Wholesome food is not always healthier than processed food?
mynameiscarrie
Posts: 963 Member
I found this article today. Now, it is written by SHAPE, whose opinion I usually take with a grain of salt, but I think they make a good point about the fads and buzzwords of today's health industry. Thoughts?
The article URL is at the bottom if you'd rather read it from the website...
Q: Are wholesome (natural, local, etc) foods healthier than processed foods?
A: This might sounds sacrilegious, but processing doesn’t innately make a food bad and just because something is local doesn’t mean that it will help you lose weight. (The Amish desserts at my local farmer’s market make the McDonald’s menu look slimming.)
Sure high fructose corn syrup is bad for you, but if you replaced all the high fructose corn syrup in the American food supply with organic cane sugar, would we be that much better off? No.
We are often seduced by health buzzwords such as “raw,” “unprocessed,” “natural,” “organic,” and “gluten-free.” But just as the old buzzwords (“cholesterol-free,” “low-fat,” “fat-free,” “saturated fat-free”) misled people to eat foods that were packed with refined sugars and carbohydrates, today’s new health buzzwords have convinced people to completely disregard the fat and calorie contents of foods as long as they have one (or more) of these claims on the label.
Calories Are Key
If you want to lose weight, the first thing you need to focus on is calories. But a calorie is not a calorie and eating 200 calories from a piece of sirloin compared to a glass of cola is different. So the second most important thing to consider is the macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats).
After these two, there are a lot of secondary factors such as:
organic or conventional
level of processing
potential allergens (i.e. gluten, casein, soy, etc)
natural ingredients or synthetic ingredients
More and more I am seeing people put secondary factors before primary factors—and this is a mistake. If you choose to eat a bag of chips from the farmers market that was made from organic potatoes and deep-fried in beef tallow over a bag of chips from the vending machine, don’t puff up your chest too much about the wholesome unprocessed foods that you are eating as you are still eating potato chips.
This kind of rationalization is most prevalent in the gluten-free world. Gluten-free sweets and desserts are pitched as having a halo-of-health around them due to the absence of an all-natural protein called gluten. Here’s the thing about gluten-free sweets and desserts (I’m telling you this out of more than eight years of practical experience in the gluten-free world plus my experience as a nutritionist): They are most expensive, they don’t taste nearly as good, and they contain more refined fast-acting carbohydrates than their average non-gluten counterpart food. Gluten-free does not equal healthy.
Picking the local/organic/natural version of comparable foods is usually the better choice. Eating locally grown organic spinach is going to be a better choice than non-organic spinach shipped from Guatemala. But skipping the non-organic non-local spinach salad because of its origins and then opting for the 600-calorie slice of raw, vegan, organic pumpkin pie made in the restaurant's kitchen because it is wholesome is not the smart move.
Keep your diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. Buying wholesome foods is great, but don’t let any of the new health buzzwords lead you away from the fact that calories matter.
http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/ask-diet-doctor-wholesome-food-healthier-processed-food#072313
The article URL is at the bottom if you'd rather read it from the website...
Q: Are wholesome (natural, local, etc) foods healthier than processed foods?
A: This might sounds sacrilegious, but processing doesn’t innately make a food bad and just because something is local doesn’t mean that it will help you lose weight. (The Amish desserts at my local farmer’s market make the McDonald’s menu look slimming.)
Sure high fructose corn syrup is bad for you, but if you replaced all the high fructose corn syrup in the American food supply with organic cane sugar, would we be that much better off? No.
We are often seduced by health buzzwords such as “raw,” “unprocessed,” “natural,” “organic,” and “gluten-free.” But just as the old buzzwords (“cholesterol-free,” “low-fat,” “fat-free,” “saturated fat-free”) misled people to eat foods that were packed with refined sugars and carbohydrates, today’s new health buzzwords have convinced people to completely disregard the fat and calorie contents of foods as long as they have one (or more) of these claims on the label.
Calories Are Key
If you want to lose weight, the first thing you need to focus on is calories. But a calorie is not a calorie and eating 200 calories from a piece of sirloin compared to a glass of cola is different. So the second most important thing to consider is the macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats).
After these two, there are a lot of secondary factors such as:
organic or conventional
level of processing
potential allergens (i.e. gluten, casein, soy, etc)
natural ingredients or synthetic ingredients
More and more I am seeing people put secondary factors before primary factors—and this is a mistake. If you choose to eat a bag of chips from the farmers market that was made from organic potatoes and deep-fried in beef tallow over a bag of chips from the vending machine, don’t puff up your chest too much about the wholesome unprocessed foods that you are eating as you are still eating potato chips.
This kind of rationalization is most prevalent in the gluten-free world. Gluten-free sweets and desserts are pitched as having a halo-of-health around them due to the absence of an all-natural protein called gluten. Here’s the thing about gluten-free sweets and desserts (I’m telling you this out of more than eight years of practical experience in the gluten-free world plus my experience as a nutritionist): They are most expensive, they don’t taste nearly as good, and they contain more refined fast-acting carbohydrates than their average non-gluten counterpart food. Gluten-free does not equal healthy.
Picking the local/organic/natural version of comparable foods is usually the better choice. Eating locally grown organic spinach is going to be a better choice than non-organic spinach shipped from Guatemala. But skipping the non-organic non-local spinach salad because of its origins and then opting for the 600-calorie slice of raw, vegan, organic pumpkin pie made in the restaurant's kitchen because it is wholesome is not the smart move.
Keep your diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. Buying wholesome foods is great, but don’t let any of the new health buzzwords lead you away from the fact that calories matter.
http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/ask-diet-doctor-wholesome-food-healthier-processed-food#072313
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Replies
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I also take articles in SHAPE with a grain of salt. Some are good, some are nonsense. This one seems like common sense, what should be common sense but seems to be less common every day.0
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I get what the author is going for here, but the problem with this article is that it leaves out way too many variables and tries to combine way too many concepts. Local. Organic. Unprocessed. Gluten free. Natural. Wholesome. Raw. All of these are completely different concepts and each one warrants its own discussion and analysis.
It also kind of contradicts itself. Its thesis is that processing is not necessarily a bad thing, but then it starts arguing against gluten-free. Removing gluten is a type of processing.
Omitted from the article is the fact that many people choose organic, raw, local, etc. options for reasons other than personal nutrition.
Lastly, the author injected opinion. (Leave out the commentary on taste.)
I think it’s a great premise to discourage folks from being swayed by media buzzwords and encourage them to use their brains, but they should have simply said that. By trying to support their argument with inconsistencies, personal opinion, and too many complex concepts, the focus, and thus the point, is lost.
(Ok. I admit I have been grading way too many term papers this semester. :ohwell: )0 -
Keep your diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. Buying wholesome foods is great, but don’t let any of the new health buzzwords lead you away from the fact that calories matter.
This should be your take away.0 -
I wanna respond with.. "duh"
I choose to eat the way I do for personal reasons..
BUT i'm not dumb enough to think that ill lose simply by choosing organic whole raw foods over processed. It's still all about calories.
The rest is just dumb and honestly.. a bit confusing. Those amish dessets referenced are probably healthier for you then Mcdonalds, but not lower in calories, so therefore not "slimming" ..0 -
Keep your diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. Buying wholesome foods is great, but don’t let any of the new health buzzwords lead you away from the fact that calories matter.
This should be your take away.
Agreed0 -
Keep your diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. Buying wholesome foods is great, but don’t let any of the new health buzzwords lead you away from the fact that calories matter.
This should be your take away.
Agreed
This is what I was thinking too, which was mainly the reason I posted it. I'm just glad to read an article (even though the source is flimsy) that points out how buzzword foods aren't always what they've cracked up to be!0
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