The Dirty Dozen: 12 Foods You Should Keep Out of Your Diet

Did you know these foods are harming you?

Here’s a list of foods that you need to keep out of your meals!

(Photo: iStock)

You want to live clean? Keep these dirty dozen out of your diet. This one mantra can help save you from multiple gen-now diseases, and make the most of your life. Otherwise you are slowly poisoning the best resource that you have – your body.

So, here’s a list of foods that you need to keep out of your meals!

Unsafe Meat

If you eat lots and lots of red meat, it’s time to probably cut down.(Photo courtesy: Tumblr/@ScottBoer)

Just what kind of meat and eggs are we eating these days? It seems it’s less protein and nutrients, and more antibiotics… stuff that is making us antibiotic resistant. And thus making us prone to falling sick again and again.

The solution here is to eat less meat or buy from small, organic farms which raise antibiotic-free animals.

Packaged Iced Tea

(Photo: iStock)

When you drink a premixed iced tea, you are simply drinking sugar (and artificial sweeteners) and water – it’s that devoid of any goodness. There are almost no antioxidants in this drink.

That’s because tea leaves are exposed to low pressure, then freeze dried and finally powdered to turn them into instant iced tea.

If you want, it’s better to make iced tea at home and have it!

Added Sugar

(GIF Courtesy: GIPHY)

We eat a lot of processed foods today. All of them are loaded with sugar – packaged juices, flavoured yogurts, canned fruits, cereal bars, chocolates, cookies, aerated drinks, granola, even ketchup and salad dressing. For example, a regular can of cola of about 350 ml has about 40 grams – or 10 teaspoons – of sugar.

Look up the label on any packet of biscuits – sugar often makes up about one-third of the ingredients’ weight. And that’s a lot of sugar.

Excess sugar is utterly damaging to you and almost every organ in your body (you know that already).

Artificial Food Colouring

Food colouring found in sweets, drinks, chips and more is harmful.(Photo: iStock)

Tartrazine, a synthetic lemon yellow azo dye is found commonly in everything from sweets and orange drinks to cereals, chips, marmalades and more. It contains the compounds benzidine and 4-aminobi-phenyl.

These are believed to be catalyst in hyperactivity/ADD, other behavioral problems, asthma and migraines.

And there are multiple other similar additives which are added freely to foods. Get aware and become careful.

Sports Drinks

(Photo: iStock)

Not just athletes everyone can benefit from a good sports (rehydrating) drink. But commercial sports drinks contain chemicals you’d best avoid – like monopotassium phosphate and mystery “natural flavors” and artificial dyes.

Canned Food

Agreed, canned foods are convenient – soups, tunas, gravies, tomato products etc – and exceedingly popular. But most cans are lined with BPA, or bisphenol A.

These can pose a risk of breast and prostate cancer as well as neurological disorders, infertility, and type 2 diabetes.

BPA is also a known endocrine disruptor, and apparently can also make you fat too.

Commercial Bread

Bread loaf in production line.(Photo: iStock)

Recent surveys have found presence of cancerous and thyroid affecting additives (potassium bromate and potassium iodate) in multiple bread brands. Take a closer look at just how much bread (and pizza and buns, and pavs) you are consuming and try to cut down.

French Fries

Order the smallest size of fries or split them with a friend!(Photo: iStock)

Acrylamide is a cancer-causing chemical that is formed in certain foods when they are heated, fried or roasted to high temperatures. This particularly includes high carbohydrate foods like potato chips, french fries, hash browns, fried chicken, doughnuts etc.

This is a tumour-causing agent and also a potent neurotoxin, which adversely effects not only the brain, but also the reproductive system.

Do I need to say more here!

Low-Fat Packaged Food

I say chuck these options completely.(Photo: iStock)

Read the labels carefully please – you’ll find that they are similar in calories actually to the regular versions. That’s because manufacturers tend to increase the amount of sugar in their products to ensure that the foods stay tasty.

So a typical low-fat product tends to be high in carbs, and might contain trans-fats and still be high calorie.

I say chuck these options completely.

Artificial Sweetener

That is why diet sodas too are not such a good idea.(Photo: iStock)

It is a common belief that diet sodas and artificial sweeteners help us in losing weight because they contain no sugar and no calories. Wrong.

Artificial sweeteners could in fact, be the cause of your weight gain, because the artificial sweetener molecule is so crafty that it convinces the brain that it’s real sugar, so the body releases insulin to help metabolise the artificial sugar.

Since there’s no real sugar present, the excess insulin, with nothing to do, performs its other tasks, which signals the body to store fat. That is why diet sodas too are not such a good idea.

Microwave Popcorn

These chemicals can be dangerous!(Photo: iStock)

Apparently butter-flavoured microwave popcorns get their flavour not from butter but from an extremely harmful chemical agent known as discetyl.

This preservative can cause Alzheimer’s and popcorn lungs – bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare life threatening disease which is irreversible.

Also, the chemicals in the bag produce perfluoroctinoic acid, which increases the risk of certain tumours.

Salad Dressing

Salads are super healthy, we all know that. But a wrong salad dressing can ruin the benefits big time.

There’s a whole arsenal of fats, salts, sugars, fake flavours, colours and lots of additives like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), MSG hiding there.

There are also chemicals added to heighten their shine and appeal. So ideally stick to home-made dressings.

(Kavita Devgan is a weight management consultant, nutritionist, health columnist and author of ‘Don’t Diet! 50 Habits of Thin People’.)

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