Men’s Health Magazine, milking the success of its “Eat this, not that” line of books, provides a grotesquely entertaining list of the 30 worst foods in the country. Most, as you can imagine, are from fast food establishments.

For each food, there’s also a suggested alternative that is more healthful, but, as Albert Einstein once said, everything is relative. For example:

Not exactly a perfectly healthy alternative. But sure beats 9 grams of trans fat and a days worth of sodium in one dish.

The list counts down from #30 to the #1 worst food in the US. Itching to die which food came in at #1? We’ve saved you 29 clicks.

Read more…

Our body needs salt to function properly, but most of us are getting twice as much as our bodies need. This leads to high blood pressure, hypertension, and other maladies. Many times people are not even aware that their sodium consumption is so high (salt is 40% sodium, 60% chloride).

Here are some common myths regarding salt, thanks to the British Food Standards Agency:

1. Food has no flavour without salt – FALSE
If you’re used to salty foods and like to add generous amounts at every meal, then tasting the same foods without salt may make them seem a bit bland. That’s because your taste buds have become accustomed to the high amount of salt. The good news is that human taste buds can get used to eating less salt in just a few weeks. If you can’t cut the salt sharply start with a gradual decrease in consumption over the course of 6 weeks.

2. You can tell what foods are high in salt because they taste salty – FALSE
Some foods that are high in salt don’t taste very salty. Breakfast cereals and biscuits are a good example. The large amounts of sugar mask the salty taste. Tip for cooks: if you oversalted a dish, add some sugar to balance out the flavor.

3. You need more salt in hot climates because you sweat so much – FALSE
Even in very hot and humid climates our bodies lose only small amounts of salt through sweat.

4. I would know if I had high blood pressure – FALSE
Many people with high blood pressure have no symptoms, so you can’t assume that your blood pressure is normal if you haven’t had it tested. In England, for example, a third of the population has high blood pressure.

5. I don’t add salt to my food, so I must be OK – FALSE
Over 75% of the salt we eat is already in the food we buy, mostly processed food and food consumed outside the home. Examples: burgers, cereals, soups, sauces, TV dinners, etc..

What to do at the supermarket:

If you really want to cut down on your sodium, start reducing processed foods from your diet.

Buying basic ingredients and cooking at home, lets you control the amount of salt added to a dish. If you find home cooking to be too difficult, look at the nutrition panel of prepared foods you buy and opt for low sodium versions (less than 400mg per serving).

If you are over 40 or suffer from high blood pressure, you need to be extra careful because your daily maximum value is 1500mg of sodium or less, vs. 2300mg for the rest of the population.

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Until the middle of the 20th century, poor people struggled with the most basic need for nourishment. They simply did not have enough to eat. Many a nights they would go to sleep on an empty stomach. People were skinny, overly so. Only the wealthy could afford to eat well; they would flaunt their wealth with a hefty waistline. If you’ve ever seen paintings from the renaissance period, the ideal of beauty for a woman back then was a full physique.

Fast forward to today, the world has prospered, and food is now cheaper than it has ever been. Which means that in most western countries, even poor people can go to bed with a full belly.

Yet even today poor people struggle with basic nourishment. Only now, the problem has reversed, with too much (bad) food being consumed, creating for the first time in history a larger number of obese people on the planet than the number of starved people.

Not only are poor people facing this crisis. It’s anyone who lives in country whose food system has joined the global chain and adapted to the “western diet”. A diet of convenience, replacing home cooking with processing in a factory.

America, the leader in industrialization and economies of scale, took to food just like cars in an assembly plant, and through amazing breakthroughs in food technology was able to produce a Twinkie that would stay fresh for 5 years and a $0.99 burger available on every other street corner in a metro area.

So while the cost of filling our bellies has decreased, the true price of processed foods is in the collective medical bills we pay for obesity related disease treatment.

Yes, it is tasty, convenient and cheap to gulp down greasy, sweet, and salty foods and beverages.

Low Price, Taste, and Convenience  are the thee pillars of modern eating.

However, a table standing on three legs is bound to topple. That missing fourth leg is your health, and it is what’s absent from many people’s diets today.

In the second part of this post, we will provide simple advice on how to turn your food priorities around to eat healthy and within budget…

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Men’s Health Magazine has published a list of 20 horrible foods, based on their crazy calorie count and additional negative traits.

Examples:

Uno Chicago Grill Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza
2,310 calories, 162 g fat, 123 g carbohydrates, 4,470 mg sodium
A horrific 228 percent of your daily allowance of fat and 167 percent of your daily sodium intake.

Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing
2,040 calories, 150 g fat (53 g saturated), 110 g protein, 4,900 mg sodium

Take a look…

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