First, let me catch up on the Guilt or no guilt thing. I sucked on Monday, but walked fast with Athena on Tuesday. Today I have been working on some stuff around the house so I only half suck today.
When I sit down to research stuff to write about I end up doing a lot of Internet searches. When I want to know about low carb diets I avoid sites like lowcarblife.com and others with obvious agendas. I try to look for more reputable sources.
Today I looked for what more respectable sites are calling the worst foods for human consumption. This is what they are saying.
WebMD.com
1. Mayo
2. Soda and sweet drinks
3. Alcohol
4. Processed lunch meat
5. Hot dogs and sausage
6. Whole Milk products
7. Gourmet Ice Cream
8. Creamy salad dressings
9. Stick butter or margarine
10. French fries
Reader's Digest
1. Processed Meat
2. Frozen Meals
3. Doughnuts
4. Potato Chips
5. Low Fat Processed Foods
6. Margarine
7. Soda
Mercola.com
1. Doughnuts
2. Soda
3. French Fries and other Fried Foods
4. Chips
5. Fried - Non Fish - Seafood (Shrimp, clams, oysters, etc)
Livestrong.com
1. Doughnuts
2. Fast Food Burgers
3. Processed Pork Products
4. Soft Drinks
5. Ghee - Clarified butter
6. French Fries and Chips
7. Ice Cream
8. Buffalo Wings
9. Snack Crackers
10. Whole Eggs
Most of this stuff we know why we shouldn't eat, but some are not as easy to figure out. Lite or diet processed foods are usually high in sodium or MSG. Pork is normally cured with sodium nitrites and nitrates. Stick butter and margarine hold their shape because they are high in saturated fat. Non fish seafood is high in mercury and frying it exacerbates the issue. Processed lunch meats normally are high in sodium and often have nitrates and nitrites.
So you don't want to give them all up? Let's get rid of the really dumb ones first. Doughnuts, chips, soda, mayo and french fries is a great start. You'll notice I left you the booze. Also eat grilled stuff instead of fried and you'll find you don't miss the fat at all.
Be well and more soon....
Actually, shrimp and clams have the lowest mercury levels among all seafood - below the level of detection - according to the American Heart Association. As I discovered writing about the topic for Livestrong. :) But of course, don't fry them. That's where it gets bad. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/Fish-101_UCM_305986_Article.jsp
ReplyDeleteAlso, while shrimp does have saturated fat, a study by The Rockefeller University found that it doesn't raise cholesterol levels in people without cholesterol problems if it's steamed. http://runews.rockefeller.edu/index.php?page=engine&id=250
What Dr Mercola says follows. I don't always agree with everything that ends up in the blog. I do agree that farmed is usually worse than wild caught, but Mercola has his own agenda. I picked him for an alternative medicine view.
DeleteFried Non-Fish Seafood
This category represents the culmination of non-healthy aspects of food. Fried shrimp, clams, oysters, lobsters, and so on have all the issues of trans fat and acrylamide mentioned above, plus an added risk of mercury.
Seafood is loaded with toxic mercury and shellfish like shrimp and lobsters can be contaminated with parasites and resistant viruses that may not even be killed with high heat. These creatures, considered scavenger animals, consume foods that may be harmful for you. Farmed seafood may be even worse than wild-caught, as they’re fed concoctions of antibiotics and other synthetic chemicals.
Eating these foods gives you a quadruple dose of toxins--trans fat, acrylamide, mercury, and possibly parasites or viruses--with every bite. The only fish I now eat is wild red Alaskan salmon that has been proven through independent lab testing to be virtually free of harmful levels of mercury and other contaminants.