The best part about being a grown-up is having the freedom to do and eat whatever you want.
Even if you don’t feel any different than you did in your teens and twenties, the body changes in ways that make it harder to lose weight and remain in good health. To help you age gracefully into a body you’ll want to flaunt no matter how many years go by, the Eat This, Not That! Here are the foods you should avoid after you’ve celebrated the big 30.
Flavored Yogurt
Yogurt is great for your digestive health and by adding your own extras you’ll actually get the nutritional benefit of the fruit. Most flavored yogurts are way more artificial flavoring than real produce.
Soy
Here is another ingredient that is supposed to be healthy but in reality is no better than the meat you are trying to replace. For starters, soy is highly genetically modified, and we just don’t know the long term effects of that. In the short term, soy may spike inflammation in your body and potentially interfere with thyroid function.
Anything with a straw
If you habitually use a straw with your beverages, you will start to develop lines and wrinkles around your mouth due to the pursing motion required to suck up fluid. After the age of 25, the collagen in our skin starts to break down, and this is when repetitive actions are likely to causing wrinkling.
Farmed fish
Unfortunately, up to 70% of the fish you’ll find at your local market is farmed fish. But you really want to avoid it because farmed fish are so overcrowded that they eat each other’s feces. They are fed a diet full of antibiotics to compensate, as well as food dyed specifically to tint the meat in a way that makes it look healthy.
If you have one in your town, the fresh fish market is always a better call for good seafood. The fishmonger should be happy to talk to you about the origin of the fish and how recently they were caught.
White bread
Maybe when you were a kid, white bread was the only kind you’d eat. But you’re a grown-up now, and white bread is essentially nutritionally void. The bleached white flour spikes your blood sugar and features almost none of the vitamins and minerals present in whole wheat. White bread also has less fiber than whole wheat, and trust us – you need more fiber as you age to keep your digestive system chugging along.
Fruit juice
As a child, you probably had a juice box tossed into your lunch each day and called it fruit. But even as an adult you may fall into the trap of thinking that juice is as healthy as fruit. It’s not. When juice is extracted from fruit, all the beneficial fiber is left behind. Fiber helps moderate the rate at which sugar is dumped into your bloodstream, so pure juice is going to hit you all at once.
Most commercial juices have added sugar, way beyond what is present in the fruit itself. They are also often pasteurized, which means that any heat-sensitive nutrients are destroyed before the product even hits store shelves.
Store baked foods
Home baked goodies are so much better than store bought because you can enjoy them fresh from the oven, without that slight chemical aftertaste of preservatives.
It’s not that homemade goodies are super healthy, but commercially produced baked goods rely on hydrogenated oils to keep their products looking fresh for weeks. They don’t even have to list these harmful trans fats on the label unless they comprise more than 0.5% of the product. At least at home, you can control the ingredients and are likely to use way less sugar and butter.
Microwave popcorn with butter
One particularly damaging food for your brain is microwave popcorn.
The fake butter that coats those kernels is full of trans fats, which negatively affect memory. They literally destroy cells and increase inflammation in the brain. In turn, the body’s production of brain-supporting omega-3 fatty acids is compromised. One particular ingredient in this “butter”, diacetyl, is a known carcinogen. The plastic-like coating inside the bag, used to keep the fake butter from seeping through, has also been linked to cancer.
FoodEatSafe.com
