{"id":4217,"date":"2021-04-06T09:05:47","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T09:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.centaxpharma.com\/the-truth-about-unhealthy-foods\/"},"modified":"2021-04-06T09:05:47","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T09:05:47","slug":"the-truth-about-unhealthy-foods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/the-truth-about-unhealthy-foods\/","title":{"rendered":"The truth about unhealthy foods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this part of our February series <strong>\u201cNutrition myths uncovered\u201d<\/strong> we want to look at healthy and unhealthy foods. If you think about it, at least a few foods come to mind for each category, don&#8217;t they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It makes our lives so much easier if we can <strong>divide foods into good and bad<\/strong> and then simply leave out the bad ones. That makes it easy to put together a healthy diet. But can <strong>foods really be divided into these two simple categories?<\/strong> Well, not really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why are certain foods considered unhealthy?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We often rate foods as <strong>unhealthy<\/strong> when, above all, they contain<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>a lot of calories,<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>sugar,<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>a lot of fat, especially animal fats, and<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>additives<\/strong>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These food characteristics are regarded as fattening and harmful to health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>number of calories<\/strong>, i.e. how much energy a food contains, is of course a <strong>relevant aspect<\/strong>. More than 50% of Germans are overweight, mostly because of a calorie surplus and lack of exercise. Many people could therefore do their body some good by consuming fewer calories in order to lose weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/donuts-690281_1920.jpg\" alt=\"Doughnuts, which are considered unhealthy\" class=\"wp-image-6822\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Too much sugar and fat are also often named as causes of various diseases.<\/strong> However, this statement is <strong>only partly correct<\/strong>. If we take in a great deal of sugar and fat through food, weight gain becomes more likely. It is this weight gain that then triggers diseases, as mentioned above, and not the sugar or fat per se.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What about nuts, for example? They are high in fat and calories, yet are considered healthy. So somehow this categorisation of foods does not work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Additives are also demonised by many as unhealthy. Since they are not of natural origin, it cannot be healthy to eat something like that, right? Here again: it is not that simple. It is correct that most <strong>additives are produced chemically<\/strong>. <strong>In the end, however, they are identical to natural substances<\/strong>. Our body cannot tell the difference between, say, vanillin from real vanilla and chemically produced vanillin. Furthermore, the <strong>regulations governing additives are extremely strict in the EU<\/strong>. Behind every approved substance are years of research and tests on its safety. So if you do find <strong>additives<\/strong> in your food, you can be sure <strong>that they will not harm your health.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">It is the overall diet that matters, not individual unhealthy components<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what if I now say that all these components of foods are not unhealthy at all?<strong> It is the overall picture that really matters.<\/strong> If you eat several packets of gummy bears every day, followed by frozen pizza and ice cream, it is obvious that this does not exactly reflect a healthy diet. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with having an ice cream after a vegetable stir-fry with potatoes. Quite the opposite: that is exactly what a <strong>healthy and balanced diet<\/strong> looks like. It is just as important that you <strong>enjoy your food<\/strong>, and yes, that can include sweets here and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our body does not actually know exactly what we have eaten, because <strong>only the individual building blocks of the food arrive in the gut<\/strong>. To make this easier to understand, let me describe a little example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Woman with a salad and man with sweet pastries\" src=\"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Anna-2.png\" class=\"wp-image-6824\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>In the evening Anna eats a plate of pasta with tomato sauce and a large salad with it. The following building blocks then arrive in the gut: <strong>carbohydrates<\/strong> from the pasta and the tomato sauce, a little <strong>fat<\/strong> from the tomato sauce and a salad dressing, and many <strong>micronutrients<\/strong> and <strong>dietary fibre<\/strong> from the salad. The meal has about 450 kcal (energy content) from the pasta and about 100 kcal from the salad, a total of 650 kcal. So let us note: our body registers carbohydrates, fat, fibre and of course the <strong>calories<\/strong> when they arrive in the gut.<\/li><li>Tom, on the other hand, does not feel like anything savoury today. A large salad is enough for him and he would rather enjoy an ice cream afterwards. With this meal he too takes in <strong>micronutrients<\/strong> and <strong>dietary fibre<\/strong> from the salad, <strong>fat<\/strong> from a salad dressing, and <strong>carbohydrates<\/strong> and fat from the ice cream. The salad again has 100 kcal, and the ice cream weighs in heavily at 580 kcal (200 g of ice cream). Do you remember the <strong>building blocks in Anna&#8217;s case? Exactly, they are identical!<\/strong> Carbohydrates, fat, fibre and calories.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Intuitively, you would say straight away that Anna eats healthily and Tom unhealthily. But even if Anna probably takes in a little less fat and fewer total calories than Tom, the <strong>two meals are reasonably similar in their nutrient composition<\/strong>. So you see,<strong> no food is bad when looked at on its own.<\/strong> Instead, the <strong>interplay of these foods determines<\/strong> whether you eat <strong>healthily or unhealthily<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What makes a healthy diet?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/lunch-at-the-table-with-healthy-organic-food-top-view-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Table laid with many healthy foods that should be preferred to unhealthy ones\" class=\"wp-image-6829\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dge.de\/ernaehrungspraxis\/vollwertige-ernaehrung\/10-regeln-der-dge\/\"> <strong>healthy diet<\/strong><\/a> is therefore <strong>not defined by particular foods<\/strong>, but by the way you eat as a whole. So concentrate instead on eating <strong>enough fruit and vegetables<\/strong>, <strong>plenty of protein and valuable fats<\/strong> (e.g. olive oil, nuts, fish oil, etc.) and drinking <strong>plenty of water<\/strong>. A<strong> varied diet is just as important<\/strong> for covering your requirement for all nutrients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once you have covered these basics, there is nothing wrong with an ice cream or a frozen pizza. Just make sure that these foods, which contain few micronutrients and many calories, do not get out of hand. The <strong>focus of your diet should still be on food rich in nutrients and fibre, with a balanced energy intake.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I hope I have been able to show you a little that we should not simply divide foods into healthy and unhealthy. Looking at your diet as a whole is much more important for staying healthy and full of vitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you are wondering whether detox cures are part of a healthy diet, just take a look here: Do detox cures detoxify your body?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this part of our February series \u201cNutrition myths uncovered\u201d we want to look at healthy and unhealthy foods. If you think about it, at least a few foods come to mind for each category, don&#8217;t they? It makes our lives so much easier if we can divide foods into good and bad and then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centaxpharma.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}