Gluten-free dieting, chemical-laden foods, and an ingredient more prone to obesity than sugar. Everything you think you know about food is about to change.
Gut Full of Gluten
With gluten-free dieting gaining popularity in recent years, there have been a myriad of studies asserting weight loss in consumers both with and without celiac disease or other gluten-related disorders.
Celebrity endorsements have helped turn the essential medical treatment into an ill-conceived fad diet, with data indicating that 65 percent of Americans select gluten-free products because they believe them to be healthier.
But the results of a key study released this week show that despite the health claims, there is no evidence that links a gluten-free diet to weight loss.
In fact, researchers concluded that eliminating gluten from the diet may actually cause consumers to gain weight because of the alternative foods often having more calories than their gluten-containing counterparts.
Obesity-Causing Oil
What if I told you that the soda that you have been working so hard to cut back on due to its high sugar content may not be the reason for your expanding waist line?
In a just released report, scientists found that a diet high in soybean oil is more likely to lead to obesity and diabetes than a diet high in fructose, a sugar commonly found in soda and processed foods.
In the research, analysts fed mice a series of diets, each containing 40 percent fat — similar to what a typical American consumes.
Compared to the coconut oil and fructose diets, the mice on the soybean oil diet gained nearly 25 percent more weight. The mice were also recorded as having larger fat deposits, a fatty liver with signs of injury, diabetes and insulin resistance.
So while your doctor isn’t incorrect in suggesting you to cut back on your soda intake, you might also want to start checking your ingredient labels more closely for soybean oil, which is found in margarines, salad dressings and snack foods.
Chemicals are All-Natural
It’s no news to scientists that everything around us is made up of chemicals. But the idea of ‘chemical-free’ food has become a buzzy term in the food industry and many companies have been cashing in on consumer fears.
But recently two scientists released a report to highlight the deception behind this growing food fad. In a video produced by AsapScience the scientists highlight a simple fact; when it comes to chemicals, the devil’s in the dose. To prove their point, the scientists listed the chemicals in a common food product. It may sound like an ingredient list for something junky from the gas station, but nope, here’s the list of chemicals in a banana, which, by the way, is longer than the list of chemicals in some processed foods.
And although bananas — like everything — are indeed handheld chemical factories, the amount of any of those given chemicals in the fruit are obviously not present at a dangerous level. Hopefully the video, which is nearing a million views on YouTube will help spread the message that chemicals are not inherently a bad thing.