Things disguised as healthy...

[marshmallowmamma]

A light hearted post but what are some things that are portrayed as healthy but aren't really ? My list is as follows...

Flavoured water
Most yoghurts
Yoghurt coated raisins
Most cereals
Fruit juices

Obviously we need to live a little but give us some that yiu think are purely just marketed to reel us in

@Motorina i was looking at the apple and lemon one. But I think the citrus/rosemary and the cucumber/mint are also without any sugar.

I don't like them because of the acid content from the citrus fruits though, I don't think that's good for the teeth to drink regularly. But I'd rather my DC have that as a treat drink than a coke or whatever. Also not a fan of constant fizzy water for the same reason.

It irritated me when a pp said rice has "no nutritional value". Over half the world's population rely on it as a staple food and have done for thousands of years, mostly without becoming diabetic or obese. It's a huge part of my mother's culture. In her language the word "meal" means "rice". They have a single word for "food that isn't rice, that you eat with rice".

We love rice. No one in my mother's extended family is diabetic or obese, or have any diet related health problems. On my dad's side (European, drink a lot of wine), they have obesity, high blood pressure, and many more diet related problems.

Rice is fab. And most of the world's population would agree with me on this

Tbh, apart from the phosphoric acid, it is to similar in terms of health to be something that should be ignored.

And people.dont have to decide to just drink coke and eat coco pops. They could actually looking into what they are eating and eat actual healthy choices...

There is so much misleading information on this thread. Read the back of the package! Surely it's obvious that banana chips, like potato chips, are fried in oil, it's dried banana strips that are desicated. Don't make a habit of eating dried fruit as you will eat more of it than if it were fresh. Don't buy flavoured yoghurt, use plain and add some chopped fruit. Smoothies are not necessarily unhealthy, just make your own and don't buy the commercial ones. A kale, lemon, ginger, apple one isn't stuffed with sugar. If rice had 0 nutritional value why is it a diet staple in so many countries? No food is intrinsically bad and as others have said, it's a question of balance. It's also knowing what's in commercially prepared foods.

I’m not sure but I reckon some of the frozen Slimming World stuff ( free food). I guess people buy the meals because they’re convenient but they could easily be made from scratch without all the preservatives etc. I really don’t understand why dieters buy Slimming World chips. Just get ordinary oven chips & eat less or make your own chips, wedges with skin on etc.

Agree with the fake vegan "meats". Can't believe people fall for it. I was watching a documentary on the famine in North Korea...they use soy bean oil to make a fake meat. Helped them get through the times when they're actually starving. And here in developed countries we are willingly eating something which others only eat during a famine. Absolutely unbelievable. Have a piece of grass fed steak topped with an egg. Will be much better for you!

If rice had 0 nutritional value why is it a diet staple in so many countries?

Because its in abundance and cheap.

Because carbs provide a quick release of energy.

Because people need to use fat or carbs as fuel for our bodies. Fat is the better option. Our bodies need fat. Our bodies also make the level of glucose that we need. We don't need to add to it.

Yes diets around the world are overwhelmingly based on carbs...it's a cheap and efficient way to keep a population fed. It's not necessarily the best nutritionally but it's better than mass starvation

*TheGetaway · 16/05/2022 07:08
There’s some fairly warped ideas on this thread. I think many people become confused with healthy and high calorie.

Just because a food is high in calories does not mean it’s unhealthy.

Your lifestyle and diet as a whole is also key

I’m waiting for the brown rice is unhealthy explanation …..*

This.

I thought skimmed or semi skimmed milk was just lower fat. What do they do to process it? I can't cope with full fat milk so a bit worried.

Why is it better than going to school empty? As a teen I found eating the morning difficult (no eating disorder) so didn't eat until lunch. When my mum did force something on me, I didn't go to school "fuelled up" I went with tummy ache and feeling sick making it harder to concentrate. By forcing food on people you're stopping them listening to their natural hunger cues.

I know this is intended to be a light-heartened thread but the amount of misinformation is irksome to say the least.

Rice. 0 Nutritional value.

Only if you think carbs have no nutritional value, which they obviously do. For anyone interested, there's a much more informative explanation about rice as a foodstuff here www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318699#benefits-of-brown-rice

Don't live on rice alone. But don't write it off either. Just have it as part of a balanced diet. Stop obsessing about calories - they are not all the same. Eat foods that are as little processed as possible. Tailor your diet for you, don't binge on any one thing. And do some research. And during that research don't listen to whatever bollocks Weight Watchers et all come up with. If their diets worked, they wouldn't have repeat customers. They do.

I don't understand the demonisation of full fat milk. It's much nicer and still technically a low fat food I think at 4% fat?

@MigsandTiggs I don't really think high calorie food is necessarily bad, it's the high sugar content that low fat/diet 'healthy' foods that are laden with bad additives then marketed in a way to draw us in. For example real butter is high calorie but it's far better than low calorie cereal bars.

Some of the information on here is very misleading.

A healthy diet can absolutely contain sugar, unless there is a reason you have been told to control intake of it due to diabetes etc. And also fat. Neither of these is ‘responsible’ for obesity in the correct amounts.

Over processed foods tend to be much less healthy than less processed foods. So a diet high in vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, plant protein, eggs, Greek yogurt, olive oil, fish etc is very healthy (if your overall lifestyle is healthy and you’re not hugely over consuming things). One that is full of cereal bars, protein shakes, smoothies, processed cereal is not.

It’s absolutely fine to eat a little bit of chocolate, have a packet of crisps every now and again, or have a smoothie when you fancy one.

Variety, moderation and common sense and trying to enjoy both food and exercise (and life) are key to a healthy life. And mostly consistency- veg at every meal, daily exercise of some sort.

I think the confusion often comes when people have got very overweight in the first place and have a really unhappy relationship with food, and are looking for some epiphany about what to do, whereas actually the reality is really boring.

On a slight tangent, has anyone noticed that the supermarkets charge more for the rice cakes labelled 'gluten free'? Even though they are identical to regular rice cakes!

@orbitalcrisis are you serious? I hate when supermarkets do this!!!

Margarine
Artificial sweetener
Over-processed vegan food
Meal substitutes
"Fake" anything
Too much of anything
Food marketed as "diet food"

The greater the number of steps away from the sun, the more unhealthy it is.

Different people have different nutritional needs but the problem is that "healthy" is a fairly meaningless description in isolation WRT marketing.

A smoothie will have more nutrients than a glass of Coke... but the piece of fruit will fill you up and metabilise better because your body has the fibre to process too. A smoothie is not BAD and has some nutritional value, but is not as "healthy" as the marketing people would have you believe. An occasional smoothie is no issue. Regularly having lots of smoothies because they're "healthy"

I drink full sugar soft drinks. Because I know that sugar is "unhealthy" I moderate how much I have and stay of healthy proportions. My "healthy" drink is water. The people I know who drink the "healthier" low-calorie diet drinks drink a lot more of them. That's not much good for insulin response and appetite control.

Eat a variety of food in the most natural form possible and eat moderate quanities; in the absence of specific health concerns, it serves most people well.

This sums it up well

Marmite hummus 😱
I don't about healthy or not but that is total sacrilege! Why on god's good earth??

Genuinely, smaller portions but still having a bit of every kind of food, is the only thing that's helped me lose weight, so this is quite helpful to me! Except the bit about it costing the same as bigger bars - can't stand that.

I know i could just weigh it out but sometimes convenience helps...

Not all vegan meats are created equal.
My daughter is vegan so we end up buying quite a bit of vegan meats. I look carefully at my macros so look at the carb/protein/fat composition and some of them are very good in protein content and very tasty as well.

Some of us don't want to eat meat for many other reasons and the fake meats can be an important protein source.

Exactly healthy does not have to mean low calorie but what nutritional value a food has.

@notacooldad
Smoothies is a weird one, especially feeding them to kids. I love a smoothie but it's just sugar again, it's not the same thing as eating an actual piece of fruit
I dont see anything wrong with giving a smoothie to a teenager who won't eat breakfast. I made mine with full fat Greek yogurt, Avocado, spinach, chai seeds or flax seeds, banana and water. It was better than goi g to school empty.

That's hardly the equivalent of a smoothie in the shops, is it?
Innocent Smoothie- 11% sugar. This is high sugar (dieticians class anything over 5% as high) Innocent smoothie

You're just blending what someone else could put into a bowl

Greek yoghurt
banana
avocado
spinach
seeds
water