The Top 10 Unhealthiest "Health" Foods, part 1

On TV, in magazines, on the radio; we are bombarded with health claims of what we should eat. A simple rule of thumb when choosing healthy foods, is to avoid foods that are advertised or have health claims such as "low-fat" on the packaging (the less packaging of the food, the better). Below is the first part of my list of top 10 foods that are often advertised as healthy, but should be avoided.

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1. Salad Dressing – Many people eat salad for the health benefits, but unfortunately salad dressings are typically loaded with vegetable oil causing the negatives to outweigh the benefits. Instead of dousing a salad with unhealthy, creamy dressing, try extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar as an alternative.

2. Milk – When milk is from farmed cows, it typically contains growth hormones and antibiotics. Growth hormones allow the cows to produce more milk per day and antibiotics are used for treating cows that get sick from eating an unnatural grain fed diet. If you can’t give up milk try to find local grass fed, hormone free, unpasteurized, non-homogenized milk… basically straight from the cow.

3. Soy Milk – Soy foods that are genetically modified and unfermented are not considered healthy. Found in unfermented soy, phytoestrogens can mimic of the female hormone estrogen, which is unhealthy in high amounts. If you are going to eat soy products stick to fermented soy products such as natto, miso or tempeh.

4. Farmed Fish – Fish can be one of the healthiest foods, given you eat the correct type of fish. Farm raised fish is grain fed and are loaded with antibiotics, hormones and even chemicals to change their color, such as the pink salmon color you see in your local grocery store. Try to find wild caught fish from the Pacific waters. Huron Fish Co., 505 Gratiot in Saginaw has a variety of healthy, wild seafood. Call them at 989-792-2224 for more information.

5. Orange Juice – As we all know, orange juice contains vitamins and minerals but once it’s pasteurized it loses a lot of these nutrients. Orange juice is also loaded with sugar. When you extract the juice from an orange you are separating it from the fiber which makes very highly concentrated juice with a sugar in the form of fructose.