15 Food you thought were healthy but actually aren’t!

Digestive problems troubling you even after eating healthy foods on a daily basis? You must be mistaken if you think junk foods only mean greasy fries or a burger. You might be eating junk which is packaged to make us think that we are eating something nutritious and healthy. 

We think healthy foods should be ‘no fats’, ‘organic’, or ‘no sugar added’. There are several ‘healthy’ foods out there that you should stop eating at once or stop considering them as the ideal healthy food items. Avoiding these foods can help you prevent a lot of disorders later in your life and actually enhance your overall health. 

Foods That Are Tagged Healthy But Actually Are Not

1. Energy bars
   

   
   The protein or energy bars that you munch on during breaks to boost up your energy level contain tons of calories and sugar. The ingredients of these energy bars include Chocolate, sugar, syrup, and sweetened granola. Some of the protein bar’s nutrition similar to that of a candy bar. So next time, you feel like having a protein or energy bar, have a look at the nutrition facts and ingredients list.

2. Diet soda
   

   
   Diet sodas are worse than normal sodas. They fool the body into thinking that you are eating real food and spikes insulin production in the body. But when the whole sugar is not metabolized, it gets stored as fat. Hence, drinking too much diet soda increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes, etc.

   Also Read: Foods To Eat And Avoid In Case Of Cough

3. Flavored cereals

   
   Flavored cereals don’t do any justice to your health. These flavored packets of cereals such as oatmeals contain too much-added sugars. Therefore, it means too many unnecessary calories. Steel-cut oats provide long-lasting energy, help to shed some extra kilos and reduce the risk of heart diseases.

4. Dried fruits

   
   These contain a lot of essential nutrients hence, they are considered as healthy. But the associated sugar, calories, and carbohydrates outweigh the number of healthy nutrients. These are small and dried, hence you tend to eat them more than required. One pack of raisins and almost 1.5 cups of grapes contain the same amount of sugar.

5. Energy drinks

   
   Energy drinks are nothing but sugar water mixed with added colors. These are considered as healthy as they contain electrolytes. You can restore electrolytes by simply consuming natural drinks and foods such as coconut water and bananas. Sports drinks contain empty calories which lead to weight gain and tooth decay.

6. Frozen yogurt

   
   Two scoops of frozen yogurt contain 400 calories and 76 grams of sugar. Although considered as a probiotic, this is worse than the regular yogurt. The amount of calories increases when we add sugar syrup and floss candy to the yogurt to make it more flavorsome. Extreme cold decreases the number of probiotics present in regular yogurt when it is frozen.

   Also Read: What Common things can Make you Gassy?

7. Skim milk

   
   When you think that drinking skim milk helps to get rid of fat, you forget that you are also skipping on essential vitamins. Often skim milk is mixed with synthetic vitamins to make up for the protein and calcium lost in processing. So there is no reason to devoid yourself of essential nutrients by avoiding skim milk.

   Also Read: Is Milk Good for Piles?

8. Margarine

   
   People wanting to lose fat consume margarine instead of butter. It has less saturated fats than normal butter as these are made of vegetable oils instead of animal fats. Not only essential nutrients are removed, but also synthetic vitamins and colors are added.

9. Processed baked foods

   
   Let’s make one thing clear. Eating baked chips is not the same as eating vegetables. The moment the vegetables or fruits are processed and baked, it loses all-important vitamins and plant nutrients. These are the same in terms of fat and calories as regular chips

   Also Read: How Dangerous are Processed Foods?

10. Vegetable chips 

    
    Packaged into fooling you as healthy and nutritious, vegetable chips are no different than normal chips. These destroy the nutrients as soon as they are baked or processed. These also contain preservatives to increase their shelf life. All these factors make vegetable chips ‘unhealthy’.

11. Salad dressing

    
    Sometimes you choose a bowl of salad in place of that tasty burger in the hope to eat healthily. But the dressings on that salad are packed with unnecessary fat and calories. They are made of artificial flavors and added preservatives. Rather than buying salad dressings, prepare your own dressings at home.

12. Gluten-free foods

    
    Gluten-free foods are harmful for the body. To replace the gluten, far more inferior products such as rice, potato are used. They have almost no nutritional level and you are far more. These foods also use more sugar than required to make up for the taste.

13. Fruit juices

    
    Your daily breakfast meal should include a tall glass of orange juice. But we often forget about the amount of added sugar found in these packaged bottles of juices. Additionally, the fruits lose their fiber-content when their juices extracted and processed. These packaged juices contain added flavors and additives which are harmful to the body.

14. Low-fat pasta

    
    These are made of white flour and have a one-half cup of vegetables in every serving. Excessive consumption of white flour can give rise to various digestive disorders. Also, to get one cup of vegetables, you double the amount of sugar and carbohydrates. So it’s more prudent to consume whole wheat pasta in the first place with a lot of veggies.

    Also Read: 5 Foods To Avoid When You Have Gallstones

15. Wraps

    
    A 12-inch wrap contains twice the amount of calories as plain old bread. As discussed above, they contain salad dressings that are ‘not’ healthy. They also contain additional coloring and flavoring. The meat used might not be fresh. Do you still think your ‘healthy’ wraps are still healthy?

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