Busting “Good Food” Myths

What do you reach for when you want a healthy snack? There’s a good chance that many of your go-to snacks are less healthy than you think. Actually, it’s a near certainty. This isn’t your fault, though. It’s the times in which we live; our processed food mecca shows no signs of abating any time soon. It’s time to bust some food myths to make sure you avoid options that do more harm than good, despite the conventional wisdom!

Deli Meats

If you have listened to the Forbidden Doctor podcast, you might suspect that deli meats are healthy foods. After all, meat is one of the most healthful things you can eat.

Deli meats, however, do not fall into the category of healthful meats. For good meat, you need to find a farm or butcher with a supply of naturally raised animals. That way, you can enjoy grass-fed beef, clean pork and animal organs that are essential to keeping your body in good health.

Deli meats, however, rarely come from good sources. They also contain large amounts of sodium nitrite, which your gut can transform into carcinogenic nitrosamines. There’s also a connection between sodium nitrite and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In other words, stay away from these cured meats!

What the Hell Are Fruit Roll-Ups?

You can’t trust food packaging these days. Fruit roll-ups might have pictures of strawberries and other fruits on them, but they contain little to no actual fruit. It’s amazing that companies get away with these deceptive marketing tricks.

Corn syrup is one of the main ingredients in fruit roll-ups. That’s all you really need to know about them. Corn syrup is an unnatural, man-made sugar that can significantly increase your chance of getting diabetes. It doesn’t act like real fruit sugar, which your liver can process easily into energy. Instead, corn syrup taxes your body and puts your health at risk.

Some of these products appear to have vitamin fortification, which is a great way to tell if the original product has any legitimate vitamins. If it were still anywhere close to the original fruit, no additional fortification would ever be needed, but alas, these rolled up fruit snacks lack basic nutritional value that actual fruit will have.

Not that you are out of the woods just eating whole fruit…

How Can Fruit Be Bad for You?

What could possibly be wrong with fruit? Isn’t it nature’s perfect food? Nutritious? Delicious?Well yes. But it’s complicated.

Conventional fruits have been sprayed with oil-based pesticides. The oil ensures that rainstorms won’t wash away the chemical film being applied. Think about that the next time you run a package of strawberries under your faucet. The pesticides were designed to withstand contact with water, so much of the chemical mixture will cling to the fruit even after you wash it.

Organically grown fruit is a much better option. While there is some controversy around the “organic” label and what it entails, your odds of avoiding a blast of unwanted chemicals in your digestive tract are much better eating organically labelled fruit.

Microwave Popcorn: Have a Handful?

Popcorn can be a low-calorie snack that’s perfect for people trying to lose weight. Properly prepared, with real butter and a dash of salt, popcorn is one of my favorite snacks!

Microwaved popcorn, however, is about as unhealthy as a snack can get. That’s because microwave popcorn bags are lined with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical that’s used in everything from carpets to automobiles. Even the EPA says that PFOA is a likely carcinogen that can damage your endocrine system and reproductive system.

Perhaps even more concerning, PFOA has estrogen-like properties that increase the risk of breast cancer. It can also disturb puberty in boys and girls.

Haven’t you suspected as much, each time to tear open the steaming hot bag, and get that toxic (yet intoxicating!) smell of Butter Scent #543345?

Sugar Free is not Danger Free

Sugar-free snacks might sound like the perfect solution if you’re trying to cut calories out of your diet. In reality, chemicals like aspartame can stimulate your appetite, which encourages you to eat more than you usually would. The chemicals used as sugar substitutes also increase weight gain, stimulate fat storage and make you crave carbohydrates.

You think you’re making a smart choice by choosing sugar-free snacks and drinks, but you’re harming your health by introducing unnatural chemicals into your body.

There is new evidence that these artificial sweeteners are actually undermining your efforts, by signaling to the body that something sweet is being eaten, only to discover that there is no usable energy. This leaves the body unsatisfied, and can lead to hunger or a delayed sated feeling, leading you to eat more than you would have in the first place.

Making Smarter Choices for Your Health

Instead of making unhealthy food choices, eat natural, organic snacks that haven’t been treated with harmful pesticides, nitrites and other chemicals. The closer a food is to its natural state, the better it is for you, so again, don’t choose any processed snacks.

In addition, you should consider adding digestive enzymes to your diet. Supplements can help your system return to a healthy state, by supporting the underlying functions that use nutrients to build and repair your body.

If you’ve been eating unhealthy foods for years or decades, you’ll need help returning balance to your digestive system. In any case, please consider the source of your food, and the processes it went through to get to you before putting it in your mouth.