Every day we are bombarded with commercials and advertisements that tout the health benefits of something “natural”. You often see foods in the supermarket with the word “natural” on the label, usually surrounded with leaves or with a picture evoking the goodness of nature. But everything that is natural may not be good for your health. For example, cyanide is natural, so is carbon dioxide, but you don’t want to be exposed to either of them too much.

Natural just doesn’t always mean healthy, but food manufacturers know that labeling something as natural can boost sales. This type of labeling is common when it comes to a great number of foods that are available on the market. We are led to believe that they are healthy just because they are natural. Just follow the trail of money and you can soon find the truth.

Foods Commonly Considered Healthy

There are a whole host of foods that you can buy at the grocery store and even health food stores that say they are natural and are considered healthy. But this is not always true, and some of them could be bad for your health.

1. Whole Grains and Refined Grains

The three most commonly consumed types of whole grains are wheat, rice and corn. Most people think of whole grains as healthy foods but the health effects of whole grains are somewhat controversial. Especially over-consumption of these grains can be unhealthy. We have a bad habit of eating more of anything that we have heard is healthy.

When speaking of grains, it is important to make a distinction between whole grains and refined grains.

Whole grains

All parts of the whole grain kernel contain nutrients which consists of 3 main parts:

• Bran: The hard outer shell of the grain which contains fiber, minerals and antioxidants.

• Endosperm: This is the starchy part of the grain that surrounds the germ. This part forms the bulk of the kernel and contains some of the vitamins and minerals.

• Germ: It forms the core of the grain and is rich in nutrients such as fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals. This the only part of the grain that contains healthy fats.

Refined grains

Refined grains are processed grains to give them a finer texture and longer shelf life. During this process, the bran and germ are removed leaving just the endosperm. Processing of whole grains involves grinding, puffing and flaking that lead to nutrient losses and reduce fiber content.

The human body absorbs sugar from processed whole grains faster than it does from unprocessed whole grains. This in turn triggers spikes in blood sugar levels that can lead to increased craving, hunger and subsequent overeating which causes weigh gain and obesity. This increases the risk of many metabolic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

From a nutritional standpoint, refined grains are are NOT healthy. They are low in nutrients, lacking fiber and fattening, though they are enriched with vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately, the majority of people consume refined grains which creates health problems. For a healthier diet, you should try to substitute refined grains with whole grains as much as possible as opposed to eating whole grains in addition to the refined grains you have been eating.

2. Processed Oil

We are bombarded daily with the idea of “healthy oils” such as polyunsaturated (only one double bond in their molecular structure) and monounsaturated oils (two or more double bond in their molecular structure).

Plant based liquid oils such as olive, avocado, and canola oils contain high amounts of monounsaturated fat while corn and soybean oils contain mainly polyunsaturated fat. These are considered as the “healthy fats” because both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are good for your overall health. When they are consumed in moderation and are used to substitute saturated or trans fats, they can help lower your cholesterol level and reduce your risk of heart disease.

Remember that in order to extract the oil from olives, they have to be processed. The fact is, they took a perfectly healthy olive, and processed the life out of it. Now what you have left is just a very calorically dense fat.

There are different methods of processing raw ingredients into oil. Some of these raw ingredients are processed and some are pressed. Pressed oils are less processed as the method of obtaining the oil is simple. The raw ingredients are pressed until the oil is extracted.

Many of the oils used in modern diets are not good for our health. They are often processed, treated with chemicals, and mostly come from genetically modified corn, canola or soy. Most oils sold in grocery stores are heated to very high temperatures during processing, which oxidizes the oils.

It is cheaper to process oils with heat or chemicals, which destroys a lot of the nutritional content. Often bleaches, solvents, deodorizers, and recoloring methods are also used during the extraction process.

All oil is 100 percent fat and has nothing to offer you but calories, obesity and bad skin. That includes canola oil and any other processed oil that you’ve heard of. They are all unhealthy and should be avoided. There are some cold pressed oils that are a little better for you, but the fact is they are still 100 percent fat with no other micro-nutrients present, the health effects will be weight gain and acne.

3. Sugar and Fake Sugar

Most of us know that sugar is not good for our health. But we probably do not realize exactly how bad processed sugar is for us. Sugar is being included in everything from things we view as salty treats, to things we view as healthy such as “low-fat” yogurt. Sugar raises your triglyceride levels, wears out your pancreas, and also slows down white blood cell production so that you cannot fight off illness as easily. Plus, sugar is as addictive as cocaine and heroin.

Also be aware that some substitutes like agave aren’t really health foods they are just different forms of sugar. It’s important to understand the distinction. While eating a ripe peach is healthy, however, eating something derived and processed from peaches is not. Coconut sugars, brown sugar, and even so-called diet sugars like that found in the pink, yellow or blue packages is not good for your health.

Sugar, in all forms, is a simple carbohydrate that the body converts into glucose and uses for energy. But the effect on the body and your overall health depend on the type of sugar you’re eating, either natural or refined.

Natural sugars are found in fruit as fructose and in dairy products, such as milk and cheese, as lactose. Foods with natural sugar have an important role in the diet of cancer patients as they provide essential nutrients that keep the body healthy and help prevent disease.

Refined sugar comes from sugar cane or sugar beets, which are processed to extract the sugar. It is typically found as sucrose, which is the combination of glucose and fructose. We use white and brown sugars to sweeten cakes and cookies, coffee, cereal and even fruit. Food manufacturers add chemically produced sugar, typically high-fructose corn syrup, to foods and beverages, including crackers, flavored yogurt, tomato sauce and salad dressing. Low-fat foods are the worst offenders, as manufacturers use sugar to add flavor.

Most of the processed foods we eat add calories and sugar with little nutritional value. In contrast, fruit and unsweetened milk have vitamins and minerals. Milk also has protein and fruit has fiber, both of which keep you feeling full longer.

How the body metabolizes the sugar in fruit and milk differs from how it metabolizes the refined sugar added to processed foods. The body breaks down refined sugar rapidly, causing insulin and blood sugar levels to skyrocket. Because refined sugar is digested quickly, you don’t feel full after you’re done eating, no matter how many calories you consumed. The fiber in fruit slows down metabolism, as fruit in the gut expands to make you feel full. But there’s a caveat. Once the sugar passes through the stomach and reaches the small intestine, it doesn’t matter if it came from an apple or a soft drink.

How much sugar is already in your blood will determine how the body uses the sugar. If you already have a lot of sugar in your system, then what you just digested will form either fat or glycogen, the storage form of glucose that’s used for quick energy. It doesn’t matter if it’s junk food or fruit.

We eat more refined sugar today than our parents and grandparents did three decades ago, which has resulted in increasing obesity rates among adults and children. Obesity has been associated with certain cancers, including breast, prostate, uterine, colorectal and pancreatic. On the flip side, fruits high in antioxidants—blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and apples—may reduce your cancer risk. The fiber in fruit, found mainly in its skin, suppresses your appetite to prevent overeating and weight gain.

Why Is Processed Sugar Bad for You?

An excess of sweetened foods and beverages can lead to weight gain, blood sugar problems and an increased risk of heart disease, among other severe health conditions. For these reasons, added sugar should be kept to a minimum whenever possible, which is easy when you follow a healthy diet based on whole foods.

Artificial sweeteners, or sugar substitutes, are chemicals added to some foods and beverages to make them taste sweet.

People often refer to them as “intense sweeteners” because they provide a taste similar to that of table sugar but up to several thousand times sweeter.

Although some sweeteners contain calories, the amount needed to sweeten products is so small that you end up consuming almost no calories. Artificial sweeteners are essentially chemicals that are used to sweeten foods and beverages. They in fact provide almost zero calories. The FDA has approved five artificial sweeteners: saccharin, acesulfame, aspartame, neotame, and sucralose. It has also approved one natural low-calorie sweetener, stevia.

Added sugar is may well be the worst ingredient in the modern diet. It has been linked to many serious diseases, including obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. What’s more, most people consume too much sugar but they often have no idea of its health problems.

Why Sugar Is Bad for You

4. Protein Powders

We all need protein, but we do not need three times the maximum recommended daily allowance that is recommended by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With protein being added to virtually everything these days from smoothies to water, you’d think we are suffering worldwide shortages of protein and serious diseases due to our deficiency. But, nothing could be further from the truth.

The over consumption of protein and using processed protein powders are not only unnecessary but dangerous and can lead to obesity, heart disease and even some types of cancer. People who are consuming enough calories in their daily lives do not need any type of protein additives, including people who eat a primarily vegan diet.

Protein in excess of what your body needs isn’t automatically stored as muscle. It might be stored as fat. In addition, “too much protein puts strain on the kidneys, may lead to dehydration, bloating, nausea, osteoporosis, and other complications. And, needless to say, protein powder on its own is not a meal.

5. Additives

Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance its taste, appearance, or other qualities. Some additives have been used for centuries. For example, preserving food by pickling with vinegar, salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as with wines.

Additives may be natural, nature identical or artificial. Natural additives are substances found naturally in a foodstuff and are extracted from one food to be used in another. For example, beetroot juice with its bright purple color can be used to color other foods such as sweets.

6. Juice & Juice Drinks

All that fruit juice in the grocery store is not as good as you think for you or your children. It’s just concentrated liquid sugar. If you want fruit, eat some fruit. Fruit has fiber. Juice is void of fiber and is not something you really need to add to your diet on a regular basis. While movies that have popularized juice fasting and “feasting” have made it look healthy, it’s better to eat your food while than to process it into calorically dense sugars.

Of course, the worst offenders are the processed, pasteurized juices that you buy at the grocery store. The one exception is homemade fresh squeezed citrus. However, you’re still better off eating the orange so that you can have all the wonderful fiber rich pulp as part of your diet too.

There’s a big difference between a ‘fruit juice’ and a ‘fruit drink’. If it says ‘fruit juice’, it must contain undiluted fruit juice. This can have up to 4% added sugar. If it says ‘fruit drink’, it must contain at least 5% fruit juice.

7. Processed Food

There are many foods that are processed that people call healthy such as protein bars, cereal, whole grain breads, white rice, pasta, energy drinks, low fat diet foods, low fat yogurt, shake mixes, diet drinks, gluten free junk food and more. You can find a package of so called “health food” on every isle in the grocery store. Even stores that people think of as healthy like Whole Foods and Earth Fare carry a lot of processed products that may have started out healthy like kale chips but are now loaded with oil, sugar and salt with all their nutrition processed out of them.

It may be shocking to you to discover that a lot of what you’ve been told is healthy isn’t. It may also shock you to realize that even the government is behind some of the false and misleading advertising that leads you to believe these things are healthy. Organizations and lobbying groups sprout up all the time pushing a particular product as healthy to get more sales. It’s not about your health; it’s about advertising and marketing.

What Is Processed Food?

Processed food includes food that has been cooked, canned, frozen, packaged or changed or modified in nutritional composition with fortifying, preserving or preparing in different ways. The most heavily processed foods often are pre-made meals including frozen pizza and microwaveable dinners.

Processed foods like chips, soda, frozen pizzas and many others are full of salt, sugar and fat. Scientists have already linked low-cost, packaged foods to rising obesity rates around the world. Obesity is a condition involving too much body fat that it increases the risk of developing many health problems.

People who eat lots of ultra-processed foods are more likely to develop serious health problems and die sooner than those who consume foods in their original form.

Heavily processed foods are often high in sugar, fat and lack calories. Consuming lots of these foods has long been linked to an increased risk of a variety of health problems such as heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, cancer and depression.

Two studies published in The BMJ offer new evidence of the health risks of ultra-processed foods. One study linked eating more than four daily servings of ultra-processed foods to a 62% higher risk of premature death compared to eating little or none of these foods. The other study found that every 10 percentage increase in the share of the diet made up of ultra-processed foods leads to more than a 10% increased risk of cardiovascular diseases.

The Food Advertising and Marketing Industry

Today childhood obesity is on the rise. Even countries that used to maintain thin frames such as China now have a problem with childhood obesity. One of the reasons is the advertising and marketing industry. Just watch the ads that come on during children’s television shows, and you’ll see that they are marketing directly to your children and calling things healthy that aren’t, like cereal for example, or juice. Even chocolate milk is being marketed as wholesome and healthy, when nothing could be further from the truth.

They target children and adolescents

During Saturday morning cartoons or family nights, TV ads will come on, it’s inevitable. But it’s important to always study any claim made in any type of advertisement. Where do they get their data, and what words they are really using. For example, they might use words such as “part of a healthy diet” which does not mean that adding that item to the diet is healthy. A very big distinction that is often missed by most people is the difference between this is a healthy food and “part” of a healthy diet.

They target overweight individuals

Have you ever noticed how certain TV channels offer more commercials related to weight loss, including diet foods, diet pills and energy drinks? Usually these shows come on late at night. They probably assume that overweight individuals have trouble sleeping at night, and watch late night TV. They lead the person to believe that their potion is the next best thing and will lead to a healthy lifestyle, but their product is over-processed and full of fat, sugar and salt. There is no way that a diet shake is healthier than eating whole foods.

They target busy parents

Most parents work today, and cannot afford help at home with preparing dinner or shopping for dinner. It seems so easy to throw a few boxes of cereal on the table, pack pre-made lunches for school, and fix something from a frozen container or box in the evening. Even better a drive-through that promises to provide a healthy dinner seems so easy. But, these items, no matter how low fat they are, are overly processed and often have little nutritional value.

It’s not really all your fault if you’ve been sucked in by the advertising and marketing campaigns that you are subjected to day in and day out. Even your doctor has likely fallen for a few myths (especially the protein one), and since he or she has very little nutritional education they aren’t to blame either.

Learning to Cook & Prepare Your Own Food

When you start reading literature about diet and healthy eating, it can be overwhelming. As there is so much contradictory information out there, it’s hard to tell the truth from the wrong. But whether you follow a plant based diet or a Paleo diet, eating a diet rich in whole foods in their natural, unprocessed state is best. Learning to cook whole foods seems like a lot of hassle. However, once you learn how easy it is to cook them, you’ll be convinced that whole foods are truly fast foods.

It’s less expensive

There is a prevailing myth that eating healthy is expensive, but nothing could be further from the truth. If you are eating for health, you can eat less expensively than if you’re eating for flavor. Not to say that the food you prepare at home will not taste good, but when you realize you do not need all those additives to make your food taste good, you’ll spend a lot less money.

It’s not hard

Invest in a few tools like a food processor, non stick pans, an electric pressure cooker and a slow cooker. You will start realizing that one dish meals paired with a salad and fruit for dessert is a healthy meal. You don’t have to worry as much as you may have thought about food groups and balancing anything. Just cook real food that comes from the ground, and you will be delighted to see how easy it is to prepare food.

You’ll save on health care bills

Convenience foods often have unhealthy amounts of salt, sugar and fat in them. Eating too much salt, sugar and unhealthy fat can lead to health problems, like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. To stay healthy, and save money, try to choose healthier options at the store.

Not only will you save money over all, as convenience foods are expensive, but you’ll also save on doctor bills. Eating close to nature will help you avoid food-borne illnesses related to obesity. Many people who eat whole food diets also find that they get fewer colds and other sicknesses too. They also have an abundance of energy and sleep soundly each night compared to those who eat processed food.

Final Words

Eating healthy, whole foods will ensure that what you are eating is truly not only natural but healthy. Because, the word natural doesn’t mean healthy, it just means that it can be found in nature. Lots of things found in nature are outright killers and truly unhealthy. As you learn to cook healthy whole food meals, you and your family will have less desire for the commercially prepared foods that you used to eat. Plus, when you do eat them, you’ll enjoy them less because they will taste too salty and fake.