An alarming amounts of items in supermarkets sold as reduced fat or healthy options are
actually concealing unbelievable amounts of hidden calories, fats, sugars and salt. Here's
some of the worst, so called "healthy" foods.
Prepared Salads
"Salads", surely not! Many pre-prepared salads sold in supermarkets and restaurants actually
contain more calories than a Big Mac. Salad leaves, vegetables and fruits are incredibly
good for you, but it's the mayonnaise, salad dressings and artificial flavourings that
pile on the pounds.
An average shop bought chicken salad with dressing contains 730 calories, 48 grams of
fat and 1,280 milligrams of sodium.
Want a healthy salad? Make your own and drizzle a bit of rapeseed oil and lemon juice over
it.
Reduced fat peanut butter
Believe it or not, you're much better off eating normal peanut butter than the reduced
fat variety. Reduced fat peanut butter and regular peanut butter contain exactly the
same amount of calories.
However reduced fat peanut butter contains a shedload of added sugar to supplement the
reduced fat. Sugar is much worse for you than natural peanut fats. To produce reduced fat
peanut butter, the peanuts are stripped of all their natural oils. Peanut oils are fatty,
but they contain good monounsaturated fats, which actually have many health benefits such
as reduced cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease and general weight loss.
Remove the fats and you remove all peanut butter's health benefits.
Granola
Granola is a perfect example of bad food hiding in healthy clothing. You have to ask yourself,
how can something which tastes so good be healthy?
Granola is typically made with large amounts of added sugar and fatty oils. However oats
are naturally good for you and there are healthy brands of granola without added sugar. So
check the ingredients before you buy.
Vitamin Water/Flavoured Water
Vitamin water may seem innocent on the surface but it's basically hyped-up sugared water.
A bottle of Glaceau vitamin water contains 8 teaspoons of sugar, cleverly disguised on
the label as "crystalline fructose", which is basically a form of sugar. It also contains
excessive amounts of citric acid which can be unhealthy in large quantities and causes
erosion of the teeth.
Want a vitamin water that's really good for you? Squeeze a lemon into a glass of water.
Lemons contain all the vitamins of vitamin water, without the added sugar.
Energy Bars/Cereal Bars
Energy bars are packed full of sugar. Some energy bars actually contain more sugar than
a can of cola and others are almost one third fat.
Sure energy bars will provide you with quick energy, because that's what sugar does, but
it will very quickly wear off and leave you feeling more lethargic than you did before.
Guess what, your body can only use so much sugar at once, the rest of it is turned into
fatty acids and stored inside your body, piling on the pounds. When you eat an energy bar,
that's exactly what happens to the majority of the sugars.
Multigrain Foods
Don't mistake multigrain for whole grain, there's a very distinct difference. Wholegrain
means the food contains all parts of the grain, whereas multigrain means the food contains
different types of grain, although none of them has to be wholegrain.
Wholegrain foods are packed full of healthy nutrients and fibre. Whereas multigrain foods
don't necessarily contain any healthy grains whatsoever.
Smoothies
In small amounts, pure fruit smoothies are very good for you. But many contain large
amounts of added sugar, ice cream or sherbet. Even pure fruit smoothies are bad for you
in large amounts. Fruits contain lots of natural sugars, which are much better for you than
refined sugar, but even natural fruit sugars will put weight on you, if you eat enough
of them. Some smoothies served at smoothie bars clock in at over 500 calories.
However smoothies contain numerous health benefits because of all the beneficial vitamins
and minerals in fruit. Make your own smoothies using pure fruit and water and stick to one
small glass a day to keep the weight off, whilst soaking up all the benefits.
Fat Free/Zero Calories
Fat free versions of foods may seem great at first glance, but you're actually better
off eating the full fat variant. Don't mistake "fat free" for calorie free, fat free foods
often contain more calories than regular foods. When you remove the fat from food you also
remove most of the taste. So to counter that, food manufacturers replace the fat with sugars,
sweeteners, thickeners and salt. These can all be much worse for you than fat.
You see, it's not fat that's the problem, it's the type of fat. There are two types
of unhealthy fats saturated fats and trans fats. Similarly there are two types of healthy
fats monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats.
Fat free foods are stripped of any healthy fats they may have had and replaced with unhealthy
sugars and salts.
Diet Soda/Artificial Sweeteners
Studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center have shown that the more diet
soda a person drinks, the greater their chance of becoming overweight. Diet sodas are packed
full of artificial sweeteners which disrupt the body's natural ability to control calorie
intake. The most commonly used are aspartame, cyclamate, saccharin, acesulfame-k and sucralose.
The list of negative effects afflicted from artificial sweeteners is endless. It has been
strongly linked to depression. Individuals who drink diet soda are % more likely to
be diagnosed with depression in their lifetimes.
Artificial sweeteners, greatly increase the risk of preterm delivery amongst pregnant
women. But scariest of all, regular consumption of diet soda increases your risk of type II
diabetes by 67%.
So next time you have a sugar craving, you're much better off satisfying it with regular,
full-fat soda. The same applies to tea and coffee, it's actually better for you to sweeten
your drinks with sugar than artificial sweeteners.
Sushi
Most sushi is made with white rice, but contains very small amounts of the good stuff, A.K.A.
fish. White rice is high-glycemic food. High-glycemic foods promote a rapid increase in blood sugar
and insulin levels, which is followed by a very rapid drop in both. This leads to a greatly
increased appetite which makes you crave junk food.
Whilst sushi is not that unhealthy in a direct sense it can easily lead to over eating. However
some sushis do contain copious amounts of added salt.
Dried Fruit
Surely dried fruit is good for you, after all it's just fruit. Think again. Fruit is
mostly water, remove the water and you're left with pure sugar. This small amount of
sugar isn't so bad when you consume whole fruits, but when you eat dried fruit you're
eating a lot more sugar per portion. A small handful of raisins contains 22 grams of sugar.
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