Eat Not: Foods to Avoid for Better Health
Whether trying to lose weight or trying to keep illness at bay, knowing which foods should rarely cross your lips can help you achieve your goals
Go to nearly any supermarket and it’s easy to find products with the heart check mark, meaning the food meets the American Heart Association’s criteria for saturated fat and cholesterol. But when looking for foods to avoid, don’t bother searching for the skull-and-bones on food labels.
That’s because choosing foods that are good for you is a lot easier than marking foods that are not, since Americans vary so much in health, nutritional needs, and risk factors.
Yet two significant eating-related risks, heart disease and diabetes, share some similarities when it comes to foods that you should avoid. So we asked experts from the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association and the American Dietetic Association for their recommendations.
“Americans eat much more sodium than they need,” says Riska Platt, a New York City-based dietician and spokeswoman for the American Heart Association (www.americanheart.org). “Reducing salt is the most effective way of reducing blood pressure in old people and people who have diabetes and chronic kidney disease. Blood pressure is a major concern since it is a significant risk factor for heart disease.”
It’s really not the saltshaker we should worry about, either. It’s the processed foods we buy, from frozen entrees to pickles. More than 75 percent of the salt consumed in the U.S. diet comes from processed foods. Experts recommend paying close attention to the percentage of sodium on the label.
“If it’s 20 percent or more, you know its high in sodium,” says Robin Nwankwo, a health educator at the University of Michigan Medical School and member of the American Diabetes Association (www.diabetes.org) Board of Directors. “Five percent or less is low for sodium.”
A can of soup, for instance, can contain up to 36 percent of your daily-recommended allowance of sodium. And while a cucumber is almost salt free, a large dill pickle can have a third of a teaspoon of salt, says Platt.
Then there’s the big issue: fat.
According to the American Dietetic Association (www.eatright.org) and the United Soybean Board, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are beneficial forms of fat that promote heart health by helping to lower blood cholesterol and reducing the risk of heart disease. The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend a daily fat intake of between 20 and 35 percent of total calories, with most fats coming from polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats such as fish, nuts and vegetable oils.
In contrast, saturated and trans fats can increase blood cholesterol and the risk of heart disease. Trans and saturated fats are found mostly in whole milk, butter, meat, poultry and coconut, palm and palm kernel oils.
For this reason, experts suggest limiting your intake of the two saturated fat mainstays of the American diet: meat and cheese.
“We are a nation of cheese heads, and not just in Wisconsin,” Platt says. “Cheeses contain a lot of butterfat that is very saturated. The problem with cheeses is that they are made with full fat milk or cream. An alternative would be 2-percent milk cheeses that are reduced in fat.”
That means double cheeseburgers should be kept to a minimum, Nwankwo says. And even turkey burgers should have their limitations.
“If you’re eating ground beef, ground sausage or even ground turkey, make sure it’s lean meat: 10 percent of fat content or less,” Nwankwo says. Also avoid organ meats such as liver and kidney because they are high in saturated fats.
Fatty lunchmeats such as salami and bologna are another concern, Nwankwo says, especially for the elderly who were raised eating them.
The American Heart Association recommends that people limit their animal protein to six or seven ounces a day.
“That’s like the size of two mayonnaise jar lids,” Platt says.
Cooking can also bring out the fat. The American Heart Association recommends limiting fried foods, Platt says.
“A lot of people have a craving for fried food,” says Tara Gidus, an Orlando-based spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association who also operates the online blog, The Diet Dish. “Even deep frying at home, you’re still going to get a lot of fat added. Take olive oil. Just because it’s healthy fat, it’s still fat and it has calories and can contribute to weight gain,”
Gidus recommends emptying your olive oil bottle into a kitchen-worthy spray bottle. “When you spray, it’s less than a teaspoon,” she says.
Gidus also has a fat-free alternative to America’s favorite side order.
“I make my own french fries all the time,” she says. “Just slice up a potato and put it on a baking sheet and stick it in the oven.”
Rounding out our trio of foods to avoid are sugar-laden drinks such as lemonade, soda and sweetened iced tea. Like fat and salt, too much sugar can contribute to health problems.
“Sugar-added beverages have no nutritional value. They have calories that contribute to weight gain,” Gidus says. “A lot of times people drink them out of habit. If I do an example of how many teaspoons of sugar are in a 20-ounce bottle of soda that will convince them to stop. I think it’s 16 teaspoons of sugar in a 20 oz soda. Once you tell people that, they have a reaction and say, ‘Wow, I don’t need that.’”
“Sugar is actually workable and delicious, but it’s the reliance on eating quick foods that are high in salt, sugar or fat that becomes the problem,” Nwankwo says.
Education is the key to learning more about what foods are high in sugar, fats and sodium. Check out the Web sites of the associations above. When it comes to your eating, maybe you’ll find what you should be missing.
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