One of the greatest obstacles to good health is the over-abundance of information circulating throughout all corners of society. Health is a popular topic, and with that comes the spread of many poor notions about what it means to eat healthily.
To address this in a simple matter, I created a list of health myths I regularly hear as I go about my life. These are the statements I see on social media, hear from co-workers, or see in the many other areas of society. My goal is to keep this post short and to the point. However, if you want more information on the topics, I have provided links to articles, both from myself and others.
So here are a few of those myths that somehow continue to get into people’s heads and lead to bad health choices:
- Eating healthy is complicated and confusing
- Eating healthy can be complicated and confusing if you try to incorporate all of the information and contrasting views floating around in society; however, the largest gains are to be made by incorporating basic dietary principles
- To get you started, here’s the answer – odds are that all that needs to be done to achieve a state of good health is to eat real, whole foods. It is that simple.
- Eating healthy is expensive
- Eating healthy can be expensive, if you think consuming all the expensive organic, non-gmo, gluten free products is what is most important.
- Eating healthy is not expensive, and could be even cheaper than the Standard American Diet, if done properly, by focusing on purchasing foods in their whole, natural form.
- Still, eating even the most expensive diet is cheap when compared to healthcare. Organic, whole foods may seem like they put a larger hole in your pocket, but trust me, that hole pales in terms of the gap that a lifetime of Diabetes will put in your wallet.
- A calorie is a calorie – losing weight is about exercising more than you eat
- This hypothesis was refuted years ago, yet this myth still hangs around. Food is not calories; food contains calories. Food is also information, that will give your body signals to either hold on to extra pounds or shed some off. Losing weight is about eating well, and supplementing with proper exercise routines. You absolutely cannot exercise your way out of a bad diet.
- Using calorie counting to lose weight works only in the short term, and in the long term sends dangerous signals to the body that lead to damaged hormone systems and weight gain.
- Fat / Carbs /Protein are bad for you
- Anytime someone/something tries to tell you that an entire macronutrient is bad for you, they are oversimplifying an abundance of information and providing a biased perspective. Fats are absolutely essential for your body to function, given that they are naturally sourced. If you take them out of your diet, you are removing wonderful sources of nutrition and leaving a wide gap in your diet – a gap tht must be filled by other sources (excess carbohydrate, maybe?). On the flip side, carbohydrates are wonderful for you if they are in their whole, unprocessed state.
- Depending on different factors, you may respond better to a diet higher in carbohydrate, or higher in fat. But, it is best to begin the road to good health by getting a good balance of fats, carbs, and protein.
- Fat makes you fat
- Our society is over this one, right? This statement is flat-out false. It stems from the pervading idea that “a calorie is a calorie,” and since fats are higher in calories they make you fatter than carbs. As stated above, this has been disproved. Fats are metabolized completely different than carbs, so to compare their ability to produce fat based solely on their calorie content is naive.
- Fat stimulates the suppression of hunger, making you feel full, and stay full for longer. It also slows digestion and increases absorption of nutrients, sending a stronger signal to your body that you are full, and will stay full, longer
- Cholesterol causes heart attacks
- This false assumption was thrown out decades ago, and was never supported by any good data. While there is a link between cholesterol and heart disease, consuming cholesterol does not cause heart disease. This can be confidently stated based on
- The weak association between total cholesterol and heart disease
- The fact that dietary cholesterol does not even affect the cholesterol levels in your body
- Cholesterol is an essential nutrient for the body. It happens to be one of your body’s best ways to repair damage – damage that ay arise, say, in the arteries. Cholesterol got a bad rep because it was always at the scene of the crime. But cholesterol wasn’t there causing damage – it was there repairing the damage caused by other means. Cholesterol also has numerous other jobs in the body, such as building new neural connections and building a strong, well-functioning cell membrane.
- This false assumption was thrown out decades ago, and was never supported by any good data. While there is a link between cholesterol and heart disease, consuming cholesterol does not cause heart disease. This can be confidently stated based on
- Healthy food tastes bad
- if the healthy food you are eating tastes bad, 1 of 2 things is likely occurring
- This “health food” is not really health food – it is likely a processed food marketed as healthy. Nutrients tend to taste good, so if you’re eating good quality, nutritious foods, they will contain lots of flavors!
- Your taste buds are adapted to industrial foods, which tend to contain comprise a mix of high salt, high sugar, high fat, along with industrially concocted flavors. If this is the case, then push through the transition to a real foods diet – I can assure you the phase of healthy food tasting bland will end soon, and all these nutritious foods will soon become delicious as well.
- Healthy food is delicious! It may not seem that way right now, but I assure you, if you form healthy dietary habits, you will learn to love all the new delicious foods that are available.
- if the healthy food you are eating tastes bad, 1 of 2 things is likely occurring
- Humans were not meant to eat ____(where ____ involves any whole food)
- This is an argument made by all sides of these food wars. Ask the paleo folk, and they will tell you we weren’t meant to eat grains or dairy. Ask the vegan side, and they will tell you we weren’t meant to eat meat or animal products. We need to change our perspective on “meant to.”
- Humans are an incredible, successful species because our species has the incredible ability to adapt to different foods. Yes, some foods have more beneficial properties than others, and some have more detrimental properties than others. But grouping an entire food into the category of “not meant to eat” shows a lack of understanding of the evolutionary process
- Vegetables include French fries, or other processed foods
- According to an article by Food Politics guru Marion Nestle, the most commonly consumed “vegetable” by Americans is potatoes, with the average American consuming about 47 pounds of potatoes in 2014. Of those 47 pounds, about 20 pounds were from frozen sources (think French fries), and about 5 pounds were from potato chips or other “dehydrated” sources. Chips and French fries are not vegetables – they are starch molecules containing toxic oils and are usually a vehicle for more toxic foods (MSG, HFCS, etc.)
- Fruit juice is a healthy option, and a good way to get my servings of fruit
- Fruit juice is arguably one of the major dangerous foods disguised as a health food. Sure it may contain some beneficial nutrients, but the sugar load is so incredibly high, it could be considered equivalent to drinking a soda. There are 33g of sugar in Simply orange juice, compared to 39g in a coke. While the orange juice may market it as healthier because it is “natural” and there are no added sugars, because that sugar is no longer wrapped up with the fiber found in whole fruit, the sugar is going to have the exact same effect as the sugar in the coke.
- Eat your fruit, but please eat it whole
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