Shops and supermarkets have lots of food now that they label as healthy. These foods usually cost more than normal food as well. But are these foods worth the extra money and are they any healthier?

Low Fat Snacks

Just because something has low fat on the label does not make it healthy. What some producers do is they replace the fat with sugar instead (to keep the taste). So you will be eating less fat but you will be having a lot more added sugar which is probably more harmful.

Organic Snacks

Organic is another label that producers can put on products and charge more money for. When you are talking about fruit, vegetables, coffee and other unprocessed foods then organic is healthier. But when you are talking about processed and refined foods, the fact that it is organic does not make it any healthier if it is still high in sugar and low in nutrients.

Gluten Free Junk Food

If you are intolerant to gluten then you need to eat gluten free food. However this does not mean that you need to buy the processed, gluten free junk food that is sold in many shops. They may not contain gluten but they still contain lots of other stuff that isn't good for you (sugar is gluten free). Instead you should have unprocessed gluten free foods (lots of fruit and vegetables, potatoes, rice, meat and fish) in your diet and they will probably be cheaper as well!

Protein Bars

Not all protein bars are bad. Unfortunately there are a lot of bad ones out there and many are stocked in gyms and health food shops. Many of them are no better than a chocolate bar. To give you an example one brand contains 175 calories, 17g of carbohydrates (11g of sugar!), 7.5g of fat and only 9.6g of protein in a 40g bar. 40g of tuna would give you 12g of protein and 2.5g of fat instead (it would also be cheaper as well!).

The best advice I can give you is check the food labels of food you are buying. Look at calories, fat, protein, sugar and carbs. Look at how processed the food is and think are you buying just because a 'healthy' label on it? A muffin is still a muffin whether it is organic, gluten free and low fat or not.

TAGS: lifestylenutrition