'Light' food products

nads1012
nads1012 Posts: 55
in Food and Nutrition
What do you think of them? I wanna watch my calories, but at the same time not put too much artifical crap in my body.
Do you substitute with 'light' products (margarine, sweetener, light yoghurt) or do you think they are bad for you?

What products do you particularly hate/ love.

Replies

  • pastryari
    pastryari Posts: 8,646 Member
    I don't label foods "good" or "bad."

    What "artificial crap" specifically are you refering to?
  • jwdieter
    jwdieter Posts: 2,582 Member
    "Light" will tend to have a lower fat content, which may or may not be relevant to your needs. But it's important to look past front labels.
  • skullshank
    skullshank Posts: 4,323 Member
    i buy 93% lean ground beef, so i think i like beef light.
  • skylark94
    skylark94 Posts: 2,036 Member
    Many light or low fat products have added sugar for flavor, so you're really not getting anywhere.

    I prefer to eat the real thing, just a little less of it.
  • curly1980
    curly1980 Posts: 117 Member
    The only "light" foods I eat in nearly a daily basis are yoghurts, laughing cow cheese triangles, cereal bars and fat free vinigarette. I used to eat "light" everything but never felt full and once I started tracking I here I realised how much sugar I was consuming with these products. I know the light yoghurts I eat are high in sugar but I love them so I make them fit.

    Now I eat "normal" versions of foods but not as much as I used to. If I want cheese I have full fat, same with dressings, mayonnaise, butter and oils. I just make sure they fit and I have less than I used to.

    Some people love light/diet products and they work for them but they didnt work for me.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Many light or low fat products have added sugar for flavor, so you're really not getting anywhere.

    I prefer to eat the real thing, just a little less of it.

    This, but I still eat low fat cheese and yogurts (greek yogurt) because, well, they have less calories, and fill me up as much. I also avoid aspartame and splenda. Anything else, I don't buy low fat.
  • Seesawboomerang
    Seesawboomerang Posts: 296 Member
    IMO the fat's where the flavour is, in meat especially.
  • JTick
    JTick Posts: 2,131 Member
    It depends on my fat macro to hunger ratio. If I'm low on fat I try to eat full fat products, knowing I can't eat as much because of the fat calories. If I'm super hungry, I'll probably go for the lower calorie light product so that I can eat more. That is all it depends on...I give no thought to ""chemicals".
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,149 Member
    Depends on the sodium content.
  • NaurielR
    NaurielR Posts: 426 Member
    It depends on the food. I'm not worried about artificial ingredients. But reduced fat peanut butter is pointless (and even bad) because they take out the healthy fats and replace them with sugars. You're not getting a lower calorie product; you're getting a lower nutrition product for the same amount of calories. This is the case in a lot of instances (flavored yogurt and ice cream being other examples). If an item is marketed as 'light" but still has the same number of calories as the original, I'll go with the original.

    However, if the light product actually has significantly fewer calories than the original (plain yogurt, diet soda, sugar free pudding) I'll pick the light option over the regular version. I guess I'm lucky that I don't have very discerning tastes: often times I can't tell the difference between the light option and the regular. Fat free hidden valley ranch has 15 calories for 2 tablespoons. The regular ranch has 140. Could I tell the difference in a side by side tasting? Maybe. Is the fat free perfectly acceptable? Might I even say darn tasty? Yes. So of course I'm going to save those 125 calories so I can put another handful of cashews in my cereal.
  • mmipanda
    mmipanda Posts: 351 Member
    I used to eat loads of diet stuff. light cheese, yoghurt, diet coke, weightwatcher cakes, etc etc.

    I did tests with diet coke and found that I'd be painfully hungry 3hrs after drinking a can, but not hungry at all with water in the same time frame. So it was easy to cut out fizzy drinks, because the options were 1. consume weird fizzy sugar or 2. consume weird fizzy sugar-substitute that makes me hungry. What flavour is Coke anyway?


    Now I'm pretty firmly against it all. Its been difficult training myself to grab the full fat coconut cream instead of the light version though.

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