Foods that you believe are healthy but they really aren’t

Malted drinks such as bournvita, Horlicks, boost, complain, milo, viva are every kid also sometimes adult’s favourite drink. They claim to be “sugar free”, healthy for heart , good for the growth of the child, creates strong bones, etc. But if you look at the nutritional value you will find all the artificial sweeteners are added and approximately 50% of the product is nothing but sugar. Kids love the sweetness of the malted drinks so they tend to drink more which in turn affects their health in many unknown ways. One of the main side effects of these malted drinks are they stop the growth of the gut bacteria and slowly harm the gut which in turn immunity is lost. Also to add to the bad health these powders have a compound called maltodextrin which is a white starch compound made from corn,rice,potatoes which spikes the insulin in the blood and also makes kids gain weight.

One can always substitute these unhealthy malt powders with a good home made health mix made of sprouts, barley, ragi, chana, rice, dal, saffron, turmeric , cardamom , dry fruits like dates, almonds, walnuts and with healthy sugar alternatives like jaggery, honey etc. Made them into powder and have it with warm milk. There is nothing better than homemade always.

When we go to grocery markets, we can find a number of flours lining up in the shelves making us to confuse which one to buy. As an health conscious person we tend to incline towards picking the ones giving us convincing names and one such is “Multigrain”.

Multigrain is nothing but mixing various grains together such as jowar, bajra, ragi, besan, makai sometimes quinoa etc. But less we know that mixing grains like these creates and immensely high fibre Atta which very much problematic to our gut. Excess fibre intake causes malabsorption of some of the important micronutrients such as zinc, calcium, folate.

Its always advisable to have only one Atta at a time. Consuming one type of fibre at a time allows the body to absorb all the necessary nutrients and enzymes completely that each offer. It should always be in the ratio 70:30 i.e. 70% of the chosen millet flour and 30% of the regular wheat.

As we all know yogurts are very healthy for the gut because they contain the live culture of good bacteria required for our gut for its proper function. But do we know that these have added preservatives, colours, flavours ? Packed yogurts always contains added sugar, added artificial flavours, added colours etc. apart from the live active culture.

For example one cup (200ml) of say any company strawberry flavoured yogurt definitely contains added sugar and added synthetic flavours. How much ever healthy these products claim to be they add preservatives for sure which kills the benefits of the active culture present.

Hence the best choice of probiotics are always home made curds. They contain immense amount of good bacteria, no artificial colours or no added preservatives. Some of the other good source of probiotics are buttermilk, coconut milk, probiotic almond milk, corn , cottage cheese(paneer), sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha juice etc.

Many of you may be thinking right now is how can fruit juices be bad? Unfortunately packaged fruit juices are “Bad” for health. We are living in a modern and fast paced life where we like everything to be readymade so that we save time (I wont say money because we spend it on medicines for all the unhealthy habits we do). One such readymade product is the packaged fruit juices. These packaged juices again contains a lots of preservatives some are even cancer causing agents and not to forget a lot of sugars to give us the exact sweetness of a fruit. Also i always recommend fruits to be eaten and not to be juiced mainly because juicing a fruit rips off its fibre content and all we get is the sugar and water. All necessary minerals and vitamins are ripped off along with the fibre. Its always better to eat a fruit than drinking it.

Who doesn’t like to eat a perfectly flavoured pizza or noodles or a pack of biscuits for snack? We always tend to move for easier choices than the healthier ones. We always wanted everything easy, ready made but we dint know it also comes with a price “Our health”.

When we buy these ready to cook pizza or 2 mins maggi or jim-jam biscuits we are not noticing that our health is being compromised. Why are these ready to cook items always ready in seconds and when we cook them from scratch it takes not less than an hour?

When we cook noodles from scratch we tend to make it fresh, we make it healthy, flavourful also colourful by adding lots of vegetables. But when we make this 2 mins noodles we are compromising on all these things just for the sake of the laziness. These packaged foods comes with a butt load of preservatives, emulsifiers, salt, sugar, additives, oils and what not which are extremely bad for the health. These compounds when we intake they confuse our digestive system which leads to improper function of the pancreas(because of the all the extra sugar) , our gut, our immunity, brain functioning and finally leading to cancer.

Low fat foods aren’t necessarily the best option. They market themselves as low fat or low cholesterol but in reality, they have high amounts of sodium and trans fats which can affect blood pressure , heart functioning and have adverse effects on fat metabolism .

Instead homemade ghee or homemade butter is way more healthier option. Home made fats contains short chain fatty acids which helps in improving fat metabolism.

Recently people are opting for gluten free foods because some research told that gluten free foods help in weight loss , muscle loss . THAT IS COMPLETELY WRONG. In fact gluten free foods are as harmful as gluten foods. Gluten is a sticky compound which one can find in atta while kneading for chapatis or in maida while kneading for breads. Gluten helps in binding with fibre to give energy. Its completely wrong to go devoid of gluten unless one has Celiac disease (gluten intolerance). Gluten free foods may seem healthier but they have high amounts of unnecessary starchy content, preservatives and chemicals.

Consuming high amount of gluten free foods affects our gut reversely and gives us just the empty calories.

Most of you may be wondering what’s in using oils or how else we can cook without oil? Using the right oils is the key. Most of vegetable oils are refined and highly processed especially sunflower oil and palm oil. Highly processed vegetable oils have polyunsaturated fatty acids(PUFA) which means it has high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids. Excess of this can disturb the cell communication in the body and lead to hormonal issues. This happens because our body requires a balance between omega 3 and omega 6.

To maintain this balance, its always recommended to unrefined and cold pressed seed oils like sesame oil, coconut oil, groundnut oil, mustard oil, extra virgin olive oil, rice bran and even desi ghee. Its also recommended to use a variety of these oils to cook various dishes so the nutrients in each oil is added to the food. One must not use just one oil throughout for cooking since using variety of oils gives more benefits than using single variety oil.

Am i serious? Yes! Microwaveable popcorn seems a healthy snack since its low in calories. But when you see the nutritional content on the label of the pack you will find high levels of sodium content and trans fats which slows down our fat metabolism leading to weight gain.

As an healthy alternative one can buy the plain dried corn kernels which are being sold in all supermarkets now a days and add the spices according to our taste and make a super healthy popcorn at home. As I always say homemade is always healthy and tastier any day than the store bought.

Not but not the least, just because its labelled as “energy” bars doesn’t mean it will give energy or it is good for the health. These contains high amounts of fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. Also, the high quantity of preservatives found in these so called "sugarless” bars or biscuits or jellies only gives more harm to the gut by increasing the inflammation.

For better health and nutrition rich snack homemade ladoos are always the best. They are made with hygiene and care for our healthy needs.

Most of the time, these so-called healthy foods do not deserve to be called healthy at all as we all think. So, please be aware of the overall nutritional value of food and don’t blindly follow the “labels”.