Low Fat Foods & Your Health

Low Fat Foods & Your Health

I got a great question from one of my twitter followers the other day about how good low fat or low calorie versions of food really are for us and I thought I’d devote an article to this.

Let’s take a look at low calorie or low-fat versions of foods and discuss if they are a smart choice for our health or if it’s all smoke and mirrors and in fact compromise our health in other ways.

I’ll be honest with you, for a while when I was younger I went through this low-fat food phase, always thinking that they would be the healthiest option. Unfortunately, like many of you I never considered to take a closer look at the ingredients and the truth is actually quite shocking.

Let’s look at some examples to instill in us the most important.

Low Fat Foods: Mayonnaise

You probably already know that natural foods that have no artificial additives, chemicals or preservatives are best for our bodies. Our digestive system has no problem digesting these natural foods, but when it comes to artificial food products it simply doesn’t know how to digest them and this causes some digestive chaos and discomfort. Makes sense right? Now let’s look at mayonnaise as an example.

Real Mayo: top 5 ingredients include canola oil, water, liquid whole egg, vinegar and salt.

Light Mayo (reduced fat): top 5 ingredients include water, canola oil, modified corn starch, liquid yolk, and vinegar.

Non-fat Mayo: top 5 ingredients include water, sugar (corn fructose syrup), vinegar, soybean oil, and salt.

Pretty interesting isn’t it? Starts out with nothing artificial, then for the light version it has modified corn starch which takes it down a notch, and for non-fat it is at it’s worst with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS’s)! If you don’t know about the horrors of HFCS’s then read my article Corn Sugar Health Alert.

Low Fat Foods: The Reality

So it looks like a lot of these reduced fat foods in reality are worse for our health than we realize. I think this opens up a very good debate that many nutritionists have been making for years. Enjoy real foods with natural ingredients but just do it in moderation and really take the time to savor your food.

When you really think about it, it does make a lot of sense and just continues to show that all good things (like flat abs) come with a lot of patience and dedication.

It is for reasons like this when I try and go for more natural health products like Optimum 100% Natural Whey or Natural Vitality Organic Life Vitamins.

You see the idea goes along the line that with moderation you can still get to enjoy the foods you eat without having to sacrifice it all. By having a healthier more natural diet we can prevent a lot of intestinal discomfort as well as chemicals that our bodies can’t digest or break apart which may build-up in our systems after years of exposure.

So I am sure you see the controversy with this topic as food corporations will not go against the grain of what people want – low fat food variety’s for of course the most guilty pleasures.

By the way, if you want to know more about how to read nutrition labels see my article – How to Read Nutrition Facts Labels.

I’d like to hear your thoughts and feedback on this subject, please leave me a comment below…