The Journal Of Marketing Research recently released the article "The Effect of Fitness Branding on Restrained Eaters' Food Consumption and Post-Consumption Physical Activity". In the article, the authors looks into the effects of food branded as "fitness" food, specifically investigating whether people who were trying to lose weight and who were given trail-mix style snacks marked either "Fitness" or "Trail Mix" would approach both the snack and their exercise differently depending on whether they perceived the snack to be fitness food. The trail mix marked as the official "Fitness" mix, which was no different than the regular trail mix in terms of ingredients, but just labeled differently, even had a picture of running shoes on the front of it.
The results were nearly humorous. People given the fitness-labeled snack mix not only ate many more calories of the fitness snack mix, but they exercised less after eating the fitness snack mix, apparently convinced that the act of eating something associated with increasing health or fitness somehow justified less exercise. Interesting, eh?
And here's the deal: even if you do have self control and you actually eat less or the same amount of a food that you perceive to be health food or fitness food, the fact is that many of these foods still contain ingredients that aren't doing you any favors in the fitness, fat loss or health department. Here are four popular fitness foods and so-called health foods that you should consider limiting or avoiding:
1. Fruit Juice
While I'm not really on the "fruit is toxic" or "fructose is toxic" bandwagon, I definitely agree with the research that shows that fructose-sweetened foods and drinks like high fructose corn syrup containing energy bars, fructose filled soft drinks and, yes, even those apple and pear jam-packed green juices at your local healthy grocery store can cause serious metabolic problems and big elevations in triglycerides if accompanied by excess calories. And frankly, it's quite often that I see people consuming even the healthiest of fruit drinks, fruit juices and fruit smoothies not exactly living in a calorie deficit. Once your body has had it's fill of fructose (no more than about 400 calories per day), even the healthiest of juices can become metabolically damaging.
The basic science goes like this: fructose is metabolized by your liver. If your liver is full of glycogen (storage carbohydrate) the fructose is then turned into blood triglycerides and fat. This can cause non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and other metabolic issues such as resistance to the hormones insulin and leptin, which can lead to obesity and diabetes.
One example of an ingredient commonly used as a high fructose corn syrup replacement in so-called health foods is "agave". Unfortunately, while regular sugar is 50 percent fructose, the fructose content of agave can be as high as 90 percent. So despite it's seemingly natural, healthy title, agave really doesn't make a juice or smoothie any healthier.
2. Whole Wheat Bread
Whole wheat is technically healthier than refined wheat, but this does not mean that this carbohydrate than many people perceive to be the holy grail of healthy bread is actually health, and to say whole wheat is a healthier bread is much like saying filtered cigarettes are healthier than unfiltered cigarettes. It's simply a lesser evil.
Why is this? Modern commercial wheat is a concentrated source of gluten in the diet, and while gluten is not a big issue in smaller amounts, in extremely concentrated amounts such as commercial whole wheat bread, it can cause both gut and neural inflammation as the immune system attacks excess gluten proteins in the digestive tract and in neuronal tissue. This inflammation can cause issues such as brain fog, damage to the lining of the digestive tract, bloating, constipation, and other unpleasant symptoms.
And, contrary to popular belief, whole wheat bread is not a "low sugar" food, and can in fact significantly spike your blood sugar. How? The glycemic index is a measurement of how quickly a food spikes blood sugar, and the glycemic index of white bread is 69. You'd except whole wheat bread to have a lower index, but the glycemic index of whole bread is 72 (and Shredded Wheat cereal is 67), while that of sucrose (table sugar) is 59.2. The glycemic index of a Snickers bar is 41, which means whole wheat bread spikes your blood sugar far more than a candy bar!
So-called healthy cereals based on whole grains and whole wheat aren't much better. For example, here's the ingredient list of Kellogg's® Smart Start® Strong Heart Antioxidants, which you can see is packed with not just sugar and refined carbohydrates, but also a host of additional preservatives and artificial additives:
Rice, whole grain wheat, sugar, oat clusters, sugar, toasted oats [rolled oats, sugar, canola oil with tbhq and citric acid to preserve freshness, molasses, honey, bht for freshness, soy lecithin], wheat flakes, crisp rice [rice, sugar, malt, salt], corn syrup, polydextrose, honey, cinnamon, BHT [preservative], artificial vanilla flavor, high fructose corn syrup, salt, honey, malt flavoring, alpha tocopherol acetate [vitamin E], niacinamide, zinc oxide, reduced iron, sodium ascorbate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C), calcium pantothenate, Yellow #5, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), BHT (preservative), vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, beta carotene (a source of vitamin A), vitamin B12 and vitamin D.
3. Packaged Crunchy Foods
As I write this article, I'm traveling through several different airports, and have noticed a growing trend of "healthy food sections" in the snack aisle of many newsstands and food vendors at the airport. Upon closer inspection of many of these foods - from nori bites to low-fat popcorn to dried fruit and nut mixes - you'll find canola oil, soybean oil and other seed and vegetable based oils listed on the label, often as one of the primary ingredients.
These oils are extracted from seeds and plants using harsh processing methods which include high heat, bleaching and use of the solvent hexane. These oils also contain very high percentages of Omega-6 fatty acids, which can be inflammatory when consumed in excess. About ½ to 4 percent of the fatty acids in these oils are in the form of trans fats, which can be a major contributing factor to heart disease.
Another common ingredient in these crunchy, packaged health snacks is brown rice syrup, also known as rice malt syrup, which is made by treating cooked rice with enzymes that break down the starch into simple sugars. This means that brown rice syrup is basically pure glucose void of essential nutrients, with a glycemic index of 98 (remember, this means that the glucose in it will spike blood sugar very, very quickly).
This combination of processed oils and extremely sweet additives in packaged, crunchy health foods should inspire you to add these to your list of healthy fitness foods to avoid.
4. Gluten Free Snacks
While the gluten I referred to earlier can definitely be unhealthy, unfortunately many food manufacturers have heavily promoted gluten-free "health foods" and many people have jumped on the gluten-free bandwagon by simply purchasing starchy snacks such as gluten-free pizza and pretzels, gluten-free rice crackers, gluten-free sugary chocolates and candies, and concentrated amounts of gluten-free fruit juices and smoothies, rather than, say, switching to more nutrient-dense forms of gluten-free carbohydrates, such as vegetables, quinoa, amaranth, millet, gluten-free oats, sweet potatoes, yams, carrots, and parsnips.
The problem with popular gluten-free foods is that they're usually very low in nutrients, vitamins and minerals, and contain very concentrated amounts of starches. Instead of a gluten grain, they're made with other starches like potato starch, tapioca starch or some others. These starches are usually highly refined, void of nutrients and spike blood sugar fast, just like wheat. Take, for example, one very popular gluten-free pizza, which contains:
Low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), pizza sauce (crushed tomatoes [water, concentrated crushed tomatoes], tomato puree (water, tomato paste), sugar, salt, spices, soybean oil, citric acid, dehydrated onions, garlic, romano cheese flavor [romano cheese from cow's milk (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), water, disodium phosphate, enzymes], onion powder, spice extractive), whey, tapioca starch, rice flour, pepperoni (pork and beef, salt, spices, dextrose, latic acid starter culture, oleorsin of paprika, flavoring, sodium nitrite, bha, bht, citric acid), rice starch, water, contains 2 percent or less of: yeast, vegetable oil (soybean, cottonseed, corn, and/or canola oil), vegetable shortening (palm oil, natural flavor, soy lecithin), sugar, salt, xanthan gum, garlic powder.
As you can see, you are avoiding gluten, but at the same time, getting hefty doses of starch, flour, commercial dairy, vegetable oils and sugar!
Ultimately, as you navigate the ever-growing world of fitness and health foods, ask yourself whether you're consuming real, recognizable, nutrient-dense food packed with vitamins and minerals and low in sugars and oils, or whether you're simply being fooled by clever packaging like the folks in the Journal of Marketing Research study. If you have more questions or comments about these top 10 fitness food you should avoid, please leave them below.