Avoid These Grocery Store Items At Any Cost For The Sake Of Your Health

Consuming salads is a great way to maintain a balanced diet, but the tricky part comes down to the salad dressing. Bottled salad dressing can have a lot of sodium, sugar, and saturated fat. They also don’t stay true to serving size, causing people to consume at least a tablespoon more than recommended.

While limiting your intake of salad dressing can be difficult, nutrition experts say to try and skip it altogether. They suggest topping a salad with some avocado, poached eggs, or marinated vegetables to give it extra flavor.

Toaster Pastries Have No Nutritional Value

Initially geared towards children, toaster pastries have become popular for breakfast, a snack, or a dessert option. Unfortunately, there is nothing nutritious about them. They have no protein and are made up of sugar, fat, food coloring, palm oil, and high fructose corn syrup.

Many toaster snacks are fruit-flavored but don’t contain actual fruit. It may be deceiving that they don’t usually have over 200 calories, but the added sugars and refined flour are not healthy in any amount. Even worse, packaged toaster pastries have little to no nutritional value.

Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day, but for many people, it isn’t full of nutritious ingredients. There are some cereal options that make for a healthy breakfast choice, containing natural ingredients and low sugar. However, that’s not the case for most cereal brands.

The majority of breakfast cereals are unhealthy because they have alarming amounts of added sugar, preservatives, additives, and more. Cereals such as Reese’s Puffs, Cocoa Pebbles, and Golden Grahams are prevalent on the cereal aisle but are filled with tons of calories, sodium, and artificial colors that can spike blood sugar and possibly lead to serious illnesses.

White Bread Can Be Detrimental To Your Blood Sugar

There’s quite a big difference between store-bought and homemade bread. Most homemade bread only contains simple ingredients, but plenty of brands sold at the grocery store contain at least 20 different ingredients and additives. One of the worst ingredients found in store-bought bread is refined wheat.

White bread is very low in fiber and essential nutrients and can cause rapid spikes in blood sugar. It may be the best choice to make your own bread, but if that’s not possible Ezekiel or whole-grain bread are better options. These contain far fewer carbohydrates and preservatives.

Noodle Soup Kits Are One Of The Worst Meal Options

Noodle soup kits are often grouped with young college kids because they are very cheap and quick to make. They are also one of the unhealthiest items to purchase at the grocery store. There is absolutely no nutritional value to them and many brands contain harmful chemicals and preservatives.

One such preservative is called tertiary-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ), which is a byproduct from the petroleum industry. Other destructive ingredients include high amounts of sodium, tons of empty calories, and saturated fat. The sauce packet that melts into the noodles can also clog arteries.

Which Kind Of Ice Cream Is The Best?

Ice cream can be a nice treat on a hot day, but a lot of varieties and brands lack nutritional ingredients. Ice cream usually has a ton of sugar and since it’s a dairy product, it’s also high in calories. Even vegan ice cream made with coconut milk can be higher in saturated fat and sugar than dairy ice cream.

Those who want to avoid dairy can choose soy, almond, coconut, or cashew milk ice cream, but dairy ice cream is actually a bit healthier than non-dairy.

Get Rid Of This Ingredient In Your Canned Fruit

Sometimes buying pre-packaged fruit can be a time-saving tactic, but there are certain varieties to avoid. Any canned or packaged fruit that comes with liquid syrup should not be consumed. These heavy syrups are loaded with unnecessary sugars and artificial sweeteners, which can be harmful to the gastrointestinal system.

Instead, try purchasing fresh or frozen fruit. If you need to get canned fruit, make sure to only buy the ones that say they’re packed in “100 percent juice.”

White rice is a refined grain that can easily lead to weight gain. One study found that people who ate white rice five or more times a week increased their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 17 percent. It also has a high glycemic index, which quickly converts carbohydrates to sugar in the bloodstream.

This food is also highly processed and lacks many essential vitamins and minerals that can be found in brown rice. Eating white rice regularly can also increase blood pressure, cause cholesterol levels to spike, and increase the risk of heart disease.

Most varieties of fruit snacks will say that they are fat-free, but there are several bad ingredients that some shoppers might miss on the labels. Most gummies have a lot of added sugar and tons of food coloring. Nutritionist Danielle Hamo states that eating fruit snacks “will probably lead to increased hunger.”

She goes on to say that they “have no fiber to prevent your blood sugar from spiking and crashing.” Similar products such as fruit roll-ups contain high amounts of corn syrup, sugar, palm oil, and a wide variety of artificial colors.

Tomato Sauce Isn’t As Healthy As You Thought

It can be convenient to buy a jar of tomato sauce, instead of making the sauce at home. However, making tomato sauce at home is a far healthier option. The Healthy found that popular brands of store-bought tomato sauce have around 12 grams of sugar and 20 percent of the day’s recommended sodium intake in just one serving. Before buying jarred tomato sauce make sure you recognize the ingredients listed because that’s where a lot of the hidden sugars and sodium are found.

Frozen pot pie may seem like a healthy meal because it contains mostly vegetables and meat, but it’s actually one of the most unhealthy grocery store purchases. One frozen pot pie usually has around two servings, yet the majority of consumers eat one pot pie per person.

These are usually loaded with saturated fat and sodium and contain far more calories than someone should consume in one meal. The outer pastry and gravy inside the pot pie are what makes it unhealthy, so an alternative can be to cook up just white meat chicken and steamed vegetables.

Packaged Meat Can Make You Very Sick

There are severely high amounts of sodium packed into processed meats. These can include bologna, ham, sausage, turkey, hot dogs, bratwurst, roast beef, bacon, pepperoni, Spam, and more. PubMed Central found that people who regularly consume packaged meats are at a higher risk for serious ailments such as colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, kidney failure, and heart disease.

This doesn’t mean that you have to give up meat entirely. The deli counter and local butchers have fresh meat choices that don’t contain the unhealthy preservatives and saturated fat that pre-packaged meat does.

Just 2 Ounces of Treet is More Than a Third of Your Daily Sodium

Treet is a lot like Spam– meat molded into an unattractive shape stuffed into a can. The brand Armour describes their Treet as a “spiced luncheon loaf”.

A combination of chicken and pork or ham, this product found on grocery store shelves is not a healthy choice. Each 2 ounce serving of Treet contains 11 grams of fat (17% US Daily Value) which includes 3.5 grams of saturated fat (18% US Daily Value). Its 820 mg of sodium is more than a third of the recommended daily sodium intake.

Popcorn may be high in fiber, but several versions completely slather on unhealthy ingredients. Some varieties contain palm oil, which is a major cause of inflammation. Others put on a heavy candy glaze that is doused with added sugars. Even some popcorn brands that claim to have fewer calories fill their product with heavy fat, oils, cheese, buttermilk, and more.

The best thing to do is avoid any brand that is popped using palm oil and find ones that use either coconut oil or olive oil. Buying kernels and popping them at home either on the stove or in a popcorn popper can be a healthier alternative.

Every produce section tends to have a designated area for various kinds of exotic fruit. These can include starfruit, horned melons, kumquats, and more. The reason they are exotic is because they aren’t as commonly brought to the checkout counter.

Since not as many people buy them they will stay at the store for a longer amount of time, which causes them to lose their freshness. For those who have their mindset on trying some exotic fruit, check a local specialty store.

Bottled water may be simple to buy at the grocery store, but there are many different alternatives that consumers should consider. Bottled water can cause a lot of plastic waste that ends up in places such as storm drains or the ocean.

A home-water-filter is probably most people’s best bet in storing water. Bottled water can cost about 1,000 times more than filtering it through a tap faucet. Also, keeping some stainless steel water bottles and straws are a perfect way for taking water on the go and staying hydrated. Additionally, a team of experienced legionella risk assessment professionals with a real passion for safety to conduct Legionella Monitoring and Record Keeping can help you to ensure that your water system meets the requirements of your local health and safety legislation, and is free from dangerous substances, hazardous still water, and more.

Sometimes people run into the grocery store because they just need to grab a quick food option on the go. These can be items such as single-servings of food and drinks. Many snacks come in smaller bags that can be sold separately.

When a customer is purchasing snack-size bags of food they are usually paying a markup rate of at least 50 percent. Instead, try getting the larger, party-size bag. This way you’ll save money and have extras for later.

There are parts of the world where a majority of the population takes convenience into consideration when making purchasing decisions and America is probably toward the top of that list. One product that American shoppers are wasting money on is canned beans and legumes.

On average one can costs around a buck for every 14 ounces, as opposed to a two pound bag of dry beans that averages around $1.59. The only difference is that the beans haven’t been soaked in liquid, which can easily be done at home.

Almost any food can be packaged as a frozen product. This is especially true for breakfast food. There are frozen pancakes, waffles, french toast, and more. Those who prefer to purchase the frozen options may not realize that they are not budgeting correctly.

Making pancakes at home is simple because you only need a few simple ingredients that can be whipped up in no time. Also, you can usually make a lot more at once that can be frozen for the rest of the week.