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Everyday Nutritional Myths

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 better than regular table salt.

The FDA has not made a diligent effort to regulate the use of the word "natural" on food labels. For example: 7UP claims that it's produced with "100% Natural Flavors" when, actually, the soda is sweetened with an un-natural dose of high fructose corn syrup. "Corn" is natural, but "high fructose corn syrup" is manufactured by man.

Drinking red wine is excellent for the circulatory system, including the heart.

Research has proven that this statement is not one of many nutritional myths. However, a survey found that most Americans believe that increasing their daily intake of wine will increase its benefits to the heart. This is a myth. Drinking too much wine can cause many serious health problems because it contains alcohol. The American Heart Association recommends only one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men. In other words, moderate drinking of wine, not excessive drinking, is good for the heart.

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.

Eating fatty foods, such as bacon and sausage, will make you fat.

This is a nutritional myth. Meals high in fat do have cholesterol and saturated fats which contributes to having heart attacks. Nevertheless, calories in sugars - not fatty foods - are the main offender that triggers weight gain. It is a fact that bacon and sausage contain calories, also. But they do not have the amount of calories found in carbohydrates - which are broken down to form different types of sugars. These sugars are the major sources of energy - measured in calories - for our body.

The take home point: If you wish to shed or keep from gaining a great deal of weight, you should lower your intake of high-sugary foods, such as buttermilk pancakes with layers of mocha cream covered with delicious chocolate and whipped cream. Rather than consuming high-sugary carbs, eat the good carbohydrates which are high in fiber and crucial nutrients, such as broccoli, grains, green spinach, and fruits.

If you are not sure whether a particular food practice is a nutritional myth or not, research it online. If you find that the behavior is a myth, congratulate yourself on becoming one of the many nutritional myth busters.




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