Popular Nutritional Myths

By James Spann


As we try to make proper food choices for our daily meals, we must always be aware of nutritional myths. Their prevalence on the internet, and other types of media, makes it very difficult to discern what's true, and what not true. Eating low-fat foods because they are better for you, is one instance. A food labeled "low fat" in the supermarket is usually synonymous with "loaded with salt and useless carbohydrates." For example, consider Smucker's Reduced Fat Peanut Butter. Smucker's added a quick-digesting carbohydrate called maltodextrin to substitute for the fat it replaced. Maltodextrin contains more calories than the fat it replaced. That's not going to benefit your weight loss program.

Other examples of nutritional myths are found below:

Foods labeled "natural" are healthier for you.

The FDA has not made a diligent effort to regulate the use of the word "natural" on food labels. For example: 7UP claims that it's produced with "100% Natural Flavors" when, actually, the soda is sweetened with an un-natural dose of high fructose corn syrup. "Corn" is natural, but "high fructose corn syrup" is manufactured by man.

All chocolate is bad for you

It is true that milk chocolate - which contains a lot of sugar - is bad for you. However, dark chocolate, contains cocoa, a plant-based food replete with flavonoids that increase blood flow and release feel-good endorphins. Plus, it contains a healthy kind of saturated fat called stearic acid, which research has shown can increase your good HDL cholesterol. But, keep in mind that moderation is the key. Eating too much dark chocolate, like anything else, is not very beneficial to you.

Ingesting eggs for breakfast is bad for your heart.

Eggs do include a significant amount of cholesterol in their yolks. An above-average size egg contains about 210 milligrams of cholesterol. I'm aware that cholesterol may contribute to clogged arteries and heart attacks. However, research has shown that most healthy people can consume an egg every day with no complications. Why is this so? The cholesterol we eat-in eggs does not cause a massive effect on raising our blood cholesterol. The chief heart-disease culprits are saturated and trans fats, which have a lot higher impact on raising blood cholesterol. A typical egg contains two grams of saturated fat and no trans fats. You should limit your cholesterol intake to less than 300 mg daily. When you eat a large egg, you are only getting 10% of this amount. So one large egg a day is fine as long as you don't go over that 300 mg of cholesterol with the rest of your daily diet.

Eating fatty meals, such as bacon and sausage, will certainly make you fat.

This is a nutritional myth. Meals high in fat do have cholesterol and saturated fats which contributes to having heart attacks. Nevertheless, calories in sugars - not fatty foods - are the main offender that triggers weight gain. It is a fact that bacon and sausage contain calories, also. But they do not have the amount of calories found in carbohydrates - which are broken down to form different types of sugars. These sugars are the major sources of energy - measured in calories - for our body.

The take home point: If you desire to lose or keep from obtaining a whole lot of weight, you must lower your consumption of high-sugary foods, such as cookies, cakes, and pies. Consume complex carbohydrates as opposed to the high-sugary carbs, Complex carbohydrates have less sugar and are higher in fiber and vital nutrients. Examples are vegetables, whole-wheat bread and cereals.

If you are not sure whether a particular food practice is a nutritional myth or not, study it online. If you find that the habit or practice is a myth, praise yourself own becoming one of the many nutritional myth busters.




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