fat variety with no more than 12-15 grams of sugar per serving. You can even make your own in a crock pot:

  2. “Low-fat” foods. Now, foods naturally low in fat aren't a concern. But processed foods that read “low fat” or “non-fat” on the label typically contain added sugar or even artificial ingredients to improve flavor and texture. Fats aren't really the bad guy they're made out to be, though. It all comes down to eating food that is minimally processed.

  3. Diet sodas and drinks. Again, we've been conditioned to think that “diet” or “low-sugar” varieties of things are magically healthy, but this is a lie. I might seem to be contradicting myself, since I talked about finding a lower-sugar yogurt, but the difference is all in what's added to make up for what's taken out. Diet sodas contain chemical sweeteners to (kind of) make up for the taste of the sugar that isn't there. But it's not healthy. If you're like me and for some reason feel the need to drink bubbles, try a naturally flavored carbonated water. Ideally, the ingredients should say

“Carbonated water.” That's it. Add a little (100%!) juice to make it sweet, if you must!

  1. Soy. There's some controversy around soy and whether or not it's healthy, but I avoid it and here's why: It messes with hormones, and it inhibits our body's ability to process nutrients. These harmful effects can be minimized by choosing fermented forms of soy instead.

The TL;DR version? Eat real, whole, unprocessed food. 🙂

This post was originally published by me on Everblossom

Sort:  

I really love watermelon simply because it refreshes all the stressors out of me. What's great about these tropical fruits is that it is accessible to get them here (in the Philippines); you can even find one ready to be eaten probably in every street corner. Sadly enough, though, not so many of us cityfolks buy these fruits because it is too pricey here, which is why we resort to the not-so-healthy alternatives.

SO refreshing. What a shame that such a common fruit is priced so high in your area.

I also avoid buying food if it's being marketed as "low/no-fat" (particularly if it is some food that is supposed to be fatty) or "low/no-sugar" (particularly if I can read that they introduced other sweeteners instead). I generally don't believe the implicit claim that those products are more healthy.

Sometimes baby food contains "no sugar", but instead the product is propped full with fruit sugars, "naturally" extracted from bananas. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we would be feeding our children with only healthy, natural food from the moment they got weaned off their human milk diet, they wouldn't get such a big sugar addiction in the first place?

Anyway, I realize that my aversion against the "low/no-fat" and "low/no-sugar" food is nothing but a belief. Do you have any sources that this food is unhealthy?

Great question - we are thinking along the same lines. It's really just a general guideline about the fact that these foods that would normally have a natural amount of fat in it have to have the flavor replaced somehow when the fat is removed. Most food manufacturers do that with extra sugar, salt, or artificial "flavor" additives.

So of course, a carrot, which is naturally "low fat" wouldn't count toward what I'm saying here. Of course carrots are a healthy food even though they're low fat.

So of course, a carrot, which is naturally "low fat" wouldn't count toward what I'm saying here.

Of course, that's well understood. I'm thinking more on things like diet coke. You present it as a fact that it's unhealthy - but do you have any evidence or sources to back up such a claim?

Like you, I tend to believe it's better to avoid such products completely, and if I do drink such products (happens very rarely), I go for the variant with sugar, as I believe the non-sugar variant is even less healthy.

Still, I do not promote this as facts, I promote it as my belief - because I don't think there exist much if any evidence that diet coke is less healthy than water, nor any evidence that diet coke is less healthy than sugary coke.

Of course, doing big research on such topics costs money, such money tend to come from the companies pushing the coke, and their agenda is of course to prove that their products aren't poisonous - there is quite much of a bias there.

I see what you're saying. I do mean for everything I publish on Steemit to be read as my personal viewpoint and findings. I should be more mindful about including sources and presenting it that way. I invite you and any others to read my introduction post if you'd like to learn more about my approach and the info I'm sharing. Thanks for bringing this up.

People says that mango is the boss of all fruit i do not agreed with them. Nice post by @everblosson

Watermellon is true boss like its weight. I dont know weather people like my advise or not, but it is true if anybody wants to prepare Viagra at his own get one glass of Watermellon juice without seed and mingle nectre of 2 lemon and take it in early morning. Your Viagre is ready no side effect.

“Carbonated water.” That's it. Add a little (100%!) juice to make it sweet, if you must!

It's not that expensive to produce carbonated water at home.

If the tap water is too much chlorinated or for other reasons cannot be trusted, one will need a water filter - but in most cases a cheap active-coal filter will suffice.

Then one needs CO2, which can be bought relatively cheaply, and some utility for putting the CO2 into the water, this can also be bought relatively cheaply.

One will drink more water if it's more easily available, and in addition to saving costs one will also have to carry less from the shop.

Amen on all of these. It's funny that around here we:

1.)Make our own full-fat Greek yogurt with no sugar
2.)Eat lots of good fats, like butter, coconut oil, avacados, eggs, etc.
3.)No diet sodas, but also we don't do aspartame or chemical sweeteners. We do drink sparkling water, though we have learned you have to be careful with that because it's more acidic than regular water and can be hard on your teeth if you drink a lot of it.
4.)We keep soy out quite a bit because it certainly does seem to have a hormonal effect. Coconut or unsweetened almond milk when we are doing dairy-free things, not soy milk.

I love making yogurt! It's been awhile.

Agreed! We stick with whole foods here too. ;)

Great to hear!

Thanks for nice post.