What ingredients should we stay away from?

Question

I'm just interested in knowing what ingredients people thing are harmful. Name the ingredient(s), describe why it's bad, and list resources if you can. The result could be a nice little list of things to help people make wise decisions for eating, and help them become productive label readers.

Answer 1

simple sugars (i.e. glucose, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup) and anything else high glycemic, excessive salt, saturated fat.

Things like simple sugars stimulate the release of insulin in the body. Insulin makes us more prone to storing energy as fat (look up insulin in wikipedia). Too much salt is bad, unless you workout rigorously. Too much fat is bad since it will most likely lead to an excess of calories in the diet (9 calories per gram) which will be stored as bodyfat, even without an insulin spike. You should consume good fats found in fish, flaxseed oil, sunflower oil, these are great for many hormonal balances in the body like testosterone regulation.

Answer 2

One of the first things I look for in the ingredients is not the calorie content, and it’s not carbohydrates, its partially hydrogenated oils and trans fats. These two things are some of the unhealthiest food ingredients there are. Just recently the city of New York band trans fats from all restraints. In fact you won’t even find trans fats listed on most food labels, even though there are more than 40,000 packaged foods that contain this type of fat. You won’t find it listed because it’s so bad for you that food manufacturers have fought for years to keep it off ingredient labels. In 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally adopted regulations requiring manufacturers to include trans fat content on their packaging.
So when did these ingredient start showing up in foods? Well it started back in the 1950s when trans fats were invented as a way of appealing to our natural cravings for fatty foods. But there’s nothing natural about trans fats – they’re cholesterol-raising, heart-weakening, diabetes-causing, belly-building chemicals that, for the most part, didn’t even exist until the middle of the last century, and some studies have linked them to an estimated 30,000 premature deaths in this country every year. In one Harvard study, researchers found that getting just 3 percent of your daily calories from trans fats increased your risk of heart disease by 50 percent.
Yet trans fats are added to a shocking number of foods. They appear on food labels as partially hydrogenated oil—usually vegetable or palm oil. Go look in your pantry and freezer right now, and you won’t believe how many foods include them. Cracker, popcorn, cookies, candy bars, even foods you might assume are healthy—like bran muffins, cereals, and nondairy creamers—are often loaded with trans fats. And because they hide in foods that look like they’re low in fat, such as wheat thins, these fats are making people unhealthy without them ever knowing it.

But don’t get the impression that all fats are bad. Fats such as polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are really healthy and are in a lot of foods we eat. Polyunsaturated fats have two kinds: omega-3 and omega 6’s. Omega-3 fatty acids are fats found in fish, and a diet high in omega-3 has been shown to help protect the heart from cardiovascular disease. Omega-6 fatty acids also help lower bad cholesterol and raise goo cholesterol. They’re found in, meat, eggs, and dairy products. Monounsaturated fats, like polyunsaturated fats have omega-3’s, and are found in nuts, olives, peanuts, avocados, and oils like olive, and canola. They can also help lower cholesterol levels and protect against heart disease.
Bad fats like trans or saturated fats aren’t the only culprit I look for when scanning the ingredients. The other big one is high-fructose corn syrup. HFCS is a man made sweetener that’s cheaper and sweeter than sugar. It’s used in an unbelievable number of foods, like cereal, ketchup, soda, and pasta sauce. Even some meal replacement bars, which are supposed to be good for you, list HFCS on the ingredient list. We’re talking about a processed sweetener that didn’t even exist in the food chain until the 1970s. And HFCS is really bad for you because it’s packed with calories, but your body doesn’t recognize these calories. In fact HFCS shuts off your natural appetite control switches, so you can eat and eat far beyond what your body would normally be able to handle. That’s why I stay far away from this kind of sweetener at all times.

Answer 3

Monosodium glutamate (sp?) or MSG. Gives me atrocious migraines. Hard to come by on a "western" product but not entirely off the shelves.

Answer 4

Alcohol- It dehydrates the body and causes liver cancer.