Eating For Health

Are you being fooled by foods promoted as “healthy” that turn out to be not so good for your health?   Some foods marketed as “healthy” can still be high in sugar, salt, or unhealthy fats.   To make informed choices one has to read labels and understand the nutritional content of foods.    What are some examples of misleading “healthy” foods?      Plant-Based Meat:   These have been the rage but now seem to have lost their popularity.   Good thing as many of the plant-based meat products are not so good for your health.   I had a student that was so proud of switching from eating a regular hamburger to a plant-based hamburger and really thought that this was so much better for her health.   Was it?   McDonald’s tested the McPlant burger based on Beyond Meat but it ended in 2022 and never went nationwide.   Burger King offered Impossible Burgers in 2019 as the Impossible Whopper.     The Burger King websit...

Who doesn’t love snacking?   On a recent trip to Europe, one thing we missed were snacks.   Americans love to snack.   Snacking doesn’t have to be unhealthy and actually can add some good nutrition to your day.   One of my favorite snacks is a banana.   A natural food, unprocessed, no plastic packaging and rich in potassium and fiber.   But too many Americans are eating snacks that are ultra-processed.   What is ultra-processed ?   Ultra-processed foods are those shiny, packaged products that often have little resemblance to their natural origins.   They are typically loaded with additives, preservatives, and artificial ingredients.    What are some examples of ultra-processed snacks to avoid? Mass-Manufactured Chips/Snacks:   Think Cheetos or other colorful, flavored, and heavily processed snack foods.   Sweet Buns and Cookies:     Those soft, sweet buns and sugary cookies you find at the store?   Yes...

Everyone has heard of “processed foods”.   But now they talk about “ultra-processed” foods.   When teaching nutrition we did talk about why processed foods can be unhealthy but only recently has the term “ultra-processed” foods come into vogue.   In a previous blog post, Should You Avoid Ultraprocessed Food? , I noted that some of my students say that to eat healthy one should avoid “processed food”.   What they did not seem to understand is that most of the food we eat is processed to some extent.   Whole wheat bread is a healthy choice but bread is a “processed food”.   They harvest the grain, mill the grain, make the flour and then make the bread.   Cereal, canned vegetables, frozen vegetables, 100% juice – all are processed to some extent.   But now there is “ultraprocessed food”.   These foods are not only highly processed but often contain a lot of added sugar, salt and fat as well as preservatives and many have artificial coloring ...