Common nutritional myths
- Dietitian.Lauren Hmede
- Mar 21, 2019
- 4 min read
20 Nutrition Facts That Should Be Common Sense (But Aren't)
Many myth and misconceptions are spread between people even by some experts.
Here are 20 nutrition facts that should be common sense — but aren't.
1. Artificial Trans Fats Are Unsuitable for Human Consumption
Trans-fats are unhealthy.
Their production involves high pressure, heat, and hydrogen gas in the presence of a metal catalyst and this will make liquid vegetable oils solid at room temperature.
Consumption of trans-fat has been linked to heart disease.
In 2018 FDA banned trans-fat. Food with less than 0.5 grams of trans-fat per serving are labelled as 0 grams
2. You Don't Need to Eat Every 2–3 Hours
Studies have shown that eating small and frequent meals help in weight loss while recent research has shown that there is linked between size of meal and frequency along with fat burning state.
Eating every 2–3 hours is inconvenient and completely unnecessary for the majority of people. Simply eat when you're hungry and be sure to choose healthy and nutritious foods.
3. Take News Headlines with a Grain of Salt
Not all studies and facts published are real sometimes they are out of context.
In many cases, other higher-quality studies directly contradict the media frenzy — but these rarely get mentioned.
4. Meat Doesn’t Rot in Your Colon
Not food is left in the colon your body has digestive enzyme which break down protein into amino acids. Some fat and protein may escape from digestion but most food are well digested by your body.
5. Eggs Are One of the Healthiest Foods You Can Eat
Eggs are consumption was linked to high cholesterol level but studies did show that eggs won’t really raise blood cholesterol unless you have poor nutritional overall-diet that is high in saturated fatty acids.
6. Sugary Drinks Are the Most Fattening Product in the Modern Diet
Sugary drinks are among the most fattening products. You brain don’t register calories from juices as from food and you are more likely to over consume.
Sugar consumption cause blood sugar spike and then fat storage.
7. Low-Fat Doesn’t Mean Healthy
Low fat food don’t necessarily be health ones as many manufactures use sugar to enhance taste lost after fat removal.
Read label carefully. You need to know that fruits and vegetables are naturally low in fat.
8. Fruit Juice Isn’t That Different From Sugary Soft Drinks
Fruit juices are not healthy as you think they are only 10% of real juice while the remaining is only added sugar. They are just like sodas and carbonated beverages.
Look for whole fruit choices or whole fruit juice.
9. Feeding Your Gut Bacteria Is Critical
In recent studies gut environment affects your body and especially weight gain. An imbalance will lead to inflammation, insulin resistance and weight gain.
Just like your body's cells, the bacteria need to eat — and soluble fiber is their preferred fuel source. This may be the most important reason to include plenty of fiber in your diet — to feed the beneficial bacteria in your intestine.
10. Cholesterol Isn’t the Enemy
Cholesterol is not your enemy what really raise your blood cholesterol is the lipoprotein that is holding cholesterol. So high level of LDL may increase risk of heart disease
For most people, dietary cholesterol has little or no effect on lipoprotein levels.
11. Weight Loss Supplements Rarely Work
No supplement or pills have magical effect on weight loss even glucamman can only contribute to little percent of weight loss.
You need to follow a well- balanced diet to improve your overall health.
12. Health Is About More than Your Weight
You need to focus beyond weight loss and weight gain. You mind should be directed toward health improvement like reducing belly fat, improving insulin sensitivity and build muscles.
13. Calories Count — But You Don't Necessarily Need to Count Them
Counting calories is important as obesity resulted from excess of intake of calories than calories out. But rather than counting every single calorie try to adapt healthy habits like eating more protein and fibre while lowering intake of sugary food and choosing healthy fat sources.
14. People with Type 2 Diabetes Shouldn’t Follow a High-Carb Diet
People with type 2 diabetes can benefit from low-carbs diet as it shows improvement in blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. In addition they need to make healthy choices like choosing more whole and complex carbs and they shouldn’t forget fibre.
15. Neither Fat nor Carbs Make You Fat
Both carbs and fat can be fattening and this depends on your overall diet as well on your food choices.
If you choose complex carbs and healthy fat sources but watch your food servings and portion then you are on the safe side.
16. Junk Food Can Be Addictive
These days, food engineers have found ways to make food so rewarding that your brain gets flooded with dopamine. So people get lost control while consuming processed and junk food.
17. Never Trust Health Claims on Packaging
People become label readers that I why manufactures use health claims as trick to sell junk food especially for children.
They do this by adding misleading labels like "whole-grain" or "low-fat." So a junk food can be low in fat but this doesn’t mean it is a healthy choices.
18. Certain Vegetable Oils Should Be Avoided
Certain vegetable oils — like sunflower, soybean, and corn oil contain large amounts of omega-6 fatty acids. Instead choose olive oil, canola oil, and high-oleic safflower oil that are high in omega-3. This is important to keep ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 within the range.
A high ratio of omega-6 over omega-3 has been linked to inflammation and oxidative stress.
19. ‘Organic’ or ‘Gluten-Free’ Doesn’t Mean Healthy
Using gluten free or organic don’t mean this product or food is healthy, some junk food can be organic or gluten free but these claims don’t necessarily make them healthy so always remember to make healthy yet smart choices.
20. Don’t Blame New Health Problems on Old Foods
Some scientists started blaming these epidemics on foods like red meats, eggs, and butter, but these foods have been a part of the human diet for thousands of years — whereas these health problems are relatively new.
It seems more sensible to suspect new foods to be the culprit, such as processed foods, Trans -fat, added sugar, refined grains, and vegetable oils.
Blaming new health problems on old foods simply doesn't make sense.
Sources:
https://doctorsbestweightloss.com/blogs/articles/nutrition-myths
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