Training For Life

You’ve stocked up your fridge and pantry with “health food.” Every jar, package, or bag of food in your kitchen reads “low-fat” or “sugar-free.” But look closer—you may be another victim of the unhealthy ingredients that hide out in your “health foods.”

Think about this for a second. Butter is naturally sugar-free—does that make it healthy for you?

A lot of candies are made of nothing but pure sugar and chemical coloring yet proudly proclaim on their wrappers: “A Fat-Free Food!” That’s a true statement, but we all know candy isn’t exactly healthy food.

Here are some “health foods” that really aren’t what they appear to be.

Sugar Free or Diet products:

You really crave a Coke, but you know it’s just liquid sugar. So you do the right thing and drink Diet Coke instead. Guess what? You might have actually been better off just drinking the real thing. True, sugar rots your teeth, wreaks havoc on your blood sugar levels, and can lead to diabetes. But chemical sugar substitutes are just as nasty, if not nastier.

Artificial sweeteners such as phenylalanine are known carcinogenics—that means they can cause cancer. And consider this before you pop open your next can of diet drink—phenylalanine is also a neurotoxin—it can literally overexcite your brain cells to death.

Splenda is little better. Though many consumers aren’t aware of this, Splenda is not natural—it is a chlorinated artificial sweetener. Yes, chlorinated like your swimming pool. In a study performed at Duke University, Splenda suppressed the activity of beneficial bacteria within the bodies of lab rats. This was at doses approved by the FDA for human consumption.

Low Fat Products:

The problem is, when you take away the fat, a lot of these products just taste bad. To make up for this, the manufacturers load up the low fat products with extra sugar. Sugar may have fewer calories than fat, but it’s no healthier for your body. Plus, fat plays an important role in your body’s satiety mechanism. That means that when there is bit of fat in food, that fat sends a message to your brain saying, “hey, you’re full now.” Sugar can’t do that. So when you take out the fat and replace it with sugar, your body has no way of knowing when you’ve had enough, and you’ll likely end up larger portions. That equals more calories—maybe even more calories than you would have consumed had you just stuck with the old-fashioned full-fat variety.

Corn Oil:

People mistakenly believe that corn oil is healthy. Why? It’s true that corn oil is an unsaturated fat that doesn’t raise cholesterol. But that alone can’t make it healthy for you. Corn oil is rich in omega-6 fatty acids, low in omega-3 acids. And omega-6 acids cause inflammation within the body. Inflammation, in turn, is the ultimate root of nearly every age-related or chronic malady that humans can suffer from. Just a brief list: cancer, arthritis, obesity.

Instead, choose oils that have a higher ratio of omega-3 fatty acids, like olive oil or walnut oil.

Fruit Juice:

Fruit is obviously great for you. It’s full of vitamins and antioxidants and low in calories. But sometimes it’s a hassle to have to wash and slice up fresh fruit when you’re in a hurry. It’s a lot simpler just to down a glass of apple juice and call it a day.

Fruit juice, you may be surprised to learn, is not a health food. It’s thickened and sweetened with corn syrup, which is no better for your body than table sugar.

So there you have it. Just because a food claims to be healthy doesn’t mean you can just take it at its face value. Read the labels!