'Healthy' foods that arent

Funsoaps

What bugs the CRUD out of me is if you are in the hospital for any reason, they serve you CRAP food. Jello (hello sugar, dyes, preservatives, not a real food, artificial sweeteners).

My son who has MULTIPLE food intolerances, he had to get surgeries for chronic ear and sinus infections (ear tubes, adenoids, tonsils) and the first UNHEALTHY thing they give him is a bunch of orange and red popscicles. Really? He's allergic to the dyes, and mildly to sugar. He was supposed to be resting and he was bouncing off walls. You couldn't take 100% apple juice, freeze it a little and give it mushed up in a cup, it has to be dye-laden sugar chemicals?

Chicken fried steak (fried in hydrogenated oils, filled with antibiotics/hormones, high sodium).

Even if you were to say you were a diabetic or on a diet, this is what their dieticians and nutritionalists, cooks/chefs and staff come up with. Even after you have heart surgery, they give you like a giant burger (WTH?)

BlowYourMind

Skim milk scares me as much as diet soda.

Unsweetened almond milk is like infinitely better in my opinion

bf43005

Kashi foods. All theirs ads are about how all natural and healthy they are but not so much.

rainydaze613

When I tried to diet in the past, I thought that super lowcal bread was the healthiest choice. Like, Sara Lee's 45 calories & delightful crap, even though it was full of high fructose corn syrup and other processed ingredients. I thought brands like Skinny Cow and Special K and Dannon or Yoplait yogurt was healthy... but now I know that I would rather pick organic brands if I wanted conventional food like that. Even if they had more calories. And that eating proper whole foods is the best way to go. And that neither carbs, calories, fat content, or natural sugars are the ones to fear. Sure, you should monitor them, but the ingredients in a food are essentially the most important.
I also remember a time when I used to think everything marked "sugarfree" was healthy, and that fruit2o was healthy. And 100 calorie packs.. ah, the days of naive youth.

mogriff1

- dried fruit
- nuts
- meat

I remember when I was a kid, my parents would encourage me to eat bread and cheese, yeah it's good for you. Ummm what?!?!? Ever since I have eliminated MOST of the cheese/bread from my diet, I have felt better and lost weight. Gah! I also used to think meat was good for you ... HAH ... now I don't eat any meat at all!

This is a great example of the fact that everyone has a different perpective on what is healthy.
Most people will argue that nuts are very good for (excluding allergies of course), you just have to pay attention to portion size as they are high in calories for a fairly small quantify. That doesn't make them bad though,.
And meat has lots of protein and iron which are very good for you, so again, most people would consider it healthy in reasonable portions. I guess that one depends on whether you fall into the "saturated fat is bad" camp or not.
Dried fruits - yes, I think that is an easy trap, so many of them have added sugar and preservatives and while they aren't bad in small amounts its very easy to eat much more than you would of fresh fruit. I don't think they are actually bad for you though, they are a great source of fibre which some people find hard to get.

Frankly, I think it is practically impossible to know what is truly healthy these days - for every point of view you can find the opposing arguement. I think we just each have to find out own personal eating philosophy and accept that other people may not agree.
As an example, my interpretation of healthy eating means "lots of fruit and veggies, whole grain carbs, lean meat, fish and chicken; treats in moderation, not too much processed stuff (which for me means: made in a factory, added fillers, sugars, preservatives etc), alcohol in moderation".
Other people will argue until the day they die that carbs of any kind are death on a plate, that fruit sugar makes you fat, red meat will kill you etc. Not wrong, necessarily, just different!

I totally agree with this point of view...including the mention of alchohol... I'm speaking of Red wine, which has many beneficial properties , ie antioxidents, resveratrol, heart healthy and cholesterol lowering capabilities (of course in moderation).

jesscod

Well, I have read just about every post here. What I see is that it is not the kinds of foods that are unhealthy but more precisely the brands. A salad is a salad is a salad. It is the dressing that kills you.
Fat and sugars are not necessarily unhealthy, in fact some fats are good for you such as those in nuts and certain veggies. Most yogurts such as dannon and yoplait are very high in sugar and have little nutritional value compared to good yogurt such as plain chobani. Again- Brand.

A simple rule is this; If it is processed it probably is not health food.

Where does Whey protein powder fit in there? Its processed...

EnchantedEvening

I'm going to facepalm myself to death the next time I hear about people cutting down their fruit intake because fruit has "sugar".

Fruit has FRUCTOSE, which is not a bad sugar! It is not the same as table sugar, and your body processes it a completely different way (i.e. the healthy way).

Eat your fruit, people. Eat it and enjoy it.

wingednotes

Preparing food in oil. I used to saute veggies in a pan of olive oil thinking it was healthy. All of the oil got soaked in to the veggies. So I was actually eating about a 1/4 cup of olive oil. (477 cals)

danajones1900

I always thought soy milk was healthy

bm99

A lot of people have "unhealthy " and "high calorie" mixed up. They are not interchangeable!

spazofthedead

A lot of people have "unhealthy " and "high calorie" mixed up. They are not interchangeable!

I agree with this. I'm going through the pages frowning a little because my diet consists of a lot of the things people are saying are unhealthy. My diet is high fat, high protein, moderate carbs and I love things like eggs, bacon, beef, 2% milk, peanut butter and cheese and eat them on a regular basis. I feel great and am still losing weight.

If you can fit something into your daily macros and calorie count, then go right ahead.

Melampus

The protein bar and shake racket I think is disgraceful. My friend practically lives on bars and shakes and she's been trying for years to shove them down my throat. She drinks a shake for breakfast, might eat a salad for lunch and a shake or some bar for dinner, and a bar for snack. While I'm not against shakes for a quick meal that you have to get in, I do not want to exist purely on shakes and bars, I like food and the taste of it. I used to keep larabars in my desk at work, in case I wasn't able to eat breakfast, and I do have a low sugar protein powder at home for the same reason. But to live entire on shakes and bars, yuck! and a lot of them are so loaded with sugar.

Fiber One bars are the scariest looking ingredients and they make one...ummm gaseous.

Seeing some of the things people have done in the name of dieting is what has delayed me starting the diet I am now on for far too long. For me the list of strange things include substituting shakes or bars for meals, eating tiny ready meals and working in some strange, proprietary measurement system.

Someone at work mentioned that he had been dieting with the aid of a web-based tool and that gave me the push to try it. So far I am still eating what I call "real food" but with the knowledge gained from tracking on here of what are sensible sized portions and which food are not necessary unhealthy per se but which are calorie dense and therefore need particular attention not to eat too much.

In that respect, back to the original question I was surprised to discover how calorie dense breakfast cereal and bread are. I don't go as far as to condemn these as unhealthy but it is easy to over eat them. Whole wheat cereal and bread have been promoted as being healthy though that is really compared to the highly refined wheat version and because many people do not eat enough fibre.

I don't think I have stumbled upon anything that turned out to be healthier than I thought it would be.

kayemme

Smoothies! They CAN be healthy but often aren't, and lots of people suck down a 500 calorie smoothie as a snack!

This is why I make my own Homemade tastes so much better!

true that! I have a green smoothie every morning; considerably under 200cals/pt full of green goodness.

kayemme

I hate how many calories are in pulses like quinoa. Very healthy but stacking in cals and obviously carbs

quinoa is probably one of the best grains a person could eat. and i don't recall it having THAT many calories... one source reports 222 per CUP.. i mean, a cup of quinoa is a freaking TON of quinoa...

plus per cup it has 5g of fiber and 8g of protein... it's a regular bargain!

fitspobro

Whattt? Why not? I always eat granola with my yogurt! o:

cydonian

Diet soda
Most low fat items
Protein/cereal bars
Most Kellogg/Kashi/Overprocessed sweet cereals
Yoplait yogurt
Those disgusting bags of fruit and yogurt in the frozen section
Most frozen vegetables -- I've found a brand that has nothing added but many of the big name brands have sugar, salt, etc.
Pop tarts (BLEH!!!)

kayemme

Soy/tofu/soy milk touted as a health food, soy protein, soy protein bars, etc. Yeah, hello, slows metabolism, stops thyroid hormone from absorbing iodine which then slows your thyroid and messes with your hormones, NO THANKS.

as I understand it, fermented soy (tofu) is actually very healthful, but for reasons you've mentioned should be kept at a reasonable level. the problem with soy isn't so much the soy itself, but the fact that soy is in nearly every processed food (ubiquitously like corn) people eat more soy than they ever realize. Further, soy, again like corn, is one of the 4 major GMO crops. Fermented soy in a whole-foods diet can be quite good for you (kind of like probiotics in yogurt) but in the same respect, one probably wouldn't want to unassumingly eat yogurt in every meal.

Cereal...there really isn't a cereal out there that IS healthy for you. Yummy and will fill you up for a minute, yes. Sugary, yes, even granola is way too high carbohydrate/high sugar for the amount you get to eat.

Agreed; even my homemade granola (which is very healthful and delicious) is quite high in sugar. I restrict myself to less than a half-cup a day. The nice thing about homemade granola, however, is you can really reduce the sugar and add all kinds of great seeds and nuts that you simply cannot buy prepared. My go-to granola has cranberries, dates, almonds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, coconut, honey & oats and it is extremely satisfying when topping my homemade probiotic yogurt. I have come home ravenous from work, had a half-cup of yogurt with a quarter-cup of granola and been fully satisfied until dinner. So it's all in the mix, you know?

Oishii

In the UK the worst 'healthy' con is the Organix brand of snacks. Yes they have no sugar or salt, but they also have no fibre, no flavour and not enough essential nutrients. I relied on them far too much and I suspect this contributed to the constipation that led to my son's rectal prolapse

dreicino

I totally agree. While I am brand new to these boards...I have noticed that those called "healthy foods" are filled with hiddens such as salt. If I order a salad, I try to order only a "half" salad, or I divide it into 2 meals. I do not devour the salad in one sitting. I also hold all dressings. I keep to homemade evoo and vinegar and pepper (instead of salt). I don't like a drippy salad, but if it's too dry, then I just squeeze the tomatoes.