Tuesday, March 4, 2014

By James Spann


As we try to make proper food choices for our daily meals, we must always be aware of nutritional myths. Their prevalence on the internet, and other types of media, makes it very difficult to discern what's true, and what not true. Eating low-fat foods because they are better for you, is one instance. A food labeled "low fat" in the supermarket is usually synonymous with "loaded with salt and useless carbohydrates." For example, consider Smucker's Reduced Fat Peanut Butter. Smucker's added a quick-digesting carbohydrate called maltodextrin to substitute for the fat it replaced. Maltodextrin contains more calories than the fat it replaced. That's not going to benefit your weight loss program.

Additional nutritional myths:

Sea salt is more beneficial to your health than regular table salt.

Based on a study taken by the American Heart Association, many individuals agree. Nevertheless, the statement is incorrect. Sea salt is not more beneficial to your health than regular table salt. Although they have different origins and taste, both are composed of the same two elements, sodium and chlorine.

Drinking red wine is good for the cardiovascular system, including the heart.

It is true that milk chocolate - which contains a lot of sugar - is bad for you. However, dark chocolate, contains cocoa, a plant-based food replete with flavonoids that increase blood flow and release feel-good endorphins. Plus, it contains a healthy kind of saturated fat called stearic acid, which research has shown can increase your good HDL cholesterol. But, keep in mind that moderation is the key. Eating too much dark chocolate, like anything else, is not very beneficial to you.

Ingesting eggs for breakfast is bad for your heart.

Eggs do contain a significant quantity of cholesterol in their yolks. You will find 210 milligrams of cholesterol in a large size egg. It is common knowledge that the cholesterol may add to blocked blood vessels and cardiovascular disease. However, a study has shown that the majority of healthy individuals could eat an egg every day with no difficulties. Why is this so? The cholesterol in eggs does not create an enormous impact on increasing our blood cholesterol. The principal heart-disease perpetrators are saturated and trans fats, which have a great effect on increasing blood cholesterol. A common egg has two grams of saturated fat and no trans fats. You must limit your cholesterol consumption to less than 300 milligrams daily. When you consume a large egg, you are only obtaining 10 % of this amount. Hence, a large egg a day is okay as long as you don't exceed that 300 mg of cholesterol in the rest of your daily meals.

Consuming bacon and sausage will certainly make you fat.

This statement is not always true. Foods high in fat do have cholesterol and saturated fats that are instrumental to having cardiovascular diseases. Nevertheless, calories from sugars-- not fatty foods-- are the major root cause of weight gain. Yes, bacon and sausage most certainly contain calories, yet not as many as carbohydrates - that are metabolized to form different types of simple sugars. These simple sugars are the primary sources of energy - calories - for our physical body.

So, what is the take home point? If you want to lose or keep from gaining a lot of weight, you should reduce your consumption of high-sugary foods, such as buttermilk pancakes with layers of mocha cream topped with chocolate and whipped cream. Instead of eating high-sugary carbohydrates, eat complex carbohydrates which are high in fiber and vital nutrients, such as broccoli, beans, spinach, and fruits.

If you are not sure whether a particular food practice is a nutritional myth or not, study it online. If you find that the habit or practice is a myth, praise yourself own becoming one of the many nutritional myth busters.




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