Why Diet Foods Are Bad For You

Yesterday I posted a status: DID YOU KNOW: Your pancreas doesn't recognize chemicals such as aspartame. If it says " no sugar added", it better come from the ground, or you will be subjecting your body to carcinogenic chemicals that DO NOT aid in weight loss. They actually prohibit it!

Hungry Happy Healthy linked me to their article about this, and I wanted to share it with my fans! Here you go!! (Click on the page title to see their site!)

Food companies have made millions from producing diet versions of snacks, drinks, ready meals and everything else you can consume. They market these items as being healthier for you than the alternatives that are on sale and say they can help aid your weight loss. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the fact that all these items are processed foods, they are no way are they going to be good for you. Just look at the ingredients of that Weight Watchers ready meal to see how much salt it has in it, or look at those Go Ahead cookies to see how many ingredients it has in it.

Also what annoys me, especially with these “diet” ready meals, is the fact that yes, they are lower in calories than the other similar ready meals…but most of the time that is because they are vastly smaller. The good thing about that is that it is teaching you portion control, but you could very easily make those meals yourself, with a lot less ingredients and less salt, calories and fat, which is the reason you are buying those meals in the first place isn’t it? You don’t have to buy into these diet foods, just make smaller portions of the foods you ate before, which is essentially what these ready meals are anyway.

The worst part of these diet foods is the artificial ingredients that are in them. The major culprit here is artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose. These are not just in things like Splenda, but are used as sugar substitutes in all those “diet friendly” cakes, biscuits, jelly, drinks, ice creams etc. These artificial sweeteners are causing users to show signs of disruption of sleep patterns , MS, Lupus, increases in cancer, sexual dysfunction, diabetes, and a list of epidemic degenerative diseases. There has also been a well documented link between aspartame and brain tumours. When aspartame is broken down in the body, the by-product that is produced is DKP. When your body tried to process DKP it produces a compound similar to N-nitrosourea which is a chemical that has been known to cause brain tumours. If that doesn’t put you off, then aspartame also contains methanol, which the body breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde. This is what is pumped into a dead body during the embalming process. That’s going into your body every time you have a diet coke.

Mostly ironically, they can cause weight gain. Having artificial sweeteners confuse the body into thinking it is getting real sugar, as it can’t tell the difference. Because it is artificial, the body doesn’t know what to do with it and ends up just storing it as fat. There has also been research that shows that artificial sweeteners actually cause more cravings, which could result in you eating more calories throughout the day. The reason behind this is because the body gets confused that it is getting a sweet taste, but no calories from it. When I first started losing weight, I ate so much stuff that had artificial sweeteners in and I was ALWAYS hungry. A year ago, I cut them all out of my diet and I stay full from my 3 meals a day and 2 light snacks. It is a vast difference from constantly craving food.

Of course the Aspartame industry makes their excuses and says that these dangers are all urban myths, but of course they are going to say that, they are making billions.

Most people turn to these diet products because they are concerned for their health, but by consuming them they are not improving their health at all, they are actually seriously damaging it. There are much better ways to improve your health, by eating non-processed, natural foods that are naturally low in sugar and exercising.

There is no doubt about it, there needs to be a lot more research done into the dangers of artificial sweeteners and obviously everyone has a different reaction to things, but regardless of whether you believe the research and results about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, they are not natural, and are processed and therefore they are not good for you.

So, what can you have in replace of it artificial sweeteners if you are avoiding sugar, but want something sweet? Honey and Agave are the way forward, but as always, in moderation.