A healthy diet is one of the most important factors in remaining fit. It can prevent obesity and eliminate unwanted additives from the food that affect health. The foods that contain those additives are highly processed foods. Almost all types of foods are processed, even healthy ones, since processing can be as simple as washing fruits and vegetables. However, the unhealthy food normally considered is Frankenstein food that bears little resemblance to what it started as originally.
Additives to make you want to eat more.
Sugar, salt and fat all please the taste buds, especially sugar. However, these additives are often what make the food unhealthy in the first place. For example, sugar can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, acne, cancer, depression and dental carriers. It can accelerate cellular aging and skin aging. It triggers the opioid receptors, which are the pleasure centers, making it more addictive than other types of food. The more sugar you eat, the more you want and the less sweet other things you eat taste.
Take sugar to a new level and make it unrecognizable by the body.
Sugar substitutes and altered forms of sugar, like HFCS—high fructose corn syrup—are recognized as sweet by your body, so the brain creates the enzymes that help digest it. The problem is, it isn’t digested like traditional sugar. HFCS may start out naturally, but the corn syrup is so highly processed it’s not recognized by the body. An enzyme that comes from bacteria used to deal with glucose in a potato or corn that increases the fructose is added to pure corn syrup. The new sugar it creates a blend of glucose and fructose that’s hard on the body and added to thousands of processed foods. Sugar substitutes are just as hard, if not harder on the body.
Processed foods contain man-made additives, but not the nutrients you need.
Unless the food is supplemented with vitamins, most highly processed foods offer little in the way of micronutrients. Foods made with white flour have all the bran and germ removed, just leaving the endosperm or the starchy part. It’s then bleached. The bran and germ have all the antioxidants, fiber, protein, healthy fat, minerals and B vitamins. What you end up getting is nothing but empty calories.
- Artificial sweeteners trick the body into thinking it’s consuming sugar. Recent studies show they’re associated with diabetes, obesity, metabolic dysregulation and a larger midsection circumference—meaning they increase belly fat.
- Your body needs the nutrition that comes from whole foods. Whole foods are the building blocks that help maintain a healthy functioning body. Years of highly processed foods make you fatter, less healthy and tired.
- Highly processed foods often affect the microbiome, the microbes that play a role in digestion. These microbes also keep the body healthy, affect your mental health and maintain proper functioning of almost all systems.
- As food technology has evolved, people have gotten fatter. In the last 30 years, more bacterial enzymes have been used. Are these affecting weight, fertility and creating other problems, like ADHD and celiac disease?
For more information, contact us today at LIV Fitness