3 Things You Should Never Eat

Laura gives you her top 3 things you should never ideally eat. This list is in no particular order and consists of foods that don’t bring nutrients… tune in now!

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Transcript

You’re listening to the love and lettuce podcast episode 29. I’m diving into three things you should ideally never eat. Are you ready for this? Let’s go!

Hey, this is Lauren Lima, holistic nutritionist and founder of New mama nation, and host of the love and lettuce podcast. I am here to help mamas know what to eat to give them energy and help them feel fantastic. So they can better enjoy life with their littles. And remember, this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only, and does not replace medical advice from your healthcare provider, and is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition. As always, please consult your health care provider to find out what is right for you. With that said, let’s get to the show.

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The definition of real food

Notice how I didn’t use the word food? When I said three things you should ideally never eat. Because these things aren’t food? Well, technically they are, I suppose, but in my opinion, they are far from it. They don’t fall under the definition of real food. They are highly refined and overly processed. And they don’t bring nutrients into the body when we consume them.

In fact, they can take nutrients away, either because they require certain vitamins and minerals in their metabolism, or because they interfere with the absorption and usability of those nutrients. And I have to say like I don’t want to say ever, never eat these foods. And that’s why I said ideally, never eat these foods. Because I do believe we should eat at 20. And I know that 80% of your diet is the healthiest of healthy foods that you can eat. 20% of your diet is treats and indulgences. And I realized that in real life, those indulgences could definitely include one of these three things if not all three or two or whatever.

So I get that but I still want to be dramatic and say never eat these foods, because they just don’t get us anywhere. And I really want to tell you how serious I am about this. Like these are things that we should not be putting into our bodies as much as we can. So without further ado, let’s get to it.

1. Margarine

Number one item thing is margarine. Also known as a freakish, spreadable, butter like substance that doesn’t really ever go bad. And that even fruit flies know better than to consume it.

Think about that. What do we think about this, quote, food product that doesn’t go moldy? You like? That’s kind of crazy, right? It’s been so highly refined that it’s not really real anymore. Plus, most margarine started out with Omega six rich oils, such as soybean, corn, canola, and cottonseed often. And it can also just be called vegetable oil. Any of these, any combination. Or it could just be called vegetable oil. These types of omega six oils tend to be inflammatory, meaning they cause inflammation and pain in our body. These oils are then heated to extremely high temperatures during the refining process, which damages the oils thereby creating damaged fat.

Our cells cannot use this damage that the same way it can the healthy stuff and they can be detrimental and damage our cells. By the way, this heavy refining process also removes most, if not all nutrients that the oils may once have contained. Leaving it nutritionally devoid. PS – most of these oils are from genetically modified, aka food, if you will. GMO crops that have been artificially manipulated and tampered with. GMO foods are not the way nature intended and our bodies were not designed to deal with them.

And finally, margarine does not contain fat soluble vitamins and this is one of the most important parts of butter. Especially grass fed butter. Is where you’ll find these Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin K. Margarine just doesn’t have these things. So you’ll learn about these in a little bit in this episode, but for now, just know that we need these and we definitely aren’t getting any from margarine.

Butter is better

So what do we have instead? Butter? Yes, butter is better. Butter is delicious. It is the answer.

You’ll get those fat soluble vitamins especially like I said, if you get grass fed. And I get it, it’s more expensive. We don’t have all grass fed, that’s for sure. But when you can, when it’s on sale, whatever, get it. And you’ll also get from butter, a small dose of that good for you saturated fat and cholesterol. Yes, we need it. Yeah, you’ll learn about their goodness soon. Butter is also real, which makes it 100% better in my books.

2. Diet Pop

Let’s get to the second one on our list of things that you should never eat or consume. Ideally, diet pop.

Now, when I say this next sentence, I want you to keep listening. I don’t want you to just go to the store, grab pop celebrate and jump for joy. Okay, just listen. So here’s my sentence: I’d rather you drink regular pop over diet. But that doesn’t mean that you should go out and buy a 24 pack and feel good about it simply because it’s not the diet version. The regular stuff is pretty awful, too, because of the astronomical amounts of sugar, as well as the other crappy ingredients that are also in diet pop. So you should really avoid that one too.

So why should you never drink diet pot specifically? Because it contains artificial sweeteners. And those my friend we’re not manufactured with health in mind. There are processed manmade chemicals that simply don’t belong in our bodies. They’ve been linked to neurological issues. They’re deemed actually a neurotoxin. They’ve also been linked to diabetes and weight gain. Yes, weight gain, and it’s called diet pop like Hulu. So what should we have instead?

Try kombucha

Try kombucha. It’s a fermented tea beverage and it tastes delicious. It gives you the fizziness of pop, as well as the delicious flavors. And there are so many out there to try. One of my favorite brands is GT’S like literally just the letters G T, apostrophe s. And I also love Rhys, but there are so many out there. And I love the ginger flavor. The ginger is just so good for digestion, and is just so nice to sip it with a meal. Or especially in between meals. I don’t like to have a lot of liquid with my meals. It’s actually not great for digestion. When you have a lot of liquids, whatever the liquid may be, but sipping on kombucha can be very good for digestion, for sure.

And so since Kombucha is fermented, you’ll get digestive and immune benefits from the probiotics it contains. Bonus!

3. Artificially sweetened yogurt

All right, let’s move on to the third and final item on our list. It’s artificially sweetened yogurt, especially low fat, or fat free. The reason for this falls under the same category as diet pop, because of the potential effects of artificial sweeteners. So go back and listen to that if you need a little reminder. But there is another reason though, and it has to do with the second part of what we just talked about the part that mentions the fat content. A lower fat content in yogurt usually means a higher carb content. And where our blood sugar level is concerned, this is a bad thing.

Fat actually slows down the release of sugar into our bloodstream. Therefore preventing the blood sugar rollercoaster and the cravings fatigue, mood swings, and low energy that go with it. As well as keeping us more steady throughout the day.

Don’t be afraid of fat

And there’s another hugely important thing about fat. We need it. You know, you’ve heard me talk about this before. Yes, even saturated fat that’s found in certain foods. We have so much fat in our bodies, that makes up our brain, our eyes, our nerves, and our cell membranes. And we have trillions of cells, each one surrounded by a membrane, one that contains fat. If that fat was strictly unsaturated, our cells would be too elastic and fluid. We need the saturated fat to provide structure and stability. And we also need cholesterol for this reason and many more reasons to animal fats also provide those fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K two.

Varying amounts of these are found in different foods. These fats labeled vitamins are really hard to obtain. Much harder to obtain compared to their water soluble sisters, such as vitamin C and B vitamins. Since we tend to think that we’re supposed to avoid the animal fats that contain them. Well, I’m telling you that we don’t have to. In fact, we should not. Fat soluble vitamins help us absorb our minerals.

Fat soluble vitamins

I’ll say that again, fat soluble vitamins help us absorb our minerals. So we need those animal fats that provide those fat soluble vitamins. And they have a myriad of health benefits on their own. We cannot be afraid of fat, even the saturated stuff. Instead, we should make sure that we eat foods that contain them. They are that important.

That was the biggest side because fat is my thing. It is my jam. I love talking about it. It makes such a huge difference when you include the right kinds into your life and more of them and get rid of the wrong ones. And just briefly the wrong ones. I talked about it during the margarine discussion. The wrong ones are the vegetable oils, the canola, soybean, corn, cottonseed oil (vegetable oil) that is found in most processed and packaged foods. Those are the ones that we want to be avoiding the damaged fat, the high omega six refined oils.

Back to yogurt

So back to our yogurt discussion. What do we have instead of this, this artificially sweetened, low fat or no fat yogurt? What do we have instead? Well, ideally, yogurt should be plain or unflavored, meaning unsweetened with the highest fat content you can find. But if you’re like, oh, this is so boring, because I get it. I know it’s very tangy to taste. So then sweeten it yourself!

So you can use berries to sweeten it. You can use stevia, you can use honey maple syrup. That’s my favorite thing to sweeten yogurt with because it’s just the flavor. It’s delicious. So I love doing berries like raspberries and blueberries. And I love adding in some maple syrup. And I put hemp hearts, aka hemp seeds into my yogurt. Sometimes I add my own granola. And if you just listened to my last podcast episode, you will have heard me talk about this. But I just love yogurt. So I will talk about it all day. You can also add some walnuts to it. And I also add my liquid coconut oil to add even more good fats.

So for yogurt, you’re looking for the highest fat content that you can find. So 10% or more, plain, and then sweeten it yourself. Now I will also say that Greek yogurt is ideal because it’s got more protein and protein is great for so many things. Including blood sugar level. Keeping it more steady, and helping to prevent cravings, and so on. Because when we have an unsteady blood sugar level, we have mood swings, we have cravings, we have low energy. We could also have crazy fatigue. So we want to keep our blood sugar levels stable at all times. And having protein and having fat in our foods. And every single meal helps to keep a steady blood sugar.

Find healthier options

So I encourage you to look through your kitchen to see which “foods” from this list I gave you today that you might have on hand and switch them up for the healthier options. I mean, if you want to go through your margarine and then buy the butter, fine, but if you just want to say hey, this is not even real food, I’m just gonna put it in the green bin. Be smart about it – compost it, and then get your butter right away. I am all for that as well.

So try out these new options that I’ve suggested for you. The butter I mean, hello if you haven’t had it yet. I mean I feel like you have tried out the butter trial the full fat yogurt and try out the kombucha. I mean what did you got to lose? Nothing What do you got to gain everything health but also like these delicious new foods that maybe you haven’t tried before? And just feel awesome knowing that you’re feeding your body nourishing foods that will have amazing benefits.

Thank you so much for listening. And if you have questions if you want to add to this list if you want to continue the conversation come on over to Instagram. Look for the episode 29 recording. You’ll see the post on Instagram about episode 29 and leave a comment there. I would love to hear from you.

And let’s keep the conversation going. I’ll talk to you soon, my friends. Buh bye. And don’t forget to get your free copy of my new mama energy guide. Just go to http://bit.ly/newmamas for instant access.

Thanks for listening to the Love and Lettuce podcast to find out how to work with me, and for more great info check out newmamanation.com. This is Laura, until next time, love and lettuce.