We all know that the crunchy, creamy, cheesy, fried dishes or junk food is the reason for the high BP, surging cholesterol levels, and weight gain. There are no two ways about it. So, why do we still eat them? One of the apparent reasons is they are tasty.
In a survey conducted in 2013, nine out of ten Americans labeled themselves as healthy. Despite these incredibly shocking results, CDC reports that approximately sixty-seven percent of them are obese or overweight. Why is that? Well, in general, Americans have a habit of overeating and exercising little. Unfortunately, what they eat is not healthy either. Their calories are rarely from high-fiber, nutritious, or low-calorie foods, such as whole grains, vegetables, and fruits, healthy proteins, or low-fat dairy. Now, honestly, we know what you should eat for a healthy and balanced diet. We have been hearing that ever since we were kids from our parents, grandparents, mentors, dieticians, and teachers. But nobody advocates what we should not eat at all or what we should eat in moderation. Here, we will discuss a few of the worst foods that should be either eliminated from your diet or must be consumed in a limited quantity. Let us take a look at these foods, one by one.
Almost all the commercial salad dressings
Salads include incredibly healthy vegetables, but the problem with most healthy things is they are not very tasty. So, to add a little flavor to the salad, people add salad dressings to it. Well, these salad dressings do a phenomenal job at transforming your bland meals into delectable and tasty treats.
However, several salad dressings are loaded with many unhealthy ingredients, such as vegetable oils, sugar, and even trans-fat. At times, the salad dressings even contain artificial chemicals. Even though these vegetables are healthy for you, the salad dressing’s addition tends to take all the health quotient from your salads. So, before you add any dressing to your salad, read the ingredients. Cely, who offers online photoshop classes to students, shares that she loves eating salad, but to add a flavor to these bland veggies, she uses a lot of herbs and lemon. Well, that should surely do the trick for you. If not, you can also make your healthy salad dressing at home.
Cheesy fries
The biggest problem with cheesy fries is that it has a high sodium content, comments Kelly, a content manager for TrueBlueFishermen. Further, they are also dense in calories and fat. Consuming a lot of cheesy fries can be the worst addition to your health. A standard fries portion has approximately 420 calories, and that is a lot because they do not even fill up your stomach. Further, if you around 100 grams of cheddar cheese to it, you will increase the fat content by 35 grams and calories of the dish by 400 more. Eight hundred twenty calories for a meal that is not even wholesome? Not worth it.
Sugar-coated cereals
Love eating cereals for breakfast? Well, stop. Sugar is nothing but poison for your body. If you eat a lot of sugar or sugar-coated items, such as cereals, it can make you susceptible to heart diseases and diabetes. Several cereals have more sugar per bowl than what you may find in a whole cream donut. What worsens the situation is the popular variants, such as Fruity Pebbles and frosted flakes, which are laced with BHA or BHT ingredients, which are banned in many countries, such as Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK, and a lot of other European countries. Why? These two ingredients are believed to be carcinogenic.
Chips
An ounce of regular potato chips contains around 152 calories, three grams of saturated fat, and seven grams of unsaturated fat. So, if you consume only three ounces of potato chips in a week, you will have increased your calorie intake by 23,400. This means an extra seven pounds to your weight. The quantity that we have mentioned here is a lot less than what people eat to satiate their snacking needs. Davis, who works with EmbraceGardening, suggests that he always prefer popcorn cakes and rice cakes over the fried potato chips because they are filling and healthy. The good thing is these can be availed in a bunch of flavors too. So, they can satiate your salt craving without giving your body a healthy dose of calories. As a suggestion, you can check out the Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn Cakes or the Quaker Quakes Rice Snacks. They are healthy, and they have lower than one hundred calories per serving. If you seek a more exotic crunch in your snacking diet, you can try out the roasted edamame. It is light and will satiate your cravings.
Hot Dog
If someone offers you hot dogs, what do you say? You say, No. Why? Generally speaking, processed foods are the worst kind of additions to your diet. They have a high degree of saturated fat and sodium in them. Further, they also have sodium nitrite in them, which is a prevalent preservative used to add flavor and color to the meats. Many restaurant chefs use dyes and chemicals in the hot dogs to add to their color and flavor.
Consuming a high-degree of processed meat increases your susceptibility to developing diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases, comments Liza, an associate with RazorHood. Adding a lot of processed and red meat to your diet is also linked to a heightened vulnerability to rectal and colon cancer. So, men, if you want to lower your risk of rectal and colon cancer, eliminate the dogs from your diet.
Microwaved popcorns
We cannot agree more that a bowl of freshly made popcorn is a healthy snacking option. It is a good source of fiber and is also very light in calories. However, the microwaved popcorns have a higher degree of chemical diacetyl and sodium in them. This makes it an unhealthy snacking option.
Canned fruit in a syrup form
It is undeniable trouble that the fruit in this form is the yummiest. Why? Because it has high sugar content. Always remember any time fruit is canned in a heavy or light syrup, it means that there is sugar added to it, comments Shelly, an educator with EduWorldUSA. Fruit, in itself, is a sweet snacking option. Why would you want to make it sweeter by increasing its sugar content? However, if you love the canned fruits’ convenience, you can look for alternatives that do not have a syrupy mixture. So, before you shop around in the grocery mart, anytime you add something to the cart, read the labels carefully. You need to be aware of the ingredients that you are feeding your body. Always ensure that you pick a canned product, either one-hundred percent water or 100 hundred percent juice, as these do not have any added sugar in them.
Margarine
In the past, butter was regarded as one of the worst food choices because of its high saturated fat content. Following this, several health experts began promoted margarine. Back then, margarine had a higher degree of trans fat in them. Today, there has been some improvement, and it is supposed to have fewer trans fats than before. However, despite it all, it still has a high content of vegetable oil in them. A recent study suggested that people who have replaced butter with margarine have a greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.
If you wish to stay healthy, you should consume real butter and avoid margarine with trans-fat in them. You can even look for trans-fat free margarine, which is readily available in the market these days. Thus, before shopping, you should read the labels and avoid products with trans-fat.
Soda
For the lack of a better word, you can understand soda as liquid candy. They are nothing more than sugary carbonated calorie bombs, which are the number one reason for obesity globally. In people who drink a lot of soda, there is a greater risk of hormone disruption, premature aging, and various cancers.
Sodas have a high degree of corn syrup fructose, contributing to most of its calories, sketchy ingredients, preservatives, and food dyes. Please bear in mind, your constant snacking on soda is not only making you fat but is also responsible for causing tooth decay and cavities in you. Some sodas also have brominated vegetable oil in them. This is supposed to ensure that the artificial flavors do not separate themselves from the soda. This is known to be the primary cause of skin conditions, neural disorders, and memory loss.
A lot of people tend to replace regular soda with a diet soda. Trust us when we say this, though it is not as bad as the regular soda, it is not good either. They, too, have artificial sweeteners in them, which are bad for your health.
Photo by David Streit on Unsplash
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