Five Super Foods You’re Eating Wrong!
- Healthy Eating Habits, Part 1 - Many small meals are better than one big meal
- Healthy Eating Habits, Part 2 - Slow and steady wins the race
- Healthy Eating Habits, Part 3 - Don’t clean your plate
- Healthy Eating Habits, Part 4 - Stop drinking your calories
- Healthy Eating Habits, Part 5 - The endless cycle of binge and guilt
- Five Super Foods You’re Eating Wrong!
After my little rant about Orange Juice, it occurred to me that there are quite a few other foods that can be very healthy but are being consumed in a way which makes them unhealthy. So rather than rant some more, I thought I would give you a short list of good foods that are eaten badly.
Apples - An apple a day will keep the doctor away, right? Well, not if you consume it the way most people do. First of all, you people who drink apple juice and think it’s healthy, you’re wrong. Turning an apple into juice takes away a lot of the health value and it concentrates the calorie value. In other words, you’ve turned a healthy treat into sugar water. Second, if you’re eating an apple whole but you’re peeling it before you eat, you’re also destroying a lot of the value. Many of the nutrients of an apple are in the peel. Remove that and you’re left with the high calorie, starchy interior. To get the most out of your apples, eat them as is, peel included.
Potatoes - What, you didn’t think the potato could be healthy? It absolutely can be just as long as you’re not deep frying it or covering it in sour cream. Potatoes, while a little high in calories, are actually good sources of nutrients and relatively low in calories as long as you prepare them correctly. Also, like an apple, you should be eating the skin since it includes many of the nutrients. Best way to eat a potatoe is baked (or microwaved for about 4 to 5 minutes if you’re in a hurry). Don’t drown it in sour cream and butter, you’re just adding unneeded fat. Instead, try a small bit of salt or perhaps a high water content vegetable like a tomato. By the way, this is one of my favorite snacks.
Berries - Acai Berries, Blueberries, Blackberries, Strawberries, whatever your fancy, berries are an amazing source of nutrients in a relatively low calorie package. So what do we do? We add calories! We toss berries into a smoothie with cream, yogurt and sugar. We toss them into cakes. We cover them in whipped cream. We even dry them so we can too many of them. What the heck is wrong with berries that we need to mutilate them in all these fancy ways? Best way to eat berries is as is. Nothing added, no preparation. Just wash, eat and enjoy. And for you smoothie fanatics, most smoothies are a little bit of fruit with a lot of crap you don’t need. Forgo the crap and just eat the fruit!
Fish - What, didn’t think a vegetarian could have an opinion about meat? Didn’t think fish could be considered superfood? Wrong on both counts! Fish is one of the best sources of protein out there. It’s lean, it contains a good amount of nutrients and it’s usually free of the antibiotics and hormones which pollute most beef and chicken. The only problem is preparation. Once you deep fry and bread a fish, it’s no longer healthy. When you toss a fish into a pot full of rice, it’s no longer healthy. When you eat fish with loads and loads of creamy sauce, it’s no longer healthy. there are better ways. How about steaming your fish with a few spices? How about baking it with some vegetables? How about barbacuing it with a bit of lean BBQ sauce? How about frying it in a small amount of olive oil and then serve it up with a fresh salad? These are all methods of prepation that preserve the value of the fish while eliminating the unnecessary junk most people add to it. Best of all, they’re all tasty!
Eggs - Now that we know the cholesterol risk in eggs is minimal, we can go back to enjoying these wonderful packages of protein and nutrients. However, let’s go back to enjoying them the right way rather than the wrong way. Here are a few hints. If you’re eating your eggs on top of bread, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re eating your eggs smothered in rich, creamy sauces like hollandaise (eggs Benedict) or mayo (deviled eggs), you’re doing it wrong. If you’re scrambling your eggs with enough bacon and cheese to smother a small child, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re filling your omelet with enough sour cream or beans to qualify for a Mexican cookoff, you’re doing it wrong. Why not try a hard boiled egg? How about an egg over easy? How about scrambled eggs with some onions, mushrooms and fresh veggies served on the side? Eggs are just fine on their own, you don’t need to drown them in calories to make them taste good.
Summary
Notice a common thread in all of these? People have an odd tendency to take something healthy and add crap to it. Stop! This is why your ass looks like a clump of dough even though you’re eating all those super foods people keep telling you about. It doesn’t matter how super a food is, it can still be made unhealthy with enough deep frying, breading, drying and additions. For a good healthy change, try to eat food the way it was intended to be eaten, as close to its natural form as possible.
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Hey, 60 in 3 now has 400 subscribers! Thank you all for supporting me in my quest for global blogging domination! 
Seriously though, thank you for listening and I hope I have been helpful to you in quest for health and fitness. I know that your comments, suggestions and questions have really helped and inspired me.
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Very good post Gal and congrats on your 400+ subscribers.
As it relates to the foods mentioned above, eggs, fish, as well as many others, I have always used as a rule of thumb, that the longer it takes to prepare a meal, the less like it is to be healthy. Time in cooking, time in adding ingredients, stirring, mixing, extracting, etc, all weaken food. Seemingly the only exception to this is cutting vegetables which is tedious but important. Sauces and peripheral ingredients often add too many calories. I believe that the sooner a meal gets from the fridge, stove, or oven, to the dinner table, the more likely it is to be healthier.
Good call. For once I’m glad that I’m a very unoriginal person who eats her foods just like they come (and also ends up deceived and disappointed in some restaurants, when she orders potatoes only to discover the mdrowned in butter ^^).