Foods to Stop Eating. Now & Forever!

Eliminating these foods from your diet, or at least reducing their appearance on your daily menu, will have real pay-offs to your health and your overall well-being.  One key is to plan your meals ahead of time rather than randomly strolling through the grocery store, picking from those thousands of products trying to lure you through false health promises.  Start with one product or work on them all at once.  The journey to good health starts with a few small steps!

Oils—Ditch the cheap oils from the supermarket shelves and try coconut or avocado oils from the health food store.  Both are weight-loss friendly and are much better than corn oil and others that are loaded with trans-fats.

Creamy Soups—These are not your friends, even though they add a certain flavor and texture to casseroles.  Loaded with sodium, oil, MSG, and artificial flavors and colors, they are terrible choices.  Research recipes that are tasty without adding canned flavor.

Margarine—This food is just plain bad; It is loaded with fats and oils that are known causes of inflammation and directly link to the Big Four:  Obesity, Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Cancer.  Search the health food store for a good alternative like Earth Balance, or learn to skip this ingredient altogether.

Fatty Ground Beef—If you must use beef, go for leaner cuts, and when it comes to hamburger, be sure to choose wisely.  An 80/20 combination or higher is a must.  Another good idea is to use TVP (texturized vegetable protein) which is widely available.  A good one to try is Bob’s Red Mill variety.  This dried soybean food takes on the flavor of whatever it is mixed with and can serve as a replacement for ground beef, or it can be mixed in to cut down on the actual meat.

Artificial Sweeteners—Loaded with terrible ingredients, these concoctions have a sweetness level that is as much as 700 times that of natural sugar.  This leads one to want more and more.  To eliminate this, try cutting back on the foods you use it in/on.  If you put it on oatmeal, try using a half packet and adding in frozen blueberries for sweetness.  If you use it in your morning coffee or tea, cut back on the number of cups you have.  Or, if you have the willpower, go cold turkey.

The Whites—Flour, Pasta, and Rice—Did you know that your white flour is bleached?  Do you want to feed yourself and your family food that has been washed with chemicals?  And white rice and pasta is made by throwing out the good stuff, the hull of the kernel, which has all the nutrients.  Why eat foods that are not doing your body any good?  If I am going to ingest calories, I want it to be from something that is nutritious; think brown when you are buying any of these three ingredients.

Fat-Free Foods—Yogurt and salad dressings have become victims of the fat-free fad.  By removing fat, much of the taste and the satiety of the food is compromised, so manufacturers load them with artificial ingredients so they have some taste, along with tons of sugar and sodium.  A bit of fat helps you absorb more of the nutrition from your salad, so skip the fat-free varieties, or, even better, make your own dressings.

Canned Foods—The biggest culprit here is canned vegetables, but really, anything that comes in a can is probably available as fresh or is something that you can make yourself.  Canned foods are loaded with sodium, and what manufacturers call “flavor enhancers,” and they are often packaged in cans lined with BPA.  Shop for your veggies and fruits in the fresh produce aisle.  A bit more work, but well worth the effort.

Broth and Bouillon—These products are handy when making many dishes, especially soups, and some like a cup of bouillon as a pick-me-up in the afternoon.  However, these are loaded with sodium, so opt for the low-sodium and low-fat versions.

Sugar—This is terrible, addictive food.  It causes inflammation and has been linked to the Big Four; like sodium, it is loaded into nearly every processed food product available.  Avoid at all costs.  Do not be duped by manufacturers that hail agave nectar, honey, or maple syrup as a “natural” alternative.  While these may have a few nutrients, they are not enough to offset the negative effects of sugar.  Start by cutting down, and make sugar a treat you enjoy only occasionally.

The health benefits of making these changes are tremendous, and after a few weeks, you will not miss them.

 Your heart, your liver, your brain, and the rest of your body will thank you for banishing these negative foods from your diet forever!