We’re lucky in this modern world to have such a variety of choices when it comes to the food that we eat. But there are still countless products that, while they may taste delicious, aren’t exactly good for our health. It’s almost unbelievable what some folk are willing to put in their mouths, despite knowing the potential consequences.
Now, let’s delve into the 15 foods that are most detrimental to people’s health and continue to be consumed.
Doritos
Doritos are the ultimate comfort snack and go perfectly with the game on TV or to satisfy a Munchie craving. But the way they’re made means that the pleasure you get comes at a massive cost. Their name is supposedly broken Spanish for little bits of gold, but you’d probably be better just eating gold instead of Doritos. To break up the Nissen inside the corn that they’re made from, they are heated and steeped in an alkaline solution. This means that each chip is packed full of corn oil, sunflower oil, and soybean oil. They are more than 29 percent pure fat and have another dark secret hidden within.
Have you ever noticed how you always want to keep eating more and more? Well, that’s not purely because you’re succumbing to greed but because the chemicals they contain activate a hedonistic response within your brain chemistry and make you yearn for even more fat in your system. This is all before you think about the flavorings and chemicals they add to give them the taste and appearance that they’re known for. Take a look at what a bag of Doritos did to a child’s tongue some time ago and absolutely incredible.
Instant Noodles
We’ve all been there after a long day’s work and starving. The easiest thing to do is boil some water in a kettle and pour it over a packet of ramen. I know what you’re thinking, what’s wrong with that? Well, it turns out a lot. The problem is the chemicals that are added to them to make sure they have a long enough shelf life that they can be kept in your cupboard for months without deteriorating. They are highly processed and usually contain monosodium glutamate, also known as the infamous MSG, along with tertiary butyl hydroquinone, which is actually a byproduct of the petroleum industry. These additives add to the flavor but mean that instant noodles contain very little nutritious content and have large amounts of fat, sodium, artificial colors, additives, and flavors. They contribute to obesity, digestion issues, and have been linked with serious intestinal diseases.
But they’re so easy and taste delicious, so most people don’t think twice about having them occasionally. Alongside a healthy diet, it won’t do you much harm. But if you eat them regularly, it’s probably time you started to learn how to properly cook for yourself.
Fruit Juice
Possibly the most dangerous drink you can have is fruit juice. Not necessarily because it contains as many harmful additives as other drinks you can buy, but because it comes from fruit. Most people assume it’s actually quite healthy and drink it in much larger quantities. Unfortunately, this is a mistake and can lead to serious health complications.
A glass of fruit juice is often said to count towards your daily fruit and vegetable intake. But recent research is suggesting this advice should be withdrawn. Most of the health benefits from fruit come from the flesh, where there is the most fiber and nutrients. But this is all lost when producing juice. Instead, all the sugary sweet goodness from the fruit is removed and concentrated. And even though it contains natural sugars, these most definitely aren’t good for you and, consumed in large amounts, can lead to heart issues and obesity.
Some schools are now banning fruit juices from children’s lunches, and it may not be long until they’re classified in the same category as soda. Of course, in moderation, fruit juice is fine. But at most, a small glass a day is all you should have.
Coke and Pepsi
Coke and Pepsi are the two most popular soft drinks on the planet, selling millions of bottles per day. But as the obesity crisis becomes more prevalent, these products have found themselves right at the center of it. Yes, they contain large amounts of sugar, which can be as much as three tablespoons of the white stuff in every can. And while this contributes to bad health and an increase in weight, the real danger in cola drinks is the amount of caffeine that they contain. It’s a stimulant and grants you a temporary boost in energy. But if you have too much of it, you will begin to feel more tense, become more tired, and start gaining weight.
The reason why caffeine is more of a problem than the sugar is that it’s even present in the so-called diet versions of the drink, which give the illusion that all the bad ingredients have been removed. Every glass of soda, whether it’s regular or diet, increases the risk of obesity by 1.6 times, and there’s virtually no nutritious benefit to La Vez. Furthermore, while a cold glass of Coke might feel like it’s the most refreshing thing you can possibly buy, caffeine acts as a diuretic and will make you urinate more. So, in the long term, you’ll end up more dehydrated than when you started.
Deep-Fried Snacks
It may not come as such a great surprise to you that deep-fried snacks are harmful to your health. But even knowing this doesn’t stop people from eating them in large quantities. The snacks, which are often made from potato, maize, or flour-based products, are submerged in oil to cook and absorb large amounts of it in the process. Not only does it fill every empty pore of the foodstuff, but it removes anything of any nutritional value and results in a greasy, delicious-tasting nightmare.
Deep-fried snacks contain huge amounts of calories and provide no useful nutrients. But this isn’t the worst thing about them. The oil that they’re cooked in is usually hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which you’ve probably heard of under another name: trans fat. This substance is purposefully altered to increase the shelf life of the products but comes at a serious health cost. It significantly increases the number of calories and cholesterol that customers ingest and has direct links with increasing the chances that you’ll suffer from heart disease or a stroke.
Biscuits
There’s nothing quite like starting the day with a hot cup of tea or coffee that’s accompanied by a biscuit, and it’s a tradition enjoyed by millions of people around the world. However, there is a hidden danger. While most have, at some point, decided to keep an eye on how much they’re drinking, they rarely pay attention to the snacks they’re eating during their break. In India, for example, it’s now thought to be one of the main reasons for bad health and could be affecting far more people elsewhere.
Eating a biscuit has been found in a number of studies to actually stimulate the same censorial parts of your brain as cocaine and morphine, leading to further craving and even a slight addiction to them. This encourages you to eat far more than you should, and since they’re packed full of sugars and fats, they can have a detrimental impact on your cardiovascular system, your digestion, and, of course, lead to weight gain. Next time you have a plate of biscuits in front of you, just stick to one and avoid the temptation to keep having more.
Pizza
Pizza is undoubtedly one of the most pleasurable and greatest foods ever created. No party or social gathering is complete without a pie on the table. With countless restaurants and takeouts serving them, they’re by far the most popular delivery food in the world, and people are increasingly eating more and more. Next time you order an entire pizza for yourself, remember just how bad it is and how long you’ll be working it off in the gym. A pepperoni pizza, for example, contains 311 calories, 13.5 grams of fat, and 720 milligrams of sodium.
Have you ever just had one slice? It’s so easy to keep eating pizza that the number of unhealthy substances you’re ingesting soon adds up, far more than the recommended daily allowance. This will lead to weight gain, heart problems, and the solidification of fat within your arteries. It’s believed by many researchers to be one of the main causes of the obesity crisis in the US. But the combination of dough, cheese, meat, and tomato releases endorphins in the brain that make you crave for more. In moderation, it’s fine, but the way most of us eat it is very, very harmful.
Reduced Fat Peanut Butter
Who doesn’t like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or Reese’s Pieces, or anything else that has peanut butter in it? Made from ground peanuts, oil, sugar, and various other additives, most people probably know it’s no good for them. So, they might try an alternative like a reduced-fat version. But despite this seeming like a healthier option, it’s probably worse for you than the regular stuff. The reason for this is that when you reduce or remove the fat, you are left with a product that doesn’t taste very nice at all and has a crumbly texture. To get around this, manufacturers have to add extra ingredients to improve it, and the best ones to do this are sugar and cornstarch. This actually results in a spread that has just as many calories as the full-fat version but with fewer nutrients of any benefit. Because the natural fats are replaced with refined ingredients, don’t fall for the marketing trick of calling it reduced fat because, while technically true, it most definitely doesn’t make it a healthy option.
Cheese in a Can
Every time you squeeze cheese from a can, there is a long-dead French food expert turning in his grave. Beyond the complete abomination that the product is from a culinary perspective, it’s also terrible for the insides of your body. In fact, it’s not really cheese at all and is one of the most highly processed foodstuffs available in stores. It’s made mainly with water, which accounts for up to 60% of it, with the rest being made up of milk fats, oils, countless stabilizing ingredients, and chemicals to maintain the color. And, of course, large amounts of flavorings to make the paste somewhat recognizable as cheese. Sure, it might be fun, it might taste nice to some people, and it might be cheap, but it’s also probably staining your throat and stomach with a bright yellow color and causing untold damage because of the ingredients. If you want something to taste of cheese, then your best bet is to use cheese because at least it has some nutritional benefits that can justify the fats that you are also eating.
Sausages and Hot Dogs
The idea that sausages might be bad for you is probably the worst news from a food perspective that you could ever hear. They’re popular cuisines around the world, from Germany, where there are more than 1500 varieties, to the UK, where they love to eat bangers and mash, and the US, where you can hardly walk past an intersection in New York without seeing someone selling hot dogs. But this is a foodstuff that should be eaten rarely because the health consequences can be severe.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer reviewed more than 800 different studies conducted in 10 countries and looked at the effect of eating processed meat on the colon. They found that just 50 grams of meat per day, which is the equivalent of just one hotdog or sausage, is enough to increase your chances of developing colorectal cancer by almost 20%. Furthermore, reviews of death statistics from around the world analyzed 150,000 fatalities that occurred due to heart disease and found a statistically significant correlation of dying for cardiovascular problems and eating red or processed meat.
Spam
Spam is that strange meat that you can see in cans and stores but, for some reason, isn’t being kept in a refrigerator. While it may have been popular during times of rationing and might taste nice to some people, the way that it’s produced to have such a long shelf life means that it contains a number of harmful chemicals. It contains very low levels of useful nutrients like protein, vitamins, or minerals. Instead, it is packed with fat, calories, and sodium to improve the flavor. Furthermore, it is highly processed and contains countless ingredients such as sodium nitrate, which helps stabilize it and allows it to be stored for years on end.
Eating large amounts of spam will increase your cholesterol, thicken your arteries so your heart has to work harder, and put increased strain on your entire cardiovascular system. It also means you miss out on the nutrients that you actually need, so it should only be eaten in small quantities if at all. Now, we live in a world where plenty of different foods are available, and it might be about time we consigned spam to the history books.
Doughnuts
They’re one of the most popular sweet treats around the world and are available in countless different shapes and flavors. But as with everything that tastes so delicious, they pose a serious health problem if consumed in too high a quantity. Take an original Krispy Kreme doughnut, for example. They each contain 11 grams of fat, 5 grams of which are saturated fats, and they’re so moreish that there’s surely no one that’s been able to eat just one in a sitting.
An original doughnut from Dunkin Donuts has 6 grams of saturated fats, which is almost a third of your daily recommended intake. And regularly going over a daily limit creates long-term problems with your cardiovascular system, causes obesity, and will likely lead to a premature death. And that’s before you take into account the heightened sugar content too. To give an idea of how bad doughnuts are compared to other snacks, a chocolate chip cookie has just 2.4 grams of saturated fat, which isn’t particularly good but is much better than those delicious balls of fried batter.
Fast Food Burgers
No matter where you are in the world, you’re never too far away from a recognizable fast-food burger outlet where you’ll be able to get a reassuringly tasty meal for a reasonable price. But you might be taking your health into your own hands if you regularly eat burgers from these places. Yes, there’s a concern about the type of meat and other ingredients that are used, but the biggest risk actually comes from the cooking process itself.
Most fast-food chains cook more than their current demand, so they have stock available to sell as soon as a customer walks in. To enable this to happen, they don’t fully cook the patties on the grill and leave them in a warmer where the cooking process is slowly completed. This means that by the time it’s in your hands, it’ll be perfect, or at least that’s how it’s meant to work.
But what if you’re given it almost straight away? Well, that means you’re probably eating raw meat, and this could give you food poisoning, digestive issues, and potentially far worse problems. You should also never order the least popular items because they more than likely just cook a few of these and leave them under the warmer all day. So you’re potentially buying a piece of meat or fish that’s been lying around for several hours after being cooked.
Raw Oysters
Oysters are an acquired taste and certainly aren’t for everyone. But if you are going to eat one, you had better make sure it’s fully cooked first. You might be a believer that the more raw an ingredient is, the better it’ll taste. But once you hear about what oysters contain, you’ll surely agree that they aren’t safe to eat straight out of the water.
In recent years, a number of people have become ill in places like British Columbia and the UK after eating oysters, which health officials believe weren’t fully cooked. Some ended up in the hospital and, after testing, were found to have contracted norovirus. This isn’t something that’s naturally occurring in oysters but is known to be present in human excrement. It led to the horrifying realization that almost 70% of raw oysters that are sold contain norovirus because they have been caught from water that contains human waste.
The beds where they grow can become easily contaminated by sewage outflow pipes or even by the people who are there to harvest them. So if you want to make sure you never eat fecal particles from another person, your best bet would be to stay away from oysters altogether.
Box Cereal
There’s no better way to start your morning than by opening a box of cereal, pouring fresh milk over it, and eating it before you rush off to school or work, is there? For generations, we’ve been told that cereals provide the energy and nutrition we need for a productive day. But studies have proved that this isn’t exactly the case. The first problem is that many cereal crops these days are genetically modified to increase yields and reduce the chance of crop failures. It’s now known that the prevalence of GMOs in the food supply has caused far more cases of allergies, digestive issues, liver disease, and a reduction in fertility, and cereals have been linked with all of these. The other problem is the way that they are processed in the factory.
The grains are mixed with water and churned together to make a sludge before being shaped into the familiar flakes, rings, stars, and puffs that we love. Once molded, they are sprayed with oil and sugar to ensure they retain their shape and crunch. But this process removes virtually all nutritious benefit from the ingredients. Even the extra vitamins and minerals that are added to the sludge are ultimately removed by the process before the cereal is packaged. So by the time it’s in your bowl, it’s just sugar, flavor, and crunchy nothingness.
