Nutritional Myths

Skipping meals can help lose weight

Many people think that by skipping a meal, they eat less food and therefore it's effective in helping them lose weight. However they fail to recognize that our bodies do not operate this way. If we skip a meal, our body will think that we are in starvation mode and therefore slow down the metabolism to compensate. We then tend to overeat at the next meal. Often times, skipping a meal results in an increase in total caloric intake than if we just ate more frequently throughout the day. A better approach is to eat smaller frequent healthy meals to keep our blood sugar balanced.

 Avoiding carbohydrate to lose weight

Many low-carb diets actually do not provide sufficient carbohydrates to your body for daily maintenance. Therefore your body will begin to burn stored carbohydrates (glycogen) for energy. When your body starts burning glycogen, water is released. Therefore the drastic initial drop of weight at the beginning is mostly the water that you lose as a result of burning glycogen.  It doesn't matter if you eat a high or low carb diet, you will lose weight if you decrease your caloric intake to less than that is needed to maintain your weight.

Avoiding seafood to lower blood cholesterol

Cholesterol found in seafood and other meats has little effect on blood cholesterol in most people. Saturated fats and trans fatty acids are the most important factors that raise blood cholesterol, not dietary cholesterol! Saturated fats are found in some pre-packaged and processed foods containing shortening or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Trans fatty acids, on the other hand, are also found in packaged snack foods, deep-fried foods or firm margarine containing hydrogenated oil.

 Sugar Causes Diabetes

If you do not have diabetes, sugar intake will not cause diabetes. So far, a diet high in calories, being overweight, and an inactive lifestyle are the main risk factors for type 2 diabetes.

 All Fats are bad

The fact is we all need fats. Fats help nutrient absorption, nerve transmission and maintain cell membrane integrity just to name a few functions. The key is to replace bad fats (saturated fats and trans fats) with good fats (monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats) in our diet.

 Brown Sugar is better than White Sugar

The brown sugar sold at the stores is actually white granulated sugar with added molasses. Yes, brown sugar contains small amounts of minerals. But unless you eat a gigantic portion of brown sugar everyday, the mineral content difference between

brown sugar and white sugar is absolutely insignificant.