Low Fat or Fat Free is really bad for you.
Ok I have often had my suspicions about “low fat” foods and especially “fat free”. I have always avoided them much too several peoples dismay including my own family. Even on a previous thread about peanut butter I said go natural and avoid low fat. Lets face it if man processes foods it is going to be really bad for you. Anyway I learned some amazing things today. I thought I would share a few. Let see how many people go hmmm.
Fat Free or low far dressing: Yes it has less fat and calories. However it you look closely sugar is added to make up for the flavor. Not so bad but research has now show and there is a article here at the American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, that has found the removal of fat from salad dressing reduces your bodies ability to absorb the vitamins and minerals in the salad itself. Ohio State researchers discovered that people who ate salad dressing with fat absorbed 15 times more beta-carotene and 5 times more Lutein. So next time choose a full fat salad dressing made with either olive oil or canola oil but low in carbs(less Sugar)
Reduced fat peanut butter. Now this one really surprised me. How do they maintain the taste of low fat peanut butter and make it taste good. Easy they actually add icing sugar. 1 Tablespoon of reduced fat peanut butter has a teaspoon of sugar in it. In fact with most of the other stuff added you actually get more sugar than you get peanuts and also you get less of the health fat that peanuts provide. Instead eat natural peanut butter. Like Crazy Richards or Teddy’s. The funny thing there is a patent on doing this, specifically for adding sugar to low calorie foods
The other one I learned today that totally shocked me Pretzels. I guess south beach dieters knew about pretzels but I had no idea how bad they were. Who knew, I eat them for snacks all the time. Anyway a friend of mine is a Diabetic, he usually has cookies with him just in case a workout is too intense and I always know where they are because he can count on me getting them for him in an emergency. Anyway he started packing pretzels. I asked him why they do not have sugar like cookies. To which he corrected me I found out they will raise your blood sugar faster than eating a bowl full of ice cream.
Anyone else got any surprise food that most people think are good for them but they really aren’t? There are the common sense ones like Granola bars sandwiched and stuck together with sugary syrup. However the above were shockers for me the first 2 I always suspected something would be found wrong as everytime there is some new Super Supplement or Some food is bad for you just look at the poor egg used to be a great staple in the american diet, then it was evil and "caused heart problem" it was a major contributer to heart disease, then it was ok in moderation however then came fake eggs like egg beaters, which I tell you there is something wrong with those things as well I am waiting on the them to fall apart. Now eggs have been fully vindicated and further studies found that not only do eggs not cause heart disease they are good for your heart and a healthy part of a normal diet. What shockers have you found?
I did notice this the other day.
Oddly enough, I checked out the label on my low fat peanut butter this morning. You were bang on -- way more sugar than the full fat version.
Interesting, but is sugar really much worse than fat?
seems like there is a bug in the forums
Incidentally, I noticed what appears to be a bug in the forums. I will fix that tonite.
J
Actually I would have to say
Actually I would have to say yes sugar is much worse that fat. Especially in this case. Peanut fats in the natural peanut butter, not jiff and skippy, are actually good fats. The jiff and skippy have a lot of bad fats because they add them as well, this is added to keep the peanut butter from seperating, which a natural peanutbutter will often have a little peanut oil on top everytime you open the jar. The other thing sugar gets absorbed by the body very fast, however most of it gets turned into body fat because the body can not burn up the sugar as fast as it absorbs. Fats are actually much harder for the body to digest so you can think of them as stored raw fuel. If your body has raw fuel to use it will use that before it uses it's own body stores. There are lots of food people do not eat because they think the fats will make them fat.
Lets look at it this way. Why do most people eat chicken over steak? Usually because they think the fat in steak is bad for them. However if you ever look into steaks and what they are made of you might be suprised. I eat at least 3 sirloin steaks a week. I love steak salads, easy to make, they are just like a chicken salad but grill a steak cut it up and put it on top of your salad. This is my absolutely favorite post workout meal.
Your average sirloin steak of all the fat in it way less than half is saturated fats and it actually lowers your cholesterol. I can break it down further (going from a book)
Monounsaturated Fat
-- Oleic Acid 45% Lowers Cholesterol
-- Palmitoleic Acid 4% Lowers Cholesterol
Polyunsaturated Fat
-- Linoleic Acid 4% Lowers Cholesterol
Saturated Fat
-- Palmitic Acid 27% Lowers Cholesterol
-- Stearic Acid 16% No effect on Cholesterol
-- Myristic Acid 3% Bad for Cholesterol
-- Lauric Acid 1 % Bad for Cholesterol
Now thats all the fat in a steak so the fat in a steak is good for you. What your left with is then the pure protein and amino acids in red meat.
Ok so now I told you all of that about steaks and steak fat because I do not have the breakdown of the fats in peanuts, but I wanted to show you fats are actually very complex parts of our diets. I do know the fats in nuts are mostly good for you and I know sugar is just mainly empty calories and aren't going to do much for you but raise your insulin level.
Healthy Fat vs. Bad Fats.
Ok. Maybe I can give you some insight.
SUGAR IS BADDDDDDDD!!!! And yes, corporations add sugar to everything to make it taste better and make your body addicted. Ever notice when you start cutting out sugar from your diet your are cranky, irritable and you can't stop craving it. It's like an addiction, I think it is almost like being addicted to crack.
So, I agree with Xyon, Peanut Butter has healthy fats in it...... but as with everything it is about balance. I agree it is better to have natural peanut butter with healthy fat vs. sugar loaded peanut butter with reduced fat. GOT TO WATCH THOSE LABELS!
Yes steak is a fattier meat then chicken, turkey, and fish. Also steak has to be eaten in moderate amounts. But you will find because you are adding fat to your diet you will actually feel more satiety (satisfied).
People often think that they should avoid beef for health reasons – mostly because of the fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol content of beef. But, today beef cuts tend to be leaner than they were 20 years ago. The average thickness of fat around the edge of steaks and roasts in the market today is less than 1/8th inch, down from ½ - ¾ inch in the past (as recently as the early 1980’s). Over 40% of the cuts of beef sold today have no external fat and even the “marbled” fat, the kind dispersed throughout the cut, is lower.
When choosing beef, cuts that have “loin” or “round” in the name of the cut (tenderloin, sirloin, top round, round tip) are lower in fat that cuts from other parts. You can look at these cuts and see less fat on them – both on the edges and marbled throughout the meat as compared to a rib eye, T-bone, or porterhouse steak for example.
I suggest taking an omega 3-6-9 with each meal, or keep your healthy fat intake with an egg yolk a day, nuts, nut butters, avacados and eat lots of fish.
We all have to ensure we are getting a well rounded, balanced meal plan. We don't want to overload our bodies with crap. So try and find a good balance.
Michelle
www.bodyevolutionvancouver.com
Low aft is good for me.
After suffering heart attcak and under going quad bypass at age 43, I am on a doc prescribed low fat no salt added diet. Yes your body requires fats and cholesterol but most folk could stand to cut out much of the fat from their diets.
I will admit that sugars have replaced some of the fats in my diet. Mainly from eating lots of fruit instead of donuts.