We all know of the foods or ingredients that are predominantly unhealthy, even worse- that are damaging our weight loss progress or our struggles for a healthier life style. Certain foods that are used on a regular basis can be very harmful and it does not take a dietician or a nutritionist to figure out what is good or bad for our bodies. Of course, everything organic is always the better option and eating all your fruit and vegetables is a no brainer. Here is a list that we find if cut down or completely removed will boost your health, weight loss and metabolism by miles.
- Salt & Sugar
We already know about the 2 whites that kill anything good happening inside our bodies. Salt and Sugar are two ingredients that are very tasty by adding that extra zing to our food. And regrettably it is always the bad foods that we crave and find so irresistible.
If you are not convinced enough to cut down your processed salt and sugar intakes, here are some reasons. Salt is the leading cause of high blood pressure, and sometimes goes by the name of the silent killer, because many people are unaware of the amount of salt in their processed or previously prepared foods. In addition excess processed salt intake increases your risk of heart failure and stroke in addition to kidney problems and stomach cancer. Natural sea salts are the best kind of salt to have, instead of preparing your food with massive amounts of processed salt, try to add some sea salt just before eating, making the taste more apparent with minimal use. Plus, using sea salt allows you to extract the natural nutrients found in it.
For sugar replacement, have some naturally sweet fruits or date sugar, stevia, organic maple syrup. And as for cooking you could use the naturally sweet taste of coconut oil. Sugar damages the body more than it benefits it, the more you consume the more you crave, is a cause of cholesterol problems and increase fat and body weight.
- Sweetener
Yes, Sweetener. We are all advised to reduce our sugar intake and replace it by artificially engineered sweeteners and typically it is very easily accessible and offered as the less fattening substitute for sugar with any hot beverage. This is not the way forward. Sweeteners only have a similar taste to sugar; everything else about it is in fact very bad for you. Some of the artificial ingredients have been reported to cause certain long lasting health issues and other ingredients are so dangerous because of its chlorine contents. Instead start using Stevia or raw honey and agave
- Canned tomatoes
Most plastic or can containers are usually lined with the substance BPA (Bisphenol-A) used as a preservative, and sometimes substance seeps through into the foods we plan to consume. So we should generally be cautious about not to have too many canned foods at meals time, but especially cautious when it comes to canned tomatoes. Reason being tomatoes are highly acidic causing BPA to be more freely absorbed into the food. You should try to use fresh tomatoes more often or even organic tomatoes from a jar.
- Corned beef
As you obviously have guessed and as previously mentioned, all canned foods have preservatives that can have a damaging effect on your digestion and body in general. Now with corned beef it not only has massive amounts of preservatives in it, it also has fats and cholesterol and very high in salt contents. Processed meats could end up increasing our risk of heart disease. So if you’re a meat eater, swap it with the fresh, lean organic meats.
- Vegetable oils or margarine
So, vegetable oils and margarines are basically engineered in a very unnatural way. Unlike the healthier options, they are not naturally extracted or pressed. And unfortunately they are used in our everyday foods especially in processed foods where we don’t know the amount of vegetable oil used. Instead you should use naturally extracted oils like olive oil or coconut oil.
You can read more about foods to avoid here.