Why are light, sugar-free, 0% fat, low-fat foods… not healthy?

Eating these types of products does not mean you are eating healthy. Be careful with them!

You start taking action to feel radiant inside and out. You want to take care of your health, so you decide to eat healthy and change your habits.

You go to the supermarket and replace some of the things you used to buy with light, low-fat foods, of course! Without sugars… from now on your pantry and refrigerator are full of healthy food.

But the reality is that these products are not at all healthy.

Even though the industry sells them as the magic solution that will help you achieve your goals, light foods (and all others) have the opposite effect.

In this article, I am going to tell you what is behind these foods, so that you yourself are aware of why you should not include them on your shopping list.

So take note, because we’re starting!

Since they are light foods, they are consumed in larger quantities and this is a mistake.

The legislation considers that a product is considered light when its caloric intake has been reduced by 30%. 

So yes, they have fewer calories, but their ingredients can still be just as unhealthy or even worse (we’ll look at that in the next point).

A normal ketchup that you can buy in any supermarket and a light ketchup are equally ultra-processed, or even more so. Because even if one has fewer calories than the other, it will still contain refined vegetable oils, additives, sugar…

So the reality is that you should avoid both equally.

But what is happening?

Because these products are thought to be healthier or less fattening because they have fewer calories, they are consumed in greater quantities. And no, a light food is not broccoli. It is not a healthier choice. 

Also, think about it, even though they have fewer calories, if you end up eating more of them, you are ingesting the same or more, so it doesn’t make much sense either.

It is better to eat a chocolate biscuit occasionally and consciously than a whole packet of light biscuits regularly They are also sold at a higher price because they are “healthy”.

They remove it from light foods, replacing it with unhealthy ingredients

In the process by which the caloric percentage of a food is reduced, two things come into play that mean that we should not consume it as a product that is good for our health:

• First, it undergoes processing, which results in the loss of some of the essential nutrients it contains. This also causes a lower feeling of satiety and the need to consume more (as mentioned above).

• On the other hand, to reduce the caloric content of these foods, the percentage of fat or sugar is usually reduced, but to keep them appealing to the palate and have the same flavor or texture, these ingredients have to be replaced with others. 

Usually with refined flours, refined vegetable oils, starches, salt, additives, sweeteners…

Just above, I told you that one of the ingredients used to replace the sugar that is reduced in light or “sugar-free” foods is sweeteners.

And here you have to be very careful.

We think that the sugar we should eliminate from our diet is simply refined white sugar, but we have to go much further.

Starting with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, maltitol, and llittle have very negative effects on the body: they deteriorate the intestinal microbiota, burden the liver, and promote digestive pathologies.

Or other types of sweeteners such as honey, syrup, molasses, panela, syrups… Even though you may think they are healthier, they are still SUGAR with another name.

I’m sure you would first buy the sugar-free dark chocolate because, of course, it has no sugar!

But it does contain sweeteners, specifically maltitol. What’s wrong with that? Because you think it’s healthier, you’re going to consume more of it, without taking into account the negative effects of sweeteners on the body that we talked about earlier.

What do I recommend? Choose a chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa, at least 85%. This way, if you eat an ounce of chocolate, the percentage of sugar is only 15%, and if you eat it occasionally and in moderation, nothing will happen.

The same thing happens with these cookies, if you look at the ingredients, although they do not contain refined sugar, they do contain REFINED wheat flour, vegetable oil, and sweeteners… But since they are sold to you with the label “Zero”, “sugar-free”, “or source of fiber” … you already think that they are healthy and they are not.

Okay, now let’s get even more specific.

There are products, such as cereal-based vegetable milk (oats, rice, etc.), that, although they do not contain added sugar or sweeteners, may still contain sugar. This happens because they undergo a hydrolysis process  This consists of releasing the sugar naturally present in the starch of the cereal for the vegetable drink to acquire a sweeter taste.

I’ll leave you an example of this just below.

Note that the only ingredients are water and oats, so at first glance it would be great, but if you look at the nutritional table, which is what you have to look at in these cases, the value of carbohydrates, of which sugars, is 5.4 grams, when it should be 0 grams.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a maximum sugar consumption of 25 grams in adults, 16 grams in children, and 0 grams in children under 3 years of age. 

This would be equivalent to 10% of daily caloric intake, but for there to be health benefits, the WHO reduces this amount by half, to 5% of caloric intake.

So, watch out for sugar!

Now that you know what the WHO recommends, before moving on to fats, let’s discuss one last example on this subject.

This orange juice is without sugar or sweeteners, which you can see in the pictures below, I’m sure that if you saw it in the supermarket you would think that it is super healthy. No sugar, no sweeteners, this one is for sure.

But the reality is that you can’t consume it in excess either, because if you go to the nutritional table and look at the value of carbohydrates, of which sugars, you can see that it is 7.1 grams per 100 milliliters.

So, in a glass that is 250 milliliters, you would be consuming 17.75 grams of sugar in a single glass.

And remember that the WHO recommends 12 grams to see health benefits.

A low-fat diet is not healthier, nor does it help you lose weight.

We have already talked about what happens when the amount of sugar is reduced to make a product less caloric.

But what about fats and “low-fat” or “0% fat” products? 

First of all, when they reduce fat, they add more sugar or sweeteners to make them taste good and have a good texture, and we have already seen above that this is not at all healthy.

And on the other hand, there is one idea that everyone seems to have clear and that is that to eat healthy and lose weight, fats are the number 1 enemy.

Don’t even look at fats.

Or so we’ve been told for a very long time.

But I come to tell you that this is not the case and that you should erase that idea that you have so fixed in your mind.

Fats, even though they are the most caloric nutrient, are not to be feared, because they are essential nutrients and play a key role in a balanced and healthy diet (even if your goal is to regain your ideal weight). Let me explain why:

1. They provide a longer-lasting feeling of satiety, so you feel satisfied for longer and this is something that helps you control your appetite (this is another reason why low-fat light foods encourage you to eat more and more).
2. Some nutrients, such as vitamins A, D, E, and K, require fats to be properly absorbed by our body. Fats are necessary for the absorption of essential nutrients. 
3. They are essential for maintaining a balanced hormonal system, especially in women. This can affect many levels, including weight.
4. They are a very important source of long-term energy. Without fats, you will normally feel fatigued or tired. So they are necessary for leading an active lifestyle (which is essential if you want to take care of yourself).
5. And last but not least, fats slow down the absorption of glucose into the blood. 

You should focus on consuming healthy fats, such as those found in avocados, nuts, seeds, extra virgin olive oil, fish such as salmon…

And eliminate from your diet foods rich in trans fats or refined vegetable oils, for example.

Let’s see an example of some 0% fat, sugar-free, high-protein yogurts…

Also, as we have said, fats are essential, if you look at the ingredients, what do they contain? Sweeteners! And you already know the effects they have on health.

Be careful with light foods, but also with other misleading labels. 

Throughout the article we have analyzed why light foods and their variables: “sugar-free”, “no added sugar”, “0% fat”, “low in fat”… are not healthy and, therefore, you should not include them in your shopping list if you want to take care of yourself and eat healthily.

But things don’t stop there.

The food industry knows what it is doing and since “healthy” is now in fashion, which is great because it means there is more awareness of how important good nutrition is, they use this to their advantage.

And they put the words ecological, artisan, bio, digestive, vegan, gluten-free… on the labels of their products in green and brown so that you don’t notice the ingredients and buy them without thinking.

Or that you consume them, as was the case with light products, more frequently and in larger quantities as if they were vegetables when the reality is that behind these labels you will find more of the same. 

Refined flours, sugar, sweeteners, sweeteners, vegetable oils, additives… 

So, be careful with them! Always turn them around and look at what they contain before buying them, because they are also very expensive.

So what do you need to do to start eating healthy? 

First, remove from your pantry and refrigerator all these types of foods and ingredients that we have been talking about throughout the article.

We often worry about including trendy healthy foods in our diet and we want to buy them all at once, spending a fortune and not reowing what to do with them.

When it is much more interesting to remove everything that harms your health, rather than put it.

Just with this, you are already taking a huge step.

Then it will be time to add healthy foods to your shopping list and make a weekly menu with balanced and delicious dishes that you can enjoy every day. read more