Pay attention to nutrition labels while buying products and listen to your body while eating as this will help you to build a better relationship with food. Focus on eating healthy whole foods as they make you feel better and also contribute towards your health and fitness.
1. Whole-wheat products: Firstly whole wheat products are not completely made up from whole wheat and secondly the grain is pulverised into a very fine flour that causes our blood sugar to rise as fast as refined wheat flour. Example: In some cases, the glycemic index of whole wheat bread is similar to white bread. Therefore be a smart consumer and read nutrition labels carefully.
2. Processed fat-free/low-fat foods: Fat is not harmful but one of the macronutrients required by our body. When fat is removed from any product it loses its flavour. This lost flavour is compensated by adding sugar. Added sugar is very harmful and regular consumption of high amounts of sugar leads to various chronic disorders. Therefore avoid any kind of fat-free/low-fat foods.
3. Organic food: The word organic is used to mislead people like the use of the word-raw organic cane sugar and regular table sugar are the same things. Many unhealthy ingredients can also be organic that does not make the product healthy.
4. Salad dressings: Commercially available salad dressings contain vegetable oils, sugar, artificial chemicals and trans fats. So avoid buying salad dressings from the market and make your dressings at home with healthy ingredients like olive oil, lemon, etc.
5. Fruit juice: It can also be called fruit flavoured sugar water as it does not contain any actual fruit, it's just sugar and artificial chemicals without any beneficial fruit fibre.
6. Processed breakfast cereals: They are marketed with misleading health claims like “low fat“, “contains whole grains“ but it's very important to check the ingredient list as they contain high amounts of sugar, artificial chemicals and refined grains.
7. Gluten-free products: They are highly processed, contain a lot of sugar and are made with refined starches that cause a rapid spike in our blood sugar levels. Switch to naturally gluten-free food items and avoid gluten-free processed foods.
8. Processed organic foods: Food manufacturers use the word organic in front of products to market them as healthy. Example: “organic“ raw cane sugar (it is similar to regular sugar). There is no difference between sugar vs organic sugar. The nutritional composition of a food product does not change if it is organic. So if a food product is labelled organic it does not make it healthy automatically.
