“These foods are promoted as healthy but in reality, behind the scenes, they are not healthy at all”
A doctor has warned people against consuming certain foods that are normally perceived as healthy but may, in fact, pose a risk to one’s health.
Dr. Eric Berg, from the US, has listed seven foods that are ‘basically poison’ and that are better off being removed from our diets.
It’s worth noting that Dr. Berg is presumably referring to food marketed in the US, as those products have different production processes and regulations to those available in other countries – especially here in the UK.
“These foods are promoted as healthy but in reality, behind the scenes, they are not healthy at all,” he said in a recent YouTube video. “In fact, they’re gonna make you sick.”
So, what are these common foods that we probably should start avoiding?
We’d all like to think we make the effort to be healthy in our diets, right? (Getty Stock Image)
Granola bars
A quick look at the packaging of a popular granola bar brand confirmed that they contain ‘bioengineered food ingredients’.
“It means that they have GMO ingredients,” Dr. Berg clarified, adding: “They have levels of glyphosate,” which is a herbicide, ‘a weed killer which is linked to cancer’.
These bars also tend to contain beet sugar, ‘which is GMO’, ‘not very healthy’ sunflower oil – it can cause ‘a lot of problems on the inside of your body’, according to Dr. Berg – and rice flour, which is high in starch.
“When you’re dealing with starch, you’re really dealing with sugar,” the doctore said.
“That’s what starch is, it’s a group of sugar molecules connected together,” he continued, saying that “one serving size [of granola bars] equals just under seven teaspoons of sugar.”
It turns out granola bars aren’t as healthy as we thought (Getty Stock Image)
Agave syrup
“It sounds very natural but, every time they make a product into a syrup, especially agave, you’re going to create more fructose,” Dr Berg said.
“Agave syrup is literally 85 percent fructose,” he added, explaining that that has an impact on the liver.
“Your liver treats fructose like it does alcohol, like a toxin,” he said, explaining it can be linked to diabetes and obesity.
Flavoured yoghurts
“Yoghurts have more sugar than a candy bar,” he said, adding that they can include thickeners, modified corn starch, and monosodium glutamate.
Dr. Berg advises people to opt for kefir as that has ‘way more friendly bacteria’ than yoghurt.
Flavoured yogurts contain a lot of sugar (Getty Stock Image)
Non-dairy creamers
“There is a lot of crap in these things,” he said, listing high-fructose corn syrup or glucose syrup, maltodextrin and ‘hidden’ trans fat that can be rounded up to zero and thus omitted from the label as their content is low.
Soy milk
Dr. Berg expressed his confusion over how soy milk is even considered a milk in the first place, saying you can get a lot of ‘estrogenic effects’ from consuming it – which basically means the production of estrogen.
He went on to say the way in which soy products – including the milk – are produced is not healthy in the slightest, and doesn’t understand how soy milk is considered to be cleaner and healthier than organic dairy milk.
Who knew that soy milk is potentially worse for you than dairy milk? (Getty Stock Image)
Fast food salads/lettuce
Dr. Berg says the kinds of salads that contain lettuce usually come with dressings, which contain seed oil and trans fat – ‘another chemical cocktail’.
These salads also contain chemical preservatives to prevent the lettuce from going brown.
Puffed cereals
Dr. Berg cited a study that once looked at the reaction of rats when they consumed puffed cereal, which sadly saw the animals die.
He decided to recreate this study for himself, and he was shocked to find the rats who were being fed puffed cereals began to suffer from red, bulging eyes and start prematurely dying. This is why Dr. Berg refuses to now eat any type of puffed cereal.
Featured Image Credit: Youtube/Dr. Eric Berg DC / Natasha Breen/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
