Phony Health Foods
Here are a few of the impostor foods that have earned reputations as healthy foods, but aren’t.
Bagels
The average bagel is not a great food, no matter how many people mistakenly think they are. Most bagels have a lot going against them. Like being made from refined/enriched flour. Most are full of junk carbs, salt, and sugar. Add cream cheese and other fattening favorites they’re generally served with, and you’ve got a classic junk food: refined, high fat, non-nutritious.
Blueberry muffins
Or bran, poppy seed, banana nut or any other kind of muffin. They are filled with refined flour, sugar, fat and other unhealthy ingredients. This is the old “blueberries (or bran, bananas, etc.) are good for you, therefore blueberry muffins are too.” Wrong. Blueberries are a healthy food choice, but plain blueberries aren’t blueberry muffins. Ditto for all the other kind of muffins that are filled with sugar, white flour and fat. Don’t kid yourself by thinking they’re a healthy food choice. They’re not. If you’re not ready to get rid of them altogether, you’d do well to make them a very, very occasional treat.
Yogurt
Frozen, fat free and all the rest. We’ve all heard for so long and bought into for so long the belief that yogurt contains healthy bacteria beneficial to stomachs and digestive systems. It’s just pretty much accepted as fact, but yogurt is a cow’s milk product, and no cow’s milk product is as good for human consumption as the dairy empire would like us to believe. Plus, with a few exceptions, all those little cups and cutesy cartons of this stuff are loaded with “fruit” that is loaded with refined sugar. They’re as much a sugar blast as anything. Yogurt is far from a truly healthy food choice.
Pasta
Pasta got a huge boost during the carbo-loading craze that came with running and other endurance sports. It was a favorite that so-called nutrition and exercise experts touted. The night before an endurance event, eat a plate of spaghetti or other pasta and you won’t bonk, won’t hit the wall.
Pasta took on cult status as a health food and still enjoys that today. The problem is, almost all pastas are refined flour products. They’re the equivalent of white bread, made from flour that’s been refined, all the good nutrients removed. And like breads, most pasta products after refining are fortified or “enriched” with ingredients no educated nutritionist would ever recommend.
There are true whole wheat and other pastas made from whole grain. Choose the whole grain product and don’t kid yourself if you’re eating the refined flour variety. It’s pretty much empty, non-nutritive calories, period.
These are just a few—there’s a crappy cornucopia of junk food choices out there, most of them these days, including “meal replacement” bars and other crap disguised as somehow healthy. They’re not.
So what’s a person who interested in losing weight and getting fit to eat?
Simple: eat whole, fresh, natural foods, just as they come from nature. Foods as grown. Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans and legumes, raw nuts and seeds.
For more go to www.themauidiet.com
