10 Nutrition Myths — Busted! 10-27-2014
“I’m going broke,” my friend Brian told me. “Logging on to my bank account is like watching an ice cube in the Sahara.”
I was sorry to hear about his dilemma. What was driving him to financial ruin? What sort of nettlesome money-sapping addiction had my friend in its grasp?
“Trying to eat healthy,” he explained. “For example, every Saturday I go to the farmers’ market and shell out $24 a pound—for kale! It’s costing me a fortune. But if you want to eat right, you gotta shell out for the good stuff, no?”
I shook my head. At Eat This, Not That, we spend a lot of time unmasking health imposters. And the truth is, the superpowers of kale, like the dangers of the Bermuda Triangle, have been highly exaggerated. Sure, it’s good for you, but the ranking of kale as our greatest green is just one of many word-of-mouth myths that drive our nutritional decision-making, often in the wrong direction. Much of what we believe about food is really just heresay, a game of nutritional telephone handed down from science journals to newspapers to television to your Aunt Phoebe to your mom and then to you, with marketers in between.
Learn how to separate fact from fiction and you might finally shed the habits that are silently sabotaging your chances of losing weight. But I must warn you: The truth can hurt.NUTRITION MYTHS:
#1: Kale is our healthiest green
#2: High Fructose Corn Syrup is worse than table sugar
#3: Sea salt is a healthier version of regular salt
#4: Energy drinks are less harmful than soda
#5: Diet sodas help keep you slim
#6: Yogurt is good for the bacteria in your belly
#7: Low-fat foods are better for you
#8: “Trans-fat free” foods are actually trans-fat free
#9: Foods labeled “natural” are healthier
#10: Egg yolks raise your cholesterol