Another large portion of my day is spent debunking ideas around popular "health foods." These conversations go a little something like this.....Mrs. Jones I really would like you to stop eating ..(insert health food item here)...*gasp from Mrs. Jones*..."Just wait until I tell all my friends that my DIETITIAN told me to eat...(insert real food item here)... I feel like Santa Claus at times telling people they can have the real version of food items, its likely the greatest gift there is...real food! So here we go, prepare to have youre mind blown!
*Quick sidenote...I apologize to my mother in advance who is an english teacher and will laugh at the horrible grammar and punctuation in this post, I know how to write correctly but this time I felt like being a rebel and going against all laws of writin.
Notice: You will quickly realize a theme with all of these products. Each product was made by a food company (in order to meet public demand of healthy products) by taking a real food, removing the fat, and adding sugar, thickeners, artificial colors and sometimes even a worse kind of fat! Heres a good rule: If it is a fat-free product they removed the natural fat and added sugar. If it is a sugar-free product they removed the natural sugar and added lab-made fat. Solution: Eat real food.
1. Egg Beaters
Dont let the big red healthy looking heart on the label fool you, this product is not the best thing for your health and actually the claim that it can help lower cholesterol is false. There have been studies after studies performed to measure cholesterol levels in those who eat egg beaters and those who eat real eggs. The results show that it is absolutely safe to eat real eggs and that dietary cholesterol (cholesterol from our food) does not significantly influence our blood cholesterol. I would also like to review the ingredients...
Egg beaters: Egg Whites, Less than 1%: Natural Flavor, Color (Includes Beta Carotene), Spices, Salt, Onion Powder, Vegetable Gums (Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum), Maltodextrin. Vitamins and Minerals: Calcium Sulfate, Iron (Ferric Phosphate), Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol Acetate), Zinc Sulfate, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B1 (Thiamine Mononitrate), Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride), Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin D3
Egg: Egg
Egg beaters contain 20 ingredients, including sweetener, thickeners, coloring, extra flavorings, and vitamins/minerals. For fake eggs to taste or even look like actual food they have to add all of these chemicals and unnatural ingredients. Now lets shift our attention to real eggs, 1 ingredient...egg. No need to fortify with vitamins/minerals as it already contains these without the added gums and sugars.
2. Baked Potato Chips
Let me just say I was even shocked on this one a couple of years back. I often meander through the grocery store turning every food product around to reveal the nutrition facts and ingredient labels, its like a little game I play called guess how many ingredients, or guess how many food products you will no longer be buying after today. Now, I feel I am an educated individual, when I see baked chips I assume they are slices of potatoes that instead of being dropped in the deep fryer were nicely placed onto a baking sheet and baked with love and smiles until golden brown. Reality check: they are made out a a potato paste with added sugar and oil, then baked in large industrial ovens...no love or smiles involved. Ingredients??
Baked Chips: Dried potatoes, corn starch, sugar, corn oil, salt, soy lecithin, corn sugar. (If flavored contain more ingredients including sugar)
Regular Chips: Potatoes, vegetable oil, salt
Am I suggesting that potato chips are a health food and should be eaten daily, absolutely not! But heres my question is anyone actually ever satisfied when eating a baked chip when they wanted a real potato chip...no! I envision many frowning people when I think of baked chips being eaten. Heres my suggestion: If you feel like eating potato chips, buy the real thing, enjoy, and just watch your portions. Dont make it a daily occurrence.
3. Fat-Free Salad Dressings
Fat-free....that means healthy right?...wrong! Especially when it comes to salad dressings.
Many vitamins in fresh salads are fat soluble, including vitamin A, D, E, and K, meaning we need fat to absorb them. Also a quick reminder fat is not the enemy! I am a huge believer that we do not get enough fat (healthy fat that is) in our diets. *Be expecting an upcoming post of the importance of adequate fat in the diet.* Its that time again...lets play...guess how many ingredients!
Regular Ranch: Vegetable oil, water, egg yolk, sugar, buttermilk, natural flavors + 14 ingredients that compose less that 1 % of the product including seasonings and spices.
Fat-Free Ranch: Water, corn syrup, maltodextrin, sugar, modified food starch, buttermilk, salt + 22 ingredients that compose less than 2 % of the product including preservatives, artificial color, MSG.
Comparatively regular has 140 calories per serving while fat free has 30 calories per serving. Want to take a guess as to a factor contributing to the lower calories...the first ingredient in the fat-free product is water! *Label Reading Tip: The ingredients are listed from highest content to lowest so if water is the first ingredient, the product is mostly water. Again as mentioned in the Notice above..they took the original product, removed the fat, and added more sugar ie. maltodextrin and food starch (starch turns to sugar in the body). I chose ranch dressing to showcase because that seems to be the most popular salad dressing but this manipulation applies to all fat-free dressings. One last thing I would like to point out is that salad dressing is a fat...the sole purpose is to be a fat source so eating a fat-free salad dressing is like eating fat free oil...it defeats the purpose of using or eating the fat in the first place. (Yes I realize I used the word "fat" 5 times in that sentence...)
4. Margarine
Yes, you knew this was coming the all-too familiar butter vs margarine battle. Hopefully after today there will be no more question of which to choose.
Butter: pasteurized cream, salt
Margarine: liquid and partially hydrogenated soybean oil, water, butter + 8 other ingredients that compose less than 2 % of the product including preservatives, artificial flavor, artificial coloring.
Butter clearly appears to be a more natural product. Included in this margarine is likely the #1 most harmful food additive there is....TRANS FAT. Can you spot it?...right...because food companies, despite popular belief are still putting trans fat into your food but are listing 0 grams trans fat on the label. Anytime you see Hydrogenated or Partially Hydrogenated on a nutrition label this is code name for trans fat, put it down and slowly back away. How can they label 0 grams you ask?! If the food product per serving has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat they can legally list 0 grams. Any amount of trans fat, even 0.5 grams is very harmful to the body. *Stay tuned for an upcoming post on everything you need to know about trans fats!
Before anyone sheds a tear let me explain myself. Certain peanut butter I love and highly recommend, however I will not let my clients buy about 90% of peanut butters on the market. Peanut butters are tricky, you really have to read the ingredients label in spite of the claims and misleading words on the front. Heres a simple question I ask my clients, what would you guess are the ingredients in peanut butter? 99% respond with this answer...peanuts. Makes sense right?...wrong! I challenge you, go to your cabinets right now and flip that jar around, what do you find?
Smuckers Natural PB with oil on top: peanuts, less than 1 % salt
Reduced Fat Smuckers: maltodextrin, reduced fat ground peanuts, salt
Reduced Fat Jif: peanuts, corn syrup solids, sugar, pea protein, less than 2 % salt, fully hydrogenated veggie oils, mono and diglycerides, molassess, Mg oxide, niacinamide, and the list goes on..(please see website for full list of ingredients.
Regular Jif: Peanuts, sugar, molasses, fully hydrogenated veggie oil, mono and diglycerides, salt
The list goes on and on...included on my banned list is Simply Jif peanut butter, whose ingredients label is anything but simple, honey peanut butter, all no-stir peanut butters, and any other product that has more than 2 ingredients. *A good rule of thumb for the grocery store is to start with the products with oil on top then check the ingredients list.
Choosy moms choose Jif but informed moms turn that jar around and read the ingredients.
6. Most Granola bars
I am all for on-to-go easy snack ideas, but the only thing separating most granola bars from candy bars is the name. In order to make what started out as a healthy whole grain treat taste irresistible, they have to add sugar, oils, and yes more sugar. You should also never trust a food that has a shelf life greater than the time it takes to a grow a tiny human in a belly (weird comparison I know). Their health claim is and I quote, "Research suggests that people who have higher fiber intakes tend to have healthier body weights." That seems to me, like an awful lot of vague words strung together in an effort to sound very true and science-based. What does "healthier body weights" mean anyway...sounds questionable.
Fiber-One Bar: I will bare you the long ingredients list and sum it. The most basic bar contains 24 ingredients including many different kinds of sugars and oils. One bar contains 9 grams of fiber.
Lara Bar: Peanut butter cookie bar aka my favorite includes dates, peanuts, salt. 7 grams of fiber.
Not sure about you but I would prefer to have 21 less ingredients vs. 2 extra grams of fiber.This shows that you can use whole, natural foods to get your fiber for the day and it is still a convenient on-the-go snack!
7. 100 calorie packs
Does anyone actually like these? I have tasted about every variety before and none of them tasted like the real deal...not satisfying. The point to be heard on these is not one of ingredients, as neither these nor the original versions are something I would normally recommend, but a point of dont overpay for rediculous food. If you are craving oreos and want to eat about 100 calories worth, do it, that is about 2 oreos. But dont pay extra for someone to make them taste horrible and place them in shiny bags. Practice portion control and ENJOY YOUR FOOD. You can even try portioning them yourself at home, using snack bags, so you wont devour the entire carton at one sitting.
Many granola bars are now coming out with "lower calorie" products of the original, fiber one is the most popular at this time. Just be aware that they are not improving the recipe to be healthier, they are cutting the bars smaller and charging you more for a specialty product. Please dont fall for these marketing ploys, your belly and your wallet will thank you.
8. Wheat Breads
Again before you start rejoicing and switching back to white bread please read on. I am not suggesting that we all eat white bread I am suggesting that we all choose actual whole-grain, nourishing breads. Can anyone tell me what bread, all bread, is made of.....ding ding ding...wheat. So when a product reads wheat bread it is never lying...white bread could be labeled as wheat bread and it is. Manufacturers add food colorings, caramel, or molasses to change the color of the bread to appear healthier.
What do we want: The 1st ingredient to read "whole grain" "whole wheat" "oats"
What do we not want: If the 1st ingredient reads "enriched" "unbleached" "bleached" "wheat" "multigrain" move on down the aisle and choose something else.
9. Sugar-Free Candies
I spend many hours talking to by diabetics about how "sugar free" does not necessarily mean "carbohydrate free." All carbohydrates turn to sugar in the blood, so no I do not want my patients with diabetes to eat these sugar-free treats nor do I want any of my other clients to. Lets turn our attention to the nutrition facts shall we...
Sugar-free Reeses candies. Serving size: 5 pieces Calories: 180 Carbohydrates: 27 grams
Although there is 0 grams listed next to sugar, remember carbohydrates turn to sugar in the body.
Fun fact: 27 grams of carbohydrates is equivalent to the carbs in an entire baked potato.
Lets avoid these all together-If you are craving a Reeses have it, enjoy it, but limit the portion! Your bowels and your plumber will thank you.
THE END!
Was this post long..yes.
Was it helpful...I hope so.
Happy eating and remember when in doubt...just eat real food!
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar