...As I walked through the health food store the other day I couldn't help but to laugh at how easily they trick the "health conscious" people into buying their so called "healthy food" when in reality they are buying potentially harmful food. Keep reading on as I explain.
Let me admit though that there was one good thing in the store and that was whole foods in their natural state. Other than that the rest of the store was filled with knockoffs of the original or highly processed foods covered in fancy health conscious labels. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw microwavable foods that claimed to be healthier than their whole food counterparts. Did they inject extra vitamins and minerals into the corn, peas and chicken? Or are they just manipulating FDA laws.
As sad as it is, the food labels have been tricking the public eye for years... and to be honest with you, 99% of the people will never know they are being tricked (of course since you're reading this you won't be in that 99% any more).
Below I will list a few examples of things to avoid:
Example #1: A product claiming to be "better than butter".
I am sure you have seen this one before and questioned can it really be better than butter? If being full of deadly Trans fat and unnatural additives is better than butter then I guess the answer would be yes.
Don't fall for it!
Butter itself is not all that healthy, for obvious reasons plus most butter contain pesticides and hormones from improperly raised cows. But with that being said, even low quality butter is going to be healthier than the margarine knockoffs of butter.
Some experts say that by adding natural organic butter over your steamed vegetable will help your body extract the essential vitamins from the veggies. On top of that margarine doesn?t cook as well as natural organic butter. If you don't believe me than go ahead and spark the stove with two pans (one with butter and one with margarine) and let?s see which ingredient burns faster.
Example #2: Product claiming to be "better than eggs".
Usually this "healthier egg" is found whipped up and wrapped in a cardboard box with the words EGG WHITES. If you're eating egg whites hoping it will make you healthier than you are up for a rude awakening. I'm not going to go into great detail about how I know that egg whites are not as healthy as whole eggs (including the yolk) because there is a full detailed article that I want you to read ( )
But I will go over a few key points right now just to ease your mind. Did you know that the yolk contains more nutrients, vitamins, anti-oxidants and even minerals than egg whites? Well it does! Even the protein in the whites isn't as high quality in terms of bioavailability without the amino acid profile of the yolk that complements the amino acid profile of the whites.
Now a question that always arises is "will eating egg yolks sky rocket my cholesterol?" No, the cholesterol in eggs is not bad for you... egg yolks will surprisingly raise your GOOD CHOLESTEROL more than your BAD CHOLESTEROL, thus causing your overall cholesterol to be healthier.
Bottom line... whole eggs are healthier than egg whites. It's not even a close comparison. The food label companies are just taking advantage of your desire to eat healthy.
Example #3: Product claiming to be "Better than peanut butter"
My fitness buddies and I have joked about this one for years. Growing up we were taught that eating peanut butter is good for you... and yes it is very good for you. The problem is that we were tricked into buying these fancy-colorful versions of peanut butter (a.k.a. highly processed peanut butter).
Next time you're at the store I want you to compare the ingredients of the "healthier than peanut butter" version and the natural organic peanut butter. You will see that the natural peanut butter will only have a few ingredients (peanuts salt and water) while the other version will be filled with a bunch of processed crap. First of all, they strip all of the natural healthy fats out of the peanuts so that it is a "low fat" product. They have just taken away one of the healthiest parts of the peanut butter... the appetite satisfying healthy fats that you need to control cravings and manage more stable blood sugar levels in your body.
Just to be funny they also added a few types of sugars and starches into the mix. In case you didn't know that will boost your insulin levels almost automatically and leave you in a state of fat loss confusion.
