The Surprising Truth About 'Healthy' Foods

A mom I work with called me. "You are going to be so proud of me!" she announced.

"I am already proud of you," I replied, "but do tell me."

"I swapped chocolate spread for carob spread, and the kids love it! They keep spreading it on bread and eating happily," she said.

I sighed.

On one hand, she truly wants to make a change. Her intentions are genuinely good.

Carobs are indeed a very healthy food, rich in calcium, iron, and other nutrients beneficial to our bodies.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Elazar ben Shimon subsisted only on carobs and water for years, during which the Zohar was written.

There is something quite special about carobs.

But still, she was talking about carob-flavored spread. Before she even gave more details, I knew which spread she was referring to. It’s a well-known brand whose products are usually great and of high quality, but in this case, I think they missed the mark.

I asked her to read the ingredients to me.

She started eagerly: "Demerara sugar, carob powder – um... only 11%, soybean oil..." Her enthusiasm waned as she reached the end of the list. "Stabilizers, E471, flavorings." She added a question at the end: "I bought two jars. Should I return the unopened one?"

"I think that would be wise," I replied.

This isn't my first encounter with products sold in health food aisles that are far from healthy.

Agave syrup and maple syrup, for example (another "health" trend), behave in the body just like sugar. Just because they come from a natural source doesn't mean you can consume them without limits.

Advertisements don't help much either.

Most breakfast cereals marketed as whole grains enriched with vitamins are actually industrial food, devoid of life. Every good part has been shredded, heated, and processed. Sugar (lots of it), salts, flavor enhancers, color, and scent additives are put in, alongside synthesized vitamins.

The same goes for energy bars of all kinds.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in vitamins that come with the fruit or vegetable, not those synthesized in a lab and artificially added to food.

Dairy desserts, soy puddings, yogurt drinks – they also contain tons of sugar, or worse, diet sugar substitutes.

By the way, if the ingredient list says "vegetable fat" or "hardened fat," these are synonyms for trans fat.

In the health section of the supermarket, I often see soup croutons, cookies, schnitzel coatings, and even bread crumbs – all gluten-free. However, many of these "gluten-free" items contain a gluten substitute in the form of potato starch or tapioca – a high-calorie, high-glycemic carbohydrate substitute that spikes blood sugar levels.

Admittedly, I have fallen into this trap too, especially when I came across lactose-free milk.

Lactose, as you know, is the sugar in milk. And sugar, like any sugar, can cause hyperactivity in children.

I personally am lactose intolerant, so lactose-free milk suits me. But in my naivety, I thought it would fit my kids too, assuming "lactose-free = sugar-free." I even recommended it to my mom and sister for weight-watching reasons.

Until Noa, my naturopathic nutrition lecturer, explained that lactose, a disaccharide, breaks down in the body by the enzyme lactase into two monosaccharides, glucose and galactose.

People like me, lacking the enzyme lactase, can't properly digest lactose in the body, so the food industry does that work outside the body. Hence, instead of lactose as a disaccharide, that milk contains glucose and galactose as monosaccharides. This is why the milk tastes sweeter – it's richer in monosaccharides.

So before we continue, a quick summary:

Diet – Intended for people with diabetes (though some recommend diet drinks for weight loss, I think that's a mistake, which I will explain in another future post).

Gluten-free – Intended for people with celiac disease.

Lactose-free – Intended for people with lactose intolerance.

And so on.

On another occasion, a dear relative called me excitedly to share her latest change:

"You'll never guess! We bought a citrus juicer, and from now on, my husband and I are replacing our morning black coffee and the kids' cocoa with fresh orange juice!"

She sounded so thrilled that I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d be better off sticking with coffee than switching to freshly squeezed orange juice.

So I gave her a smile she could probably feel through the phone, congratulated her on her good intentions, wished her success, and gently suggested not to overdo it with the juice since it is still sugar. If I could offer a "small tip," it would be to dilute half of it with water.

Had she consulted me before rushing to buy a juicer, I would have told her how healthy a whole orange is, how many vitamins it contains, and how much dietary fiber.

While an orange contains about two teaspoons of sugar, eating one or two is fine – the body knows how to handle it.

Slow chewing of the orange also causes the sugar to be absorbed more gradually and slowly.

But a glass of orange juice contains an average of four oranges. That's eight teaspoons of sugar consumed at once.

Even in terms of satiety – food should be eaten, not drunk. After two oranges, you feel full. After a glass of orange juice, most of us can drink another glass, and another, and still eat something afterward.

It's a lot of calories and a lot of sugar.

So, what's so bad about sugar?

Like anything else, it's about quantity and quality.

In the next post, I will delve deeper into the topic of monosaccharides, disaccharides, polysaccharides – and how they affect us, and what's the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates.

Until then, stay healthy!

Chen Tovi