Often, when food companies give you a new version of traditional food and call it a healthier alternative, it turns out to be worse than the original.
Many diet foods – low-calorie, low-fat, low-salt and so on – are formulated in a way that makes them more harmful to health, overall. This is because when food manufacturers take away the fat in foods, they have to find a way to make up for the lost taste. For this, they need to add all kinds of other unhealthy ingredients that they never talk about in their advertising.
For instance, low-fat salad dressing certainly is low in fat. To bring back some of the taste, though, manufacturers use high fructose corn syrup. Before you fall for the glib claims of food advertisers about healthful diet products, you need to read up about them. Here are a few “healthy” alternatives that are actually less healthy than the originals.
If it says on a pack of fat-free milk that you only get 90 calories out of a cup, it does seem immediately appealing. The problem, though, is that the fat removal process also removes much of the vitamin content. There’s no point drinking milk without nutritional value. Some reduced-fat milk brands advertise that their products are fortified with vitamins. Unfortunately, artificial fortification is never as good as the real thing. The answer, then, is to either buy whole milk or reduced-fat milk. Zero-fat milk is never a good idea.
Low-fat peanut butter
Peanut butter gets its wholesome taste through its fat content. The fat in natural, whole peanut butter, though, is the good, heart-friendly kind. Low-fat peanut butter doesn’t manage to remove too much fat – it’s just leaner by 5g to a serving. To make sure that low-fat peanut butter doesn’t taste awful, though, manufacturers use sweeteners, artificial taste enhancers, and empty carbs. The best way to avoid unhealthy peanut butter is to look for a brand that has just peanuts in the ingredients list. There’s no need for artificial ingredients in peanut butter.
Meat may be bad for your health; the soy-based alternatives can be worse
Department stores these days sell plenty of fake meat products – soy-based chicken nuggets, among others. You’re supposed to buy these instead of real chicken nuggets because the soy-based products have less unhealthy saturated fats. Unfortunately, any time food manufacturers try to mimic a natural taste, they have to bring in a bunch of unhealthy chemicals and other fillers. For fake soy-based meat, they use artificial sugars, white flour, and fat. You might as well eat real nuggets.
Fat-free packaged turkey products are a terrible idea, too. These tend to be saturated with cancer-causing sodium nitrate for extended shelf life. If you have to buy a prepackaged turkey product, you need to look for a low-sodium brand that has less than 350mg of sodium per serving
Don’t go gluten-free for no reason
Many people somehow believe that going gluten-free is good for health. Unless you have celiac disease, though, processed gluten-free products aren’t necessarily healthier. For instance, a report in Men’s Health magazine finds that some gluten-free cookies have three times as many calories as regular cookies.
Diet microwavable popcorn and frozen meals are very bad
Microwavable popcorn is an appealing idea – especially when it has the word fat-free on the package. Unfortunately, if it’s fat-free, it has to use something for taste. Otherwise, no one will buy it. Food manufacturers use nearly 50 chemicals to mimic the flavor of fat in popcorn. If you want to stay away from butter in your popcorn, simply make your own popcorn at home with olive oil.
Diet frozen meals are a cocktail of chemicals, too – with names like Butylated hydroxytoluene and polysorbate 80. To make up for the loss of taste, manufacturers also use excessive sodium and about seven kinds of processed sugars with names like maltodextrin.
The conclusion is simple…
Processed diet foods are bad news. More often than not, the “diet” tag is just a marketing gimmick. It isn’t healthier, at all. If you care for your health, you simply need to cut back in an old-fashioned way. There’s no such thing as having your cake and eating it too.
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