Top Nutrition Myths Broken Down

Top Nutrition Myths

 

If there’s one thing the internet is good at, it’s at misleading you with incorrect information. The internet does an excellent job at scaring you away from perfectly good foods. A lot of the time we tend to steer away from certain foods, whether it be egg yolks, carbs, or red meat because we have keep hearing that it’s “bad for you”. However, a lot of these foods that are said to be “bad” (funnily without any evidence), are actually perfectly innocent. Here are a few of the most common nutrition myths that people fall for daily:

 

1. Egg yolks are bad for you

How many times have you heard someone say “I remove the egg yolks from my omelette because they're high in cholesterol”. Studies actually show that there have been no association between eggs and cardiovascular disease, except maybe in some people with specific pre-existing conditions (such as diabetes or hyperglycemia). Eggs (especially the egg yolks) are actually an excellent source of proteins, fats, and other essential nutrients. "Cutting dietary cholesterol is almost irrelevant when it comes to promoting healthy blood cholesterol levels and heart health," says Donald K. Layman, Ph.D., professor emeritus of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois.

 

 

2. Always choose fat free over full fat

Wherever you go nowadays, you will see low fat or fat free products marketed as more superior than full fat products. For instance, think about your go-to supermarket. When you enter the dairy section, all you see is low fat cheese, low fat milk, fat free yoghurt, etc. According to Grant Schofield, an expert in science and nutrition, dietary fat isn’t the problem, it’s actually sugar that causes a lot of our weight gain, or inability to lose weight. These low fat/fat free products are almost always packed with tons of sugar, thickeners, and chemical stabilizers in order to make the taste decent, as low fat products without any sugar or additives would otherwise taste horrendous. When choosing your dairy products, make sure to check the ingredients to make sure that there are no sugar or nasty additives/chemicals added to it. For instance, yogurt should only have two ingredients; milk and good bacteria/culture. 

 

 

 

3. All carbs are bad for you

I’m sure we have all heard this countless of times. I know I have. However, this is far from the truth. We all know that different foods have different effects on you, this also applies to carbohydrates. So, eating highly processed carbohydrates such as biscuits or white pasta will have a completely different effect on your body than eating unprocessed carbohydrates such as quinoa or buckwheat. Carbohydrates should be an essential part of our diets as they provide us with tons of energy, for one thing. Completely cutting them out would do you no good. However, understanding which carbohydrates are highly processed (high glycemic index) and which are unprocessed (low glycemic index) is the key. A few examples of both are; 

  • Highly processed: noodles, cakes, couscous, white bread, white pasta
  • Unprocessed: wild rice, sweet potato, buckwheat, quinoa, pumpkin.

 

Misinformation on the internet is unfortunately extremely pervasive nowadays. If you’re unsure of which nutrition tips to believe, speak to a trustworthy nutritionist or do your own research from trustworthy websites/books.