Popular Myths about Healthy Eating Debunked
Get the real facts behind popular myths about eating right
Many people adopt a certain diet when trying to achieve a goal like losing weight or building muscle. This may work in the short term, but as soon as they go off the diet, the results will fade. Eating right, on the other hand, is a commitment that will not only safeguard your overall health, but also help you achieve and maintain weight and fitness goals in a very natural way.
In your quest to eat right, you will encounter all kinds of misinformation, including many widely believed myths. Let us debunk some of those popular myths for you:
Carbs Make You Fat
Carbs are one of the basic food groups that everyone needs to be healthy. Eating carbs in moderation will not make you fat. However, it is true that eating too many of the wrong type of carbs can cause weight gain and health issues. “Bad” carbs include foods that are made with refined white flour and also tend to be high in sugar. “Good” carbs or natural carbs come from foods like whole grains, fruits, and vegetables and are an excellent source of fiber.
Eating Fats Is Bad
Not all fats are bad for you. In fact, the human body actually needs a certain amount of fat in order to metabolize fat-soluble vitamins, maintain healthy energy, and produce important hormones. The key is to cut out unhealthy fats (saturated and trans fats) while focusing on healthy fats (unsaturated fats). Nuts, fish, avocado, and low-fat dairy products are excellent sources of healthy fats.
Giving Up Gluten is Good
Gluten-free products are extremely popular right now, and many people believe that giving up gluten is going to improve their digestion, give them more energy, and make them healthier. However, the reality is that you aren’t going to feel benefits from giving up gluten unless you have celiac disease or a real gluten sensitivity, which is rare. Only about 10 percent of the population is even at high risk for gluten sensitivity. While there is nothing wrong with eating whole gluten-free foods like buckwheat or quinoa, beware of gluten-free prepared foods that are often loaded with sugar.
Raw Foods are Healthier
Raw foods are often touted as being more nutritious because they are unprocessed. But in some cases, cooking is actually necessary to unlock some of the nutrients in the raw food and make them accessible to the body. For example, if you eat a raw carrot, you only get about 5 percent of the beta carotene, but if you eat a boiled carrot, you get about 60 percent. It’s best to eat a variety of foods in both raw and cooked forms in order to get a balance of nutrients.
You Need to Cleanse or Detox
Many people believe that they can make up for binging on unhealthy foods by doing a cleanse or a detox diet afterwards. In reality, your body already has its own highly effective detoxification process going on via your liver. If you are worried about toxins building up in your body, focus on keeping your liver healthy rather than trying detox diets or cleanses.
A Multi-Vitamin Makes Up for a Poor Diet
Taking a multi-vitamin doesn’t give you license to eat whatever unhealthy foods you want. The best source of just about any nutrient is whole food. A multi-vitamin is designed to supplement—not replace—the nutrition you get from whole foods. Renew Youth offers a quality multi-vitamin that is specifically designed to support healthy aging.
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