See, it does take a village! Of chihuahuas!
It’s Project Runway, health food cycle: One day you’re in, the next day you’re out! (Bonus points if you can say that like Heidi Klum.) Food fads are a sad but true fact in the health and fitness industry. Science, and more importantly marketers, are always pimping the next Super Food. And sometimes that introduces us to some really awesome weird foods that we might not have otherwise tried. Chia seeds, quinoa and acai berries anyone? Many times these fads are duds. And then there are the few times where purportedly “healthy” foods are actually harming you. Check out my slideshow on Shape.com to see the full list of 6 Healthy Foods That Should Never Pass Your Lips but the one most surprising to me was – dun, dun, dun – agave nectar!
Long touted as an “all natural” and healthy alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners, it turns out the agave nectar sold in stores, including “blue,” “natural,” and “organic” varieties, has more fructose than even high-fructose corn syrup and is far more processed than plain table sugar. If you’ve watched “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” then you’ll know that fructose taken out of fruit (where it occurs naturally) becomes a toxin when processed. While it’s true that agave nectar is lower on the glycemic index than other sweeteners, it’s no dietary friend but rather poison disguised as a health food. All of which really surprised me given the aura of “health” that surrounds it.
Any of you surprised to discover a food you thought was healthy, wasn’t? Have you ever tried a food fad??
Other things I wrote this week:
Fitness Trainers Reveal: The #1 Piece of Equipment I Swear By (which we already discussed on here but all my trainers are so darn adorable I had to give them a little more love!)
Are your birth control pills safe? (And the controversy rumbles on…)
Do you make your kids write thank you notes? (Or do you write them for them? Cough, cough, not that I’d know anything about that)
The #1 Thing Parents Wish People Understood About Their Child (Weirdly this got reposted on Yahoo and the comments are even crazier this time around. If that’s possible.)
Mom’s 10 Weirdest Tips for Saving Money
Is it harder having 1 child or 9? (One mom’s poignant answer may surprise you)
How parenting changes us: Jay-Z to stop using “bitch” (The day after I wrote this, news outlets said that it couldn’t be confirmed that he actually said this. Which I think kind of depresses me. You’d hope after a man has a daughter he’d stop calling women hos and bitches. Of course if being married to Beyonce didn’t turn him around I’m not sure how much hope there is for him.)
It was Friday the 13th! Do you have a mommy superstition?
Parenting Challenge: How do you get through the vending machine gauntlet? (I really love one company’s answer to this: H.U.M.A.N. vending only stocks healthy options in their machines plus they offer in-community health counseling as well as video tips that play on their machines. Advertising – it can be used for good too!)
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