Unhealthy-Healthy Eats

In this overweight driven era, food marketers try everything under the sun in order to promote their product as a healthy food option. “Reduced fat!” “Low sodium!” “20% less sugar!” All these phrases are put on the front of labels to catch the eye of the consumer. But not so fast: Although a lot of these foods are reduced fat, contain less sodium, or are 20% less sugar, companies have to make up for the lack of these ingredients in order to continue to produce a quality product. In many cases, when a food product says it has reduced fat, they contain higher levels of salt (sodium) to keep a relatively similar taste to the product that is not reduced fat. I am going to give you three examples of foods that are labeled has “healthier” options, but are in reality just as bad, if not worse for you.

• Reduced Fat Peanut Butter

The fats from peanut butter is a great nutrient that your body needs when consumed at a moderate level. That being said, in general, it’s not the worst thing for your health to just eat normal peanut butter. However, if you’re looking to buy the reduced fat kind, you’ll notice that the sugar levels spike way up in order to make up for less fat.

• Trail Mix

You may think that a small amount of assorted nuts is nice quick snack to have in-between meals. Although the nuts are a great snack, many store bought trail mixes either are made with different kind of chocolate candies, deep fried banana chips, or yogurt covered raisins. As you may have guessed, none of those are very healthy for you. Your best bet is to make your own trail mix with plain, dry roasted nuts.

• Packaged Turkey

Turkey is a great, lean protein source to put on any kind of lunch sandwich. The problem arises, however, in the packaging part. Many producers have to load up packaged meat with salt in order to keep the meat fresh for the longest period of time. In order to escape eating sodium meat, stop at the local deli and pick up some fresh cut turkey.

It’s important to keep in mind, that these are just a few examples of “healthy” foods that turn out not to be so great for you. Before you fall into any marketing traps, a great way to find out whether your dish is healthy or not, is to simply just educate yourself with the nutrition facts listed on the back. Those numbers will NOT lie to you. For more examples of unhealthy, healthy eats, check out this website: http://www.rd.com/health/healthy-eating/unhealthy-foods/

|Don’t forget about the little things in life. They tend to have a BIG impact|

-Tyler Kloss

Tags: Unhealthy eats, healthy options