7 Health Food “Imposters” That Aren’t as Healthy as You Think
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There are quite a few wholesome superfoods, but there are also food items that seem healthy even although they are not. It is essential to watch out for these “imposters” that can be loaded with more sugar, energy, or other unpleasant surprises.
The actuality is that several of the “healthy” food items we eat are in fact unhealthy, even some of the so-identified as “superfoods.” These foodstuff acquire a foothold due to the fact of intelligent marketing and advertising campaigns, but if you search at the elements on the label, it is uncomplicated to see they aren’t as healthful as you could possibly imagine. The health and fitness positive aspects of these meals are overstated. Let us seem at a number of of the major offenders.

A lot of power bars are loaded with sugar and calories.
Electricity Bars
Electricity bars are basically just candy bars with excess protein and fiber included. They are made from artificial elements that you can’t pronounce, and lots of comprise tons of sugar and unwanted fat.
Outside of the question of whether power bars are very good for you (they are not), they don’t flavor superior either. Strength bars are a terrific way to get a carbohydrate boost, but really don’t flavor as excellent as the packaging would direct you to consider.
If you can not break up with electrical power bars, select properly. Glimpse for types with a limited ingredient record. The a lot more additives you see, significantly surplus sugar alcohols (sorbitol, maltitol), which can bring about gastric distress, the significantly less likely the bar warrants the ‘healthy’ moniker. Palm oils, soy protein isolate, and fillers are also red flags. Seem for ingredients you understand, such as darkish chocolate, nuts, seeds, and sea salt.

Veggie chips might sound nutritious, but they typically are not considerably much better than potato chips.
Veggie Chips
Veggie chips sound like a sweet deal. You are acquiring veggies in a deliciously crunchy variety not that diverse from your favorite potato chip. On the other hand, veggie chips might consist of little vegetable subject. Most veggie chips have much more potato starch or potato flour than veggies. They get their coloration from veggie powder fairly than sliced greens. In addition, the way they’re cooked and processed destroys quite a few of the nutritional vitamins and anti-oxidants in the greens they incorporate. If you really like veggie chips, make your personal kale chips at residence in the oven.
Vitamin-Fortified Cereals
You might think that breakfast cereals are a healthy alternative for breakfast. But numerous cereal brand names you see in the supermarkets are barely far better than sweet. Some breakfast cereals proudly proclaim on their labels they comprise extra nutritional vitamins and minerals. The artificial vitamins are there to make up for all the “good stuff” eradicated in the course of processing. It does not compensate for the lack of fiber and the abundance of sugar in these cereals. And breakfast cereals are only a single instance of a pervasive trouble: The foods sector is systematically changing the precise elements in food items with affordable substitutes and making use of marketing to convince men and women that they taste just as good.

When buying yogurt, choose unsweetened basic, in any other case, you can be having a lot of sugar.
Flavored Yogurt
If you’re consuming yogurt for its wellbeing positive aspects, choose for plain yogurt alternatively of flavored versions. If you can tolerate dairy, yogurt is still a fantastic resource of protein, B-nutritional vitamins, calcium, zinc, potassium, and magnesium. On the other hand, most of the yogurt in supermarkets is flavored and sweetened. Fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt has about as considerably sugar for each ounce as a candy bar. If you are heading to consume it, invest in simple yogurt and sweeten it on your own with authentic fruit.
Brown Rice
Brown rice is often promoted as much healthier than white rice. This is simply because brown rice has more fiber and nutrients than white rice, which has had its bran and germ removed.
Even so, a minor-known fact is that brown rice contains arsenic, a poisonous large steel. In accordance to Purchaser Reviews, brown rice has 80% more inorganic arsenic than white rice. The rice plant acts as a sponge, sucking arsenic from the soil and h2o. In point, brown rice is made up of additional arsenic than white rice for the reason that the arsenic accumulates in the hull of the grain.
You’d have to take in a lot of brown rice to practical experience ill consequences from arsenic, but why introduce unnecessary arsenic into your physique? It is the very long-time period consequences you should fear about. Change brown rice for quinoa, a small-arsenic seed that has some homes of brown rice and is even denser in nutrients.
If you will not give up brown rice, cut down your exposure to the arsenic in rice by rinsing it effectively, cooking it making use of further h2o, and draining the h2o prior to serving.
Researchers Uncover New Way of Cooking Rice That Gets rid of Arsenic and Retains Vitamins and minerals
Agave Syrup
In spite of its impression as a purely natural sweetener, agave syrup is not balanced at all. It is worse than sugar for the reason that it has extra fructose than substantial-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which has been linked to weight problems and many persistent diseases.
Even with clever promoting, agave syrup contains more fructose than any other solution on the marketplace, any place from 70-90%. Most desk sugar is 50% fructose. Honey is normally 40%. Substantial-fructose corn syrup varies concerning 55% and 90%. Agave syrup is in between 70% and 90% fructose, depending on who you inquire.
And even worse, agave syrup might comprise additional pesticides, mainly because agave plants take up anything in the soil close to them. So, until you buy organic agave syrup, it will probably comprise pesticides too.

Taking in full fruit is a much much healthier solution when compared to drink fruit juice.
Fruit Juice
As with virtually all the things in nutrition, the problem with fruit juice is that there can be far too a lot of a fantastic matter. Oranges incorporate a lot of sugar, but also fiber. Fiber slows the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream, which means that drinking a glass of orange juice will increase blood sugar more than feeding on an whole orange.
The added benefits of juice are limited-lived. A glass of orange juice at breakfast will give you a quick rush of power followed by an equally quick crash that leaves you hungry again quickly afterward, simply because there is no fiber to preserve your blood sugar amount constant.
This is true for all fruit juices. Complete fruit is healthier than any fruit in juice variety, since whole fruit retains the fiber. Do not give up fruit, but stop ingesting it and eat it entire instead.
The Bottom Line
Now you know what some of the most overrated wellbeing meals are and why you must stay away from them. With so numerous other balanced foods in the world, you really don’t need to have them.
References:
- ConsumerReports.org. “How a great deal arsenic is in your rice? Purchaser Reports’ new facts and pointers are significant for every person but primarily for gluten avoiders”
- “Veggie Chips: Are They Wholesome? | Foods Network Healthy ….” foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/healthier-guidelines/2011/10/veggie-chips-are-they-healthful.
- “What is Agave Syrup? – Food Insight.” 22 January 2021, https://foodinsight.org/what-is-agave-syrup/.
- “Agave Nectar: A Sweetener That’s Even Even worse Than Sugar?.” 25 June 2020, healthline.com/diet/agave-nectar-is-even-worse-than-sugar.