Diet or Just Plain Die...

http://kimslightfoods.com/

            I was trying to be healthy, but at times life amongst the brightly colored boxes of a grocery store can be a rough road.  “Stick to the outside. Stick to the outside. Stick to the outside, but wait I need juice, V8 V-Fusion juice is good for you.  Ok, really quick in and out.”  I dodged into the juice aisle and grabbed my healthy beverage, and managed my way out of the grocery store without falling to my own temptations.   I was already unpacking my grocery bag before I realized I had failed.  By accident, I had grabbed the wrong bottle of juice.  I had grabbed the Light V8.

            I know what you are thinking, this is better for you right?  Light is better for a healthy life.  At least that’s what we are raised to believe, but throw that out now, because it is probably those light foods that are keeping you off the road to healthy living. For years, food companies have used these “Diet”, “Light”, and “Fat Free” labels to get us to buy things that should never enter our body in the first place.  At first glance, the “Light” label on my V8 juice seems accurate, after all it contains only 50 calories as opposed to the 170 of the regular V8.  However,  if you continue to read down, you will see that you are giving up all of the protein in V8 when you drink the light version.  That little cheat chart of nutrition facts is only the tip of the ice-burg.   Located not too far, hiding in plain view on the ingredients list is the true perpetrator.

            Sucralose, more commonly known as splenda, is written on the list of ingredients.  We also think of splenda as a health food, because it replaces sugar.  However, the truth is that eliminating sugar won’t help you lose weight.  In fact sucralose has been shown in studies to not only make you gain weight, but also negatively affect your body’s ability to utilize those few nutrients V8 light didn’t eliminate.

            It doesn’t end with just V8, almost all light and diet labeled foods have something in them to make them worse than if you ate the actual product.  The conception of aspartame, used in Diet Coke, can lead to not only to seizures, but also death.  Saccharin, sweet’n lo, greatly raises the risk of some forms of cancers and tumors.  Besides these health risks, these replacement chemicals are highly addictive making you want to eat more of them and, in the end           

            So what can you do to eat healthier now that “diet” foods are off the table.  Stick to the natural.  If you buy it the way you can find it in the wild than it is generally good to eat.  Of course, a variety is best.  Your body needs protein and iron in meets, the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, and yes even the fat found in milk and other dairy products.  The goal, is to aim for as little processing as possible.  The amount of sugar found in one processed item is often more than what is enough fruit for you to care to eat.

            Keep healthy, keep it natural, and do your research.

Sources:

http://www.campbellfoodservice.com/details.aspx?Code=1022

http://www.anh-usa.org/how-sweet-it-isnt-cutting-through-the-hype-and-deception/

http://www.foodrenegade.com/when-sugar-is-still-sugar/

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n&tag=contentBody%3BstoryMediaBox%3Ftag%3Dfacebook

Egg Yolks and Other Deadly Sins that are Good for Your Health

           “Oh you had an egg white omelet? Those are so good for you!”  Wait, what? I thought looking at my friend.  I had just said that I had an omelet before my run that morning.  Nowhere had I mentioned getting rid of the yolk. 

“What? No just a normal omelet.”  I said staring sideways at my friend.

“Oh I thought you said you had a good nutritious breakfast of an omelet and they aren’t good for you if they aren’t only the eggs whites.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yea egg yolks are really bad for you.”  She said turning down the path to go to her class.  I boiled through my own class.  How horrible, all those years of my mother forcing me to eat the egg yolk and she was only doing it to torture me.  I called the moment I got out of class angry that I had been the victim of her sadist ways. 

You wanted me to be fat didn’t you mom?!  How could you force me to eat those vile yolks from every hardboiled egg at Easter!

Ok so maybe I didn’t quite approach her writhing in anger, because well she is my mother and when I run out of money I know exactly who I’m calling,  but I did confront her.  I’m really glad I did because that is when she told me a few secrets to life.  First, don’t believe everything your friends tell you especially when it has to do with dieting, do a little research yourself. And two, egg yolks are actually good for you.

 So, I decided to follow both pieces of advice and went back and did some research.  Turns out that although the yolk does contain most of the fat, it also contains all of the nutrients as well, if you eliminate the egg yolk, you are missing out on vitamin D, vitamin B, and iron which as a woman are all very important to your health.  Sure it contains fats and cholesterol as well, but it’s better to fill up on an egg yolk packed full of nutrients and fat than it is to chow down on carbs later in the day.

The problem isn’t just in egg yolks, as women we often tend to satanize some foods and glorify others.  The fact is, if it happened naturally (read wasn’t made in a twinki factory) than you can generally safely assume that it really isn’t all that bad for you.  The truth is that any food when you eat just that food isn’t going to give you everything you need, you need a full plate of different foods.  The more natural the better, but variation is best.  If you look and your cart and you see the exact same thing as what you bought last week, try taking it out, and try something new (take it out especially if it is processed food like Ramen noodles).  You can always get it again next week, but mixing it up is never a bad thing.

Of course some foods are better than others and for specifics on whether your apple is better for you than your orange you have to look at your own diet, what you need more of and use the magical powers of the internet *proceed with caution*.  However, if you don’t want to walk around your local grocery store with your iphone out and ready to research everything in your shopping cart and spending hours reading the backs of packages, I have a pretty useful rule of thumb “the darker it is the more nutrients it has.”  Think about it, blueberries are better for you than strawberries which are better for you then pineapples; dark bread is better than white bread;  red meats are jammed pack full of iron while their whiter counter parts lack; and do I even need to mention dark chocolate or red wines.  Now don’t go crazy although your dark chocolate maybe darker than blueberries that doesn’t mean anything, you have to stick with the same general food groups, and as my mom said do a little research when you can to keep you on track.  It doesn’t work on everything like your green gummy bear is no healthier than your yellow gummy bear, but in general rush to get back to our lives that exist outside the grocery store, it works.  Oh and look at that egg yolks are darker than egg whites.

Sources:

http://www.fitsugar.com/Egg-Whites-vs-Whole-Eggs-7291034