What foods are harmful: myths and truth about modern nutritional supplements

Visits to a beloved grandmother for fans of a healthy lifestyle have turned into torture for some time now. Buns are not allowed – there is gluten, the cake is also – cream with trans fats. And in borscht (if your grandmother is not a gardener who grows vegetables herself), potatoes or tomatoes with GMOs brought to the nearest supermarket from other countries can generally lie in wait.
How now to live and what to eat for those who care about their health? Let's find out together with estet-portal.com the truth about the most stereotypical products and nutritional supplements of our time.

Stereotypes and the truth about what foods are bad these days

Healthy lifestyle – this is, of course, wonderful. A conscious attitude to your body and its sources of energy solves many problems with health and appearance. And the food – one of the most important factors on which well-being (both physical and emotional) depends.
But today, many food products and nutritional supplements have acquired so many myths, legends and scary stories that now every juicy beautiful tomato seems especially suspicious a monster that comes alive from GMOs and eats them from the inside.

To find out if we are all being made victims of the fashion for healthy eating, we have compiled the TOP 5 most discussed products and supplements that everyone is afraid of and which have been labeled "Harmful".

GMO

A capacious abbreviation and three cheerful letters were born back in 1982, when Monsanto presented the first transgenic plant to the scientific community – tobacco. The genetic material was transferred by an agrobacterium into the plant's DNA, which repelled pests, increased yields, and formed resistance to pesticides.

Scientists-idealists saw this as a sign to save the world from hunger, and businessmen were already starting to mentally calculate the superprofits from future achievements of genetic engineering.
On the crest of the wave, experiments continued: tomatoes, soybeans, cereals. The queue has even reached the animal world: Canadian scientists have increased the survival rate of salmon in cold water by implanting the gene of a frost-resistant flounder in the fish. In 2015, the vast majority of US sugar beet crops came from GM crops, as did soybean and cotton crops.

After a while, a camp of opponents of GMOs appeared, who blamed genetic engineering for all the problems of mankind. They say that GMO foods contribute to obesity, reduce fertility, provoke the development of malignant tumors, and generally increase the risk of having children with mental retardation. In a nutshell, until now, scientists have not established a direct link between the use of GMO foods and diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, allergies, or mental disabilities. So, no matter what their opponents say about foreign genes, their harm has not been scientifically proven. And modern people are getting fat all the same, hardly from GMOs. Rather, you should just try to eat less and move more.

A curious fact: in our time, only raw vegans can completely escape from GMO products. Since many types of cheese, bread and beer are made with the addition of enzymes that are created using biotechnology.

LactoseThe essence of the main claim of the current healthy lifestyle gurus to milk sugar, which is lactose, is that a person needs milk only in the first months of life. And only then it is worth abandoning the infant "nourishment", since the body of an adult already practically ceases to produce the necessary enzymes for the breakdown of lactose and loses the ability to absorb it.

However, doctors are not so categorical: there are not so many people suffering from real lactose intolerance – every third, according to statistics. Lactose intolerance has very unpleasant symptoms (bloating, flatulence, heaviness in the stomach and abdomen, diarrhea, allergic reactions even after a glass of milk) and usually begins to manifest itself from childhood, aggravating with age. Such people really have to permanently delete whole milk from the diet. However, fermented milk products can be consumed by them.

But everyone else does not need to deprive themselves of the benefits in the form of calcium and essential amino acids, which are rich in milk and products based on it.

GlutenAxiom: the higher the grade of flour, the tastier and more magnificent the pastries from it. Another axiom: the higher the grade of flour, the more gluten (wheat gluten, which determines the quality of flour with its quality and quantity). some people have a serious disease of the small intestine – celiac disease.

However, in our time, many fans of a healthy diet are completely refusing all flour just because of gluten, even without suffering from health problems because of its intolerance. There is simply an opinion that a complete rejection of gluten-containing products – the shortest way to harmony and health.

Do you really think people get fat from gluten and not from the fifth bun in a row? Of course, to some extent, gluten can affect overall well-being (irritable bowel syndrome, heaviness in the stomach, digestive problems), but blaming extra pounds solely on gluten is pointless.

True, in any case, the rejection of flour will have a beneficial effect on the figure. So you can safely follow the example of Victoria Beckham and Rachel Weisz, who sit on a gluten-free diet and delight the public with a slender body.

Trans fats

It used to be that bad cholesterol accumulates in the body from animal fats, which means that they should be completely replaced with vegetable fats. This is how we were all slowly hooked on trans fats, starting with the soft margarine trend in the 90s (remember Rama, which did not freeze in the refrigerator).
Actually, artificially compacted (hydrogenated) vegetable fats are worse than lard and butter combined. Scientists have proven that they increase the level of cholesterol in the body (which, ironically, everyone was so afraid of before) and significantly increase the risk of developing diabetes. We are silent about excess weight or even obesity due to metabolic disorders.

Because crafty manufacturers will never put the word "trans fat" on the label to avoid being misled, look for the phrase "hydrogenated vegetable oil" on the packaging. or simply "vegetable oil" on solid products. And feel free to return food to the shelf – all useful vegetable matter disappeared from it in the process of hydrogenation.

Sugar substitutes

At one time, the invention of substances many times sweeter than sugar and at the same time with zero claoria became a real revolution in the lives of those who zealously follow the figure. However, the euphoria did not last long when the chemistry instead of natural sugar began to bear its first fruits. It was then that it turned out that you have to pay for harmony with serious side effects.

Diet soda drinkers even develop resistance to simple painkillers. Artificial sweeteners simply neutralize the effect of analgesics.

Besides, without receiving the promised energy supply, the body begins to "strike"; -  and "sweet hunger" with the desire of the body's hormonal response is enhanced. We subconsciously want to eat failure and, without noticing it, we overeat a lot. So it's better to have a piece of real dark chocolate once a week.

By the way, unlike the additives described above, there are useful products that are completely undeservedly included in the list of harmful ones, from where it is better to return them to a full-fledged daily diet.

Once the wise Paracelsus said: «Everything– poison and all – medicine. Both are determined by dose. So keep this aphorism in mind when composing your diet!