Faux Health Foods - junk in healthy packaging

There are certain foods that are promoted as being healthy despite all evidence to the contrary. As I come across them, they’ll be part of an occasional post called Faux Health Foods.

Today I have 3 that have already bugged me this weekend.

1. Frozen Yoghurt.

Image from wiki

There is a chain of frozen yoghurt stores that very happily tout that frozen yoghurt is healthy. It says so right on their signs. Unfortunately just because the sign says it’s healthy, doesn’t make it so. Frozen yoghurts are often jam packed with sugar. They have some very beautiful colours, and flavours from mango, to blueberry to green tea, all designed to suck us into their health scam. Doesn’t that sound good? Looking at the nutrition facts of one of these companies however, we can see a different story.

100-gram serve contains

92.8 kcal

17.5 g total carbohydrates (no breakdown of sugar)

What is interesting is that this chain offers self-serve yoghurts where you get to fill your own rather large cup. I have to be honest, I have eaten it once or twice. Nutritionists are people too and on a hot day, when you feel like being naughty, they’re really nice. However because I’ve bought them, I can tell you how hard it is to only fill your cup with 100g! Assume you manage to get 200g. That’s still 34g of carbohydrates, almost all of which is sugar. Then there’s the fact that even if you managed to get as little frozen yoghurt into the cup as possible, their nutritional information does not take into account the toppings! Oh my, you can get chocolates and lollies and chocolate biscuits and jelly beans. My favourite are the M&M’s. Their sign should say ‘Is healthier if you have less than 100grams and don’t put anything on top’.

Yum

It may seem as if I’m anti frozen yoghurt, rest assured I’m not. As I said, I’ve eaten it a few times, more than 100g and with all the toppings, and I’ll most likely eat it again at some point. Lets not pretend it’s a healthy food though. It’s a treat. It’s a yummy, cold, flavourful treat that’s packed with sugar and empty calories and if we want to treat ourselves, or just feel so inclined, we can eat it occasionally. But it’s not healthy.

Alternatives

 Simply Recipes has a beautiful looking recipe for blueberry frozen yoghurt. http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/blueberry_frozen_yogurt/

You’ll notice the amount of sugar used. It does say you can adjust it to taste. Or alternatively, I’d try it with coconut sugar.

2. Bottled fruit juice

A glass of pulp-free orange juice, Wiki

Bottled fruit juice is essentially just liquid sugar. It starts as fruit at one end and comes out as sweet liquid at the other end, losing all its fibre and a lot of its nutrients along the way. Many of us get conned into drinking fruit juice and counting it towards our daily intake of fruit, however this just isn’t so. Have you ever noticed how they add extra vitamins and minerals into the juice? The vitamins were already there when it was a pile of fruit. They press the fruit, get rid of all the good stuff and then add it back in at the end… Does that sound right to you?

 If you’re trying to lose weight, watch out. Its so easy to drink juice, you may not realise how many calories you’re consuming. Fruit juice is also quite high on the glycaemia index. Why? Because its all that thick bulky fibre that helps to slow the absorption of the sugars. If you take the fibre out, the sugars get absorbed really quickly, making it high GI. Some juices even have added sugar. In order to get the nutritional stats, I randomly selected a bottle of orange juice from the supermarket. These are the facts

200mL serving size
370kJ or 88.5 calories
18.8 g carbohydrates
16.6 g sugar
added flavour.

Since when did oranges need more orange flavour? Aside from that, you can see that per tiny 200mL serve, there is 16.6g of sugar and no fibre. Empty calories. Again, I'm not suggesting you never drink juice. Just minimise it. The piece of fruit is a health food, prepackaged juice is a treat.

Alternatives

Eat the fruit. Otherwise, consider blended smoothies. See my post on 25 Heavenly Healthy Smoothies. Yum.

3. Smoothies from café’s and retail outlets

If you have a look at the ingredients of many of these smoothies, they’re frozen yoghurt (or ice cream) and juice. Sure, sometimes they blend in some actual fruit, you can get ones with protein powder, you may get some greens. Unfortunately the bulk is still frozen yoghurt and juice.

Alternatives

Again, you could make your own. Otherwise, choose the options without the frozen yoghurt. Opt for ones where you can see the whole fruit or vegetable going in and see if you can add ground seeds for fibre. Health and Nutrition Coach Amelia Burton recommends following the 2 veg 1 fruit rule in your smoothies. She also suggests using coconut milk instead of juice.

As I said, this will be a sporadic post when I see junk foods posing as healthy options. Hope this helps.

Chris