Friday 12 July 2013

Healthy' foods that that are actually bad for you


The world of food can be confusing. Those that are labeled as nutritious and healthy are often laden with chemicals, fat and sugar. Misinformation spun from the mouths of retailers and food producers can leave the average consumer in a spin, not knowing what is good to eat and what to avoid. Understanding which so called healthy foods are actually bad for you can help prevent you making a mistake.


Granola

Granola may come in the form of a health bar meant as snack food or as topping to sprinkle on yogurts and puddings. Most people think of it as healthy because it is advertised as being wholesome and full of goodness. Unfortunately, the truth is that it is made from white flour and corn syrup, which is not exactly healthy. White flour has all the goodness removed from it and syrup is full of sugar.

Pretzels, white pasta, white bread, and muffins

The same could be said of pretzels, as they have no real nutritional value, only added unnatural flavor that cannot be good for you. White foods, which invariably have been bleached, are stripped of their natural goodness. Their fibrous content is removed and they may be regarded as empty calories. Many have sugar added to them to make them more appealing, but their browner cousins, such as brown rice and wholemeal bread, are far healthier.

Baked beans

Most people are aware that baked beans have plenty of fiber and assume this means that canned varieties are good for them. Sadly, so much sugar is added that this makes them far less healthy than they are imagined to be.

Smart-food

Smart-foods are labeled as being healthy and have flavor added to make them more interesting and tasty. Cheesy popcorn and cheesy rice cakes come under this heading. Rice cakes have virtually no flavor when unadulterated, because there is nothing much to them. Popcorn on the other hand, can be good with just a little salt added to increase flavor. Add toffee or cheese and these foods are no longer healthy snacks.

Fruit juice

What could be wrong with fruit juice you may wonder? There is probably nothing wrong with concentrated juice with no sugar added. In fact, this is a healthy drink. However, read the labels on fruit juice products before you buy them to make sure sugar has not been added, otherwise you may as well sit and eat spoonfuls of sugar and wash them down with water.
Yogurt with added fruit

Live yogurt is good for you, and you can add fresh fruit to it if you like, but avoid yogurt with fruit already added to it, as it is likely to contain corn syrup too.

Soy products

Soy products have been touted as being healthy for decades. They do not usually contain many calories and are perfect for vegetarians who need protein, or are they? Soy has been linked to several types of cancer and infertility.

Low fat salad dressing

Quite often, when fat is taken out of a product it is replaced by sugar, and salad dressings are not generally an exception to this rule. Worse still, the food they are put on can be less beneficial when coated with it than without, as their nutritional contents cannot be absorbed into your body.

Diet soda

Sugar is taken out which is great. However, it is replaced with carcinogenic sweeteners to die for. It is likely that it also contains caffeine that will dehydrate you too.

Now you have discovered that some of the food you considered healthy is bad for you you are probably wondering what is left to eat that is good for you. Brown rice, brown bread, whole-wheat pasta, live yogurts, homemade salad dressing with olive oil and freshly squeezed juice is healthy, as are dried beans ready to soak before use.

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