In the News: You Call That Health Food?

I am loving the In the News series and although I have been focusing more on family and children articles, I want to include things about health as well since it's so important. I hope you don't mind!

As I was doing my daily morning peruse of ABC News, I came across the article: You Call That Health Food?

As I am "dieting" (I hate that word), I was intrigued. I love the first sentence of this article: "Take a moment and consider this logic: 1. Fat-free foods are healthy. 2. Skittles are fat-free. 3. Therefore, Skittles are healthy."

This is logic I used when I was in high school and that is logic that is stupid because it doesn't count calories, only fat (but hey, it made sense in the early 90's when I was a teenager!). But, according to the article, it's exactly the type of reasoning that food manufacturers want you to use. And boy is that true.

Reading on..."You see, in our example, we started with a false premise. That's because the term "fat-free" is often code for "high-sugar" -- an attribute that makes a product the opposite of healthy. Case in point: Johns Hopkins University researchers recently determined that high blood sugar is an independent risk factor for heart disease. So high-glycemic foods (A food is considered to be high-glycemic if it is broken down rapidly and enters the bloodstream quickly as glucose) -- those such as sugars and starches that raise your blood sugar dramatically -- are inherently unhealthy. (See Skittles, above.)

Unfortunately, faulty food logic is far less obvious when you're shopping outside the candy aisle. Why? Because making healthy choices isn't as simple as knowing that beans are packed with fiber, or that fruits are loaded with disease-fighting antioxidants. After all, manufacturers often add ingredients, such as sugar, that can instantly turn a good snack bad."

So, what's a good food? If you were using the Weight Watchers program, which I use and LOVE, you would know what to look for as far as nutrition. See, Weight Watchers teaches you to eat right by making you count points. And as soon as you begin to put two and two together, (like considering that the more fiber there is in a food, the less points it is) you start making healthy choices when you eat!!

The article goes on to list some foods you ~thought~ were good and why they are bad, and healthy alternatives.

Example:

Yogurt with Fruit at the Bottom

The upside: Yogurt and fruit are two of the healthiest foods known to man.

The downside: Corn syrup is not. But that's exactly what's used to make these products supersweet. For example, a cup of Colombo blueberry yogurt contains 36 grams (g) of sugar, only about half of which is found naturally in the yogurt and fruit. The rest comes in the form of "added" sugar -- or what we prefer to call "unnecessary."

The healthy alternative: Opt for Dannon Light 'n Fit Carb & Sugar Control Yogurt, which has 90 percent less sugar than regular yogurt does.