DON’T BELIEVE THESE 9 FOOD MYTHS

1. Fast food isn’t good for you. Nutritionists believe variety and moderation are the keys to healthful eating. If you feel like a cheeseburger, have one, just not every day.
2. Fat free is better for losing weight. To lose weight, you need to watch calories, not fat. Eat fewer calories than you burn, and you’ll lose. So look at the calories, not the fat in foods.
3. To build muscle, eat lots of protein. Two independent sports medicine journals did studies with a variety of people, including bodybuilders. They found it’s important that athletes get adequate protein, but consuming additional amounts did not appear to promote muscle growth.
4. Fresh fruit is better than dried. Fresh fruit contains more Vitamin C, but other than that, dried fruit has just as many nutrients and sugar for energy as fresh fruit.
5. Six small meals are better than three large ones. If the three large meals have as many calories as the six small ones, there’s no difference. And with six meals, you have to be very good at controlling portion sizes–and put twice as much time aside for eating!
6. Salads are the “healthy” fast food option. Many fast food salads are high in calories and salt. One chain sells a hamburger with 540 calories and 1,040 mg of salt and a salad with 530 calories and 1260 mg of salt. The hamburger may be the better option in that case.
7. It takes more calories to eat a stick of celery than the celery contains. One celery stick contains about 6 calories. A female that is age 35, 65″ tall and 150 pounds, burns 30 calories per hour eating. If it takes her 3 minutes to eat a celery stick, she’ll burn just 1.5 calories in the process.
8. Craving is your body saying it needs something.Scientists found that it’s the taste of a food, not its ingredients that satisfy a craving. That suggests cravings are simply emotional.
9. Decaf has no caffeine. International standards say decaf only needs to be 97% caffeine free. The European Union requires 99.9%, but that’s still not completely caffeine free.