Like it or not, we tend to believe whatever we are exposed to in the media and in advertisements. In nutrition, this usually means that as a society we all follow the same diet fads, glorifying some foods over others in the quest for better health. (It's okay, I love salmon and coconut water as much as you do.)
Problem is, though, more often than not the news or the health claims made by food manufacturers vastly overstate any potential health benefits, because it makes a more compelling story and sells more products. Our own confirmation biases tend to make us believe what we're told, we confidently share our insight with our friends, and suddenly our grocery stores are filled with health foods that really aren't all they are cracked up to be.
Here are my 10 picks for the most overrated health foods.
Top 10 Most Overrated Health Foods
What are your least favorite health foods?
Originally published at Summer Tomato, where you can find more healthy eating tips. Summer Tomato is one of Time's 50 Best Websites of 2011.
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"Eat less bananas, they contain too much sugar."
G'AH! make this madness stop!
Just consume what you like, and do it in moderation.
My 78 year old mother is always crying about the often over the top obsession some people have with food nutrition and is always saying "I don't know how we lived for so long as a species before all this obsessiveness." My grandmother ate sauteed everything as well as meats, pies, cakes, breads, you name it, using real and fresh ingredients and lived to 98 with basically no health issues until the end. Her son, my father, is 85, eats as he wishes and has smoked since 1940. He walks several miles a day and looks and feels ten years younger than he is. No one in my family is anywhere near approaching overweight, has diabetes or heart or other such illnesses.
I'm not saying we shouldn't pay attention to what we put in our body and to disregard warnings about bad food, but it just seems we've come to over analyzing ad nauseum every morsel of food that passes our mouth and some of the most basic food humans have subsisted on forever are now suspect (grain??). We're all gonna die and whatever years we save from eating uber well will probably be canceled out by all the obsessing over it. Just use common sense, eat local and fresh and approach the bad stuff in moderation.
How did you manage to pull this off? Who let you near the computer? Do the editors know you wrote this?
Congratulations!
Far better than anything you can buy in terms of taste and no fillers or gelatin, no artificial flavors, far less calories..and delicious! You can buy a Yogourmet yogurt make from Amazon for about $45.00....it makes 2 qts of yogurt in only 4 hours which by far the fastest yogurt maker on the market...
It's caught on so well with friends, that they help themselves as soon as they arrive at our house and a few of them are now also making their own yogurt!
On sale Greek yogurt is about $1 a portion I'm making it for about 2/3 less by making it myself!
The yogurt one is a little misleading because there's the disconnect connect between what gets promoted as "great yogurt" by people in the know, and what takes up most of the space in a typical grocery store in the US.
Real yogurt is one of only a handful of diary products I'll touch regularly. I don't think it's over-hyped so much as the "yogurt-like products" on the shelves are mislabeled.
I don't eat soy and avoid products that have soy as an ingredient. I do not eat fake anything, especially meat and do not eat protein, energy, breakfast or any other pre-processed fast food bar.
I eat my eggs whole. They are from pastured hens and I buy them at the farmer's market. Really big, hard shells and the orangiest yolks you've ever seen. They cook up beautifully.
I do not use margarine or vegetable shortening. I use butter or lard.
I will use wheat flour for my bread but also add wheat germ. I use barley, lentils and beans in my soups.
I don't use low-fat anything because that often translates into high sodium. Likewise low salt may mean higher fat content. Most usually have HFCS too. So...I don't buy them. I make my own using olive oil.
I like juice, but usually cut it with carbonated water or just have a small glass.
I eat bananas for the potassium.
Yes, if you process soy "into oblivion" it can be bad for you. Same goes for food ingredient. But, there is nothing wrong with soy beans, miso, tempeh, tofu etc. (as you stated). In fact, these things are quite good for you. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to have stated "Processed Soy" on this list, instead of all soy being shunned.
And as with soy (or any food really) not all "fake meat" is made equal. Take Field Roast for example. It's ingredients are basically wheat, vegetables, grains, spices. Even Tofurky sausages are pretty healthy. Again, tofu, wheat, vegetables and spices. Certainly, I'd expect these products to be much healthier than the high fat, high cholesterol, nutritionally devoid salt bombs that you'll find on so many grills here in the US.
So actually, the more processed soy is, the less bad for you it is. Good luck eating raw soy...
Fun with math.
Sure meat-eaters eat meat substitutes for a variety of reasons...but those of us who eat them as a source of protein (because we won't eat meat) would rather have seen suggestions we would actually eat. There are plenty of plant based proteins that are healthier than both real meat and meat substitutes (at least a mention would be nice).