Dave in the Morning

The biggest nutritional myths

Photo: clipart.com, WYXL 97.3 Lite Rock

The biggest nutritional myths

You see and hear all sorts of conflicting health advice these days, particularly online and on social meda…how do you know what’s right?

A dietician’s blog on Study Finds shared the most common nutritional myths, in her opinion…they are:

Eating healthy is expensive.  It CAN be if you lean on trendy smoothies and protein powders too much but you don’t really NEED that stuff.  In general, just eat more fruits and vegetables.  Frozen is cheaper than fresh, but just as good.

Also many of us eat too much in general…and one thing that IS expensive is junk food, like Doritos.  So eating healthy can actually save you money!

Low-fat and fat-free options are better.  Fat makes you feel full longer so avoiding it can backfire and you may just end up eating more.  Also, low-fat stuff doesn’t taste as good so food companies compensate by adding more sugar into it.

Egg whites are healthier.  Not necessarily…they do have less fat and fewer calories but the yolks have a ton of vitamins and minerals that egg whites don’t.

Salt is “bad” for you.  It gets a bad rap because too much is bad and Americans tend to overdo it.  But salt is also essential…it’s what electrolytes are.

Current guidelines recommend no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day and the average American eats closer to 3,400 mgs thanks to processed foods

But you can lose 500 to 1,200 milligrams of sodium in just one hour of exercise so if you eat healthy and work out a lot, you might need to make sure you’re getting enough of it.

There’s one “best” diet everyone should follow.  Like DASH or the Mediterranean Diet.  If those work for you, great.  But in general, these are the things everyone agrees on:  Fiber is good, added sugar and trans fat arebad, supplements can’t replace real food and keep an eye on your calories.

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