Foods to Avoid While Dieting or Just to Stay Healthy!

Are you one of the millions of Americans who decide to lose weight and eat healthy foods in 2008?  Are you ridding your cabinets of great-tasting fatty, salty, sugary snacks and replacing them with healthier diet foods.

You may not believe it, but some of your favorite snack foods may not be as bad for you as those you replaced them with!

Think twice before eating or drinking the following foods and beverages.

While everyone knows that soda is not good for you, because of the sugar and calories it has in abundance, not everyone knows that diet sodas are bad for you too!

Diet sodas have caffeine, unless you buy decaffeinated sodas, and they contain high amounts of phosphoric acid.  A combination of caffeine and phosphoric acid causes your body to release calcium and it reduces the density of your bones.

Diet sodas are made with artificial sweeteners that can be harmful.  Most contain aspartame, but several have switched over to Splenda which doesn't have the apparent side effects of other sweeteners.  Aspartame can cause rashes, headaches and other minor symptoms, but it has caused seizures in some consumers.

Health conscience adults often use margarine instead of butter to reduce their saturated fat intake, but most margarines had trans fats until recently.  Trans fats clog arteries with the bad LDL cholesterol and removes the good HDL cholesterol.  The arteries become clogged and it will lead to heart attack or stroke.  The trans fats increase triglycerides and inflammation which lead to a higher risk of diabetes.

Even the newer margarines which have removed the trans fats, still have polyunsaturated fats which are derived from vegetable oil.  The polyunsaturated fats can lead to too many prostanoids which cause an increase in inflammation in the body.  Prostanoids aid in controlling blood pressure and inflammation and in reducing allergies.  But, when a person has too many prostanoids, it can lead to pain, redness and swelling in tissues.

Sugar-free gum tastes good and makes you feel that you are working for a healthy you.  But, sugar-free gum with sorbitol can cause a chewer to have gas, bloating and stomach cramps.  Sorbitol is a sugar alcohol which can cause laxative-like symptoms.  Reports of diarrhea and weight loss have been linked to products using sorbitol as the sweetener.

If you are watching what you are eating and you decide to eat a healthy salad, do NOT cover that healthy salad up with what you think is a light salad dressing.  Light salad dressings remove the fat and replace it with high fructose corn syrup, preservative, and food colorings.  Food colorings such as yellow 6 can cause kidney tumors, adrenal gland tumors and contains tiny amounts of several carcinogens.  Stick with natural products such as Dijon mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, spices or balsamic vinegar to flavor your salad.

Have you tried light potato chips or fat-free potato chips or corn chips?  Many of them are made with a fat substitute named Olestra or Olean.  This is a synthetic fat that is not absorbed into your body, but it passes right through the digestive tract.  This means that most users will have loose stools, diarrhea, cramps, and even flatulence.  It also reduces the body's absorption of fat-soluble nutrients that are good for you, such as beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene.  Regular potato chips are not good for you either.  Try air-popped popcorn for a healthy snack.  But, don't add margarine!