Is Healthy Food Making You Fat?

[VacMan]

Hey everyone,

I like to buy my veggies and other food locally grown, and organic if possible.

So I stopped by a local farmers market kind of thing that I found while driving around.

It had good produce at reasonable prices so I picked some up.

At the counter when I was checking out I noticed they had a variety of "healthy" snacks...

So I took a look...

And wow was I shocked by what their definition of "healthy" was.

Specifically, a "Chocolate Chip Cookie" caught my eye. It had all sorts of packaging and marketing that said that it was:
-Vegan
-Wheat & Gluten free
-Only good sweeteners
-Canola Oil
-Good source of protein
-Etc.

Now that by itself is pretty good, but when I checked out the nutritional facts...

450 calories for 3 ounces!

My goodness! Talk about busting your diet for "healthy" food!

I wrote more about it on my blog, and there's a couple pictures of the "healthy cookie" there too. (I couldn't resist. I had to buy it just so I could take some pics and write about it on the blog.)

Anyhow, what's the lesson?

Even if the bag says it's healthy, check the nutrition facts anyway!

Here's the pics: (and the blog entry)
Is Healthy Food Making You Fat? | Yummy Fitness

Have fun!

[AirBreather]

Excess food of whatever source makes you 'fat.'

Being 'healthy' may simply mean that it does not contain certain chemicals, ingredients, etc, NOT that it is low calorie.

[m4xx]

I agree. I figure in theory I could even do a diet for losing weight including eating one of those every day... (If I wanted that is different question...)

[VacMan]

AirBreather,

I agree that excess food from any source causes weight gain.

The difference is that many people believe that if they just ate "healthy" they'd lose weight.

That's not the case and I'm glad you realize that.

m4xx,

I also agree, you could for sure eat one, or two, or three of these a day and still lose weight in most cases.

The only thing is... that's not much food, you'll probably be hungry, and you wouldn't have much or any room left for any other food all day long after you ate something like that.

Personally, I'd rather eat some ice cream instead of use up 450 calories on that little 3 ounce cookie.

Ice cream even has less calories per serving, and more protein too on average.

[IFeelGood]

Imho healthy food is not processed or minimally processed food. Whole food, freshest possible and organic.

There are some minimally processed snacks that are pretty tasty and in the 200-300 calorie range and filling. I like raw revolution bars, or lara bars. they both make high energy, tasty snacks and use real fruit, nuts, chocolate, etc...

Another great snack that I love is a green apple with a smear of almond butter

[VacMan]

IFeelGood,

Larabars are awesome!

I buy crates of them at Costco

And I have one on my desk right now "Apple Pie" flavor.

Good stuff.

[IFeelGood]

mmmmm, apple pie is great. I also love lemon and cherry. I only wish they were organic...

[Kaspian]

It sounds like "healthy" by their definition means that the cookie is better than the main brand options with their bad sugars and hydrogenated oils. If I was going to buy a cookie, I'd certainly consider the "healthy" one over the other store-bought options.

In my book, healthy food is whole, organic, and unprocessed (or minimally processed). I don't pay attention to calories; I eat when hungry and stop when satisfied.

I second apples and nut butters as a fabulous snack. Lately, my husband and I have been eating diced mango topped with chilled & whipped coconut milk, too. Not as fast to prepare, but OMG good.

[EnduranceNinja]

Food being labelled healthy is like a few years ago when foods were labelled lower calorie. Yes, they were lower calorie but maybe only ten less calories. It's all just a way to sell to the unknowledgable shopper. And now everyone is trans fat free which is great but that food might have large amounts of saturated fat which may not be bad as trans fat but it is no healthy in larger doses.

I liked the article in the blog

[VacMan]

EnduranceNinja,

Thanks for the compliments on the article.

Maybe I'll submit it to your carnival?

[EnduranceNinja]

Thanks Vacman

I post a blog carnival every fifth of the month. So you have plenty of time and other editions to submit