3. White Bread and Other Refined Grains
Grain consists of three parts: The bran, germ, and endosperm. The bran is where the fiber is found. The germ is where the majority of the nutrients are found. The endosperm is the starchy part of the grain where you find most of the carbohydrates. When a grain is processed or refined, they remove both the bran and the germ, leaving only the endosperm. “That means you lost almost all of your fiber and nutrients, just keeping the carbs and calories. Therefore, refined starchy items such as white bread, white rice, crackers, and bagels have little nutritional value and no fiber to help with blood sugar control, explains Rebekah Blakely, RDN. As an alternative, Blakely recommends choosing whole grain or sprouted grain breads, bagels, crackers, brown rice, or quinoa instead.
4. Soda
These sweet drinks will add a lot of sugar and calories to your daily intake and they have no nutritional value. “It’s easy to add a few hundred calories from sugar by having one to two sodas per day,” says Mascha Davis, MPH, RDN. Blakely agrees, citing a study by JAMA showing that consumption of both sugar-sweetened and artificially-sweetened soft drinks are associated with a higher risk of mortality.2 “Soda has many downfalls and zero redeeming qualities,” she says. Some of the harmful ingredients include caramel color (linked to cancer), phosphoric acid (regular exposure is bad for your teeth), and high fructose corn syrup (linked to obesity), among others. “Sugar-sweetened versions carry all the health risks of consuming excess sugar, while diet versions contain artificial sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame) that are linked to numerous health issues,” Blakely adds.
Instead, both Davis and Blakely recommend opting for water whenever possible. If you are craving something more flavorful, try tea or a sparkling water flavored naturally with fruit, like La Croix.