10 “Healthy” Foods That You Shouldn’t Eat
Companies in the food industry are experts of deception. They slap clever wording on their labels like “low fat,” “natural,” or “heart-healthy” to make you believe their product is a healthy choice. But the sad truth is, many foods you find in the grocery store that are advertised as healthy are nothing of the sort.
This makes it exceptionally confusing and difficult for the average person to determine the difference between truly healthy food and a marketing gimmick. To sort out fact from fiction, here are 10 popular “healthy foods” that are, in actuality, horrible for your health.
1. Diet or Zero Calorie Soda
Diet sodas are a popular choice among people who want soda without gaining weight from all the sugar normal soft drinks contain. Unfortunately, zero-calorie sodas are just another marketing trick—there’s nothing healthy or “diet” about them.
Even though they contain artificial sweeteners to lower the sugar content and have “diet” in their name, research shows that diet sodas can cause you to gain weight (1).
This could be because artificial sweeteners encourage sugar cravings (2). They also trick the brain into expecting something sweet, causing a spike in insulin (3). Animal studies also suggest that artificial sweeteners change the gut microbiome to promote obesity (4). These three effects create the perfect recipe for weight gain.
2. Refined Vegetable Oils
Processed vegetable oils like canola, soy, and corn oil are not healthy despite what Big Food companies tell you. Many are GMO or genetically modified to withstand multiple toxic weed killer glyphosate applications, and these chemicals leave residues that get carried into countless foods.
These vegetable oils also go through a caustic refining process using toxic hexane and other chemical additives. This results in an oil that will readily oxidize and go rancid. These oils are also high in omega-6 fats, which can trigger inflammation in the body (5).
