Myths about Food

We have all seen the articles that outline dietary myths for the general population so I do not want to bore you with the same old information that is out there. The examples that follow are questions or statements made to myself or other people that I know. These examples are not to make fun of people but to help raise awareness. We are all at different levels of knowledge about our eating habits and the more information you can get, the better.

Myth 1: I cannot eat celery because it has sodium in it.

Answer 1: This statement has two parts to it so we will start with the sodium aspect. Yes, one stalk of celery has 32 mg of sodium. That is true. Most natural food will have sodium of some amount. Even fruits have sodium (apples have about 2mg). These amount are much better than, say, wheat thins with 230mg for 16 crackers. Plus you have the added benefit of the natural fiber in fruits and vegetables.

The recommendation for salt intake in the US is 2,300mg of sodium a day or less. That is a lot of celery to get to that point. The human body needs sodium to function correctly. There is a condition known as hyponatremia (low sodium) that can be deadly. If you do any long distance athletic event like running, biking, and triathlons you have probably heard of it because everybody warns you about it. These events require a person to stay well hydrated but you also lose sodium through sweating. So what will happen is the athlete will worry about being hydrated enough and will drink lots of water before the race, sometimes for days before the race. When that athlete is out on the field, sodium is lost while water is added and the sodium is not replaced. This can lead to organ damage and death. It is less common these days but still happens occasionally. So sodium is necessary for human life.

That said we eat way too much sodium mainly in ultra-processed foods which also includes restaurant food. We eat so much more sodium than needed that the CDC has recently developed the Sodium Reduction Initiative, http://www.cdc.gov/salt/pdfs/sodiumreductioninitiative.pdf because it is not just adults eating too much sodium but also children. More people are developing high blood pressure and sodium plays a part in this condition. Having a diet lower in sodium can help lower blood pressure. The American Heart Association recommends closer to 1,500mg of sodium a day to help blood pressure levels. The first step for most people, though, is to get sodium intake down to 2,300mg then lowering it from there.

If you aim for the natural or minimally processed foods, you will find that the sodium goal shouldn’t be too difficult to reach. Some processed foods are higher in sodium but we shouldn’t eat too many of those anyway.

So in this case the person was correct that celery has sodium but that should not be used as a reason to limit intake of fruits and vegetables.

Myth 2: If I toast my bread this burns away the calories.

Answer 2: I wish this was true. I really do. It would make life so much better but it is not true. Toasting bread mainly pulls water out of the bread. Some reactions occur that may cause a small caloric change but nothing worth noting.

Myth 3: If I count every calorie on every Nutrition Facts label to get my calorie intake below what I am supposed to take in each day I will lose weight.

Answer 3: Unlucky for the common man, the FDA allows companies a 20% wiggle room in both directions with their nutrition information. In the case of Nutrition Facts labels chances are the company will go with the lower numbers to make their foods look better. Similarly the nutrition information provided by restaurants is not the best but it at least gives you a general idea of how many calories may be in your food. So relying on calorie counting alone for weight loss may not be ideal.

Myth 4: If I become vegetarian or vegan I will lose weight.

Answer 4: Being vegetarian means the person does not eat meat while vegans do not eat meat and any products from animals like eggs, milk, and for some, honey.  These dietary choices 30 or 40 years ago may have led to weight loss but with all of the ultra-processed products out there, the calories are adding up. For example Ben & Jerry’s just released 4 vegan non-dairy dessert that have just as many calories as their regular ice cream.  Another example I give all the time is Oreos. These too are vegan. Next time you bite in and think that white stuffing has any milk product in it, you would be wrong.

So why become a vegetarian or vegan if the health benefits aren’t there? Well, they are if you stay away from ultra-processed foods. Vegan sausage and turkey still scares me. If these were to naturally occur I would understand but to make soy taste like meats usually means a lot of processing to get there. So if you avoid those types of foods and embrace the fruits and vegetables, then these dietary choices can do wonders. Many people adopt this eating style because they do not believe in killing the animals for human consumption. Others feel the way the animals are raised and slaughtered is inhumane. And others, like myself, are concerned about the hormones and antibiotics the animals are given that may be passed on to the person. I personally am considered a flextarian (I know, so many terms). I don’t eat meat unless I know where it comes from. If someone I know kills a deer, I’ll have some summer sausage. If I know the farm the product was raised and know they do not use hormones and antibiotics, I may have some hamburger or a pork chop. This said meat is rarely served in my home.

So if you passionately feel you should not eat meat, then stop. If you are using it as a gimmick to lose weight, it’s not worth the hassle. You are better off cutting back and having Meatless Monday or something like that. Start small and work up. There are many amazing recipes that are completely meatless and the internet is full of them. Keep checking back as I will start posting some soon.

Myth 5: Sugar is evil.

Answer 5: We have all heard about how sugar is causing all of the obesity and killing everyone. Sugar has been around a lot longer than the health issues we deal with these days. The problem is that sugar is put in almost anything ultra-processed and some processed foods. It is everywhere. And sugar is not just sugar anymore. The one we hear the most about is high fructose corn syrup. This came out as a sugar substitute in the 1970s. The sugariness was actually higher than white granular sugar so it was approved as a substitute with the belief that companies would use less (cut calories) for the same sugary taste. The problem is that high fructose corn syrup wasn’t used in lower amounts. Now companies could make super sweet foods that were even more addictive. Do you think they would stop and say, ‘No, this isn’t right. We should stop.’ Oh, heck no. They saw dollar signs.

The other thing is that sugar is brought in to the body to be used as an energy source but if you have more sugar than your body can process, what do you think happens? Your body stores it as glycogen so that it can readily use it when you need energy. But if you have even more sugar and your glycogen stores are full your body doesn’t just tell your gut to stop absorbing the sugar. The human body is very efficient and wants to keep all of its nutrients it can so it will be converted in to fat and stored in adipose (fat) cells. So some sugar is good because it helps you with energy but too much can lead to problems.

Myth 6: Since I shouldn’t eat too much sugar, I should avoid fruits since they have lots of sugar.

Answer 6: Fruits and vegetables are what we call complex carbohydrates. They have fiber along with the sugar which slows down the digestion and absorption of sugar in the body. The sugar that we shouldn’t be eating much of is simple sugar which gets absorbed quickly, then spikes the sugar (glucose) level in the blood. This leads to a quick spike in insulin to store sugar as glycogen and possibly fats. This quick spike of insulin leads to a quick decrease of sugar in your body. This leads to you feeling tired and hungry a couple of hours later. The complex carbohydrates, on the other hand, hit the system slower so there is less of a sugar spike and insulin spike. The slower processing allows the body to store it as glycogen because there isn’t a huge onslaught all of a sudden. This also means the glucose in your body doesn’t rapidly drop so you feel full and do not have that tired feeling a few hours after eating.

This is why eating the fruits instead of drinking the juice is ideal. When the juice is made, the fiber is removed so that fruit sugar you are drinking will spike your blood sugar and the cycle continues.

Myth 7: If I eat low fat foods, I will lose weight.

Answer 7: A while back the world went fat free. Usually carbohydrates (sugars) were used to substitute for fat. The flavor was sometimes similar in nature but anyone who has eaten low fat salad dressing knows the difference. Part of the rationale for going fat free at the time was that 1 gram of fat typically has 9 calories in it while carbohydrates and proteins have 4 calories for every 1 gram. So if the industry could cut back on fat, then the calorie count might also be cut back. In reality the substitution with carbohydrates usually lead to an increase in sugar with some change in calorie content.  

Once the world went fat free, many people felt they had free reign to eat as much as they wanted since it was fat free. But these foods were not calorie free. Also fats tend to make a person feel satiated earlier than carbohydrates. So we lost that natural full feeling and we ate more too. So in actuality going fat free can cause issues.

Fat we eat does tend to be stored as adipose tissue (fat cells) but it doesn’t by itself make you fat. We need to store fat for energy for when we run out of glycogen stores in the body. Fat has a purpose in our body. So eating fat in general will not ‘make you fat’.

I hope you enjoyed these explanations. If you have a question that you feel should be answered, drop me an email at coach@healthyhedgehog.com