Questioning a healthy lifestyle, a person can start by keeping food and drinks consumed. Among them avoid foods that are not good for digestion or harm other organs.
A number of nutritionists, as summarized from a number of sources, provide leaks to the types of foods that should be avoided if you want to live healthy in 2018. Here are some of them:
1. Processed meats
Reporting from Harpers Bazaar, Rhian Stephenson, nutritionist and CEO of Psycle London, said processed meats contribute to antibiotic resistance and can also cause hormonal problems and disrupt insulin. Eating processed meats can also cause cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and swelling.
He said processed meat contains chemicals because of the factories have been injected with hormones, antibiotics, and other veterinary medicines. The chemicals used aims to keep the meat fresh and add to the taste and color of the meat. Nitrate compounds present in these chemicals will be converted by the body into nitrosamines which are carcinogenic compounds that cause higher cancer rates.
In addition, in processed meats there are also other cancer-causing compounds such as HCA and Polycylic Aromatic Hydrocarbons that can occur due to incorrect cooking methods, smokers, and flavorings. The World Cancer Research Fund recommends to completely avoid processed meats, this new year could be a good time to consume meat from healthier sources.
2. Added sugar
Dr. Marilyn Lenville, nutritionist and author of the book Natural Alternatives to Sugar says, everyone is good at reducing or eliminating sugar in foods or beverages to be consumed. Why is that? Sugar is one of the main causes of health problems.
If many people complain of dizziness, anxiety, confusion, insomnia, fatigue, lack of concentration, lack of sex drive, headache, and muscle cramps it is caused by blood sugar fluctation caused by high or low blood sugar levels. Balancing blood sugar levels is important because it can reduce stress.
Small steps that can be done to reduce sugar can be done by reducing the consumption of savory foods such as spaghetti sauce, mayonnaise, salad, baked beans, and soup. The next step, is try to stop adding sugar into hot drinks and other foods. Do not forget to familiarize yourself to read the packaging labels. For example when mengkonsusi yoghurt, yoghurt actually contain eight teaspoons of additional sugar.
3. Excessive salt
The hard fact is to reduce the use of salt because salt contains sodium that has a role in the body and become one of the important components in every cooking.
Lily Soutter, a nutritionist from London said: "The recommended salt intake is a maximum of six grams per day, but on average we consume eight grams per day."
Consuming a lot of salt can raise blood pressure that increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. The salt consumed is largely hidden in food, making it difficult to measure how much salt has been consumed each day. As much as 75 percent of the salt comes from bread, breakfast cereals and fast food.
Ways can be done to examine the salt content of food consumed by reading food labels. If the food contains more than 1.5 grams of salt per 100 grams then the food contains high salt. If the salt is less than 0.3 gram per 100 gram then the salt content is low.
To change the use of salt can be done by adding spices and other spices to add flavor to the food. Use canned vegetables that contain no salt, always look at and compare the labels in each food packaging.
4. Vegetable oil
Casandra Barns, nutritionist and health writer recommends that everyone reduce the use of vegetable oils, especially processed cooking oils such as sunflower oil. Vegetable oil is often called good for health, but in fact they are harmful to long-term health.
That's because the unsaturated fat content in vegetable oil is fragile and easily damaged when heated with high temperatures such as when used for frying. The harmful free radicals that are created will damage the body when consumed.
Dense vegetable oils such as margarine will have even worse effects on the body because the process of converting liquid oils to solids will make trans fats bad for the body. Trans fats can enter the body's cell membranes and replace the healthy fats needed by the body's cells to work properly.
Vegetable oils contain high omega-6 fats and contain few omega-3 fats and even none at all. Omega-6 is harmless to the body, but its unbalanced amount can cause inflammation in the body. The inflammation is related to all health conditions such as arthritis, heart disease, to asthma.
Replace vegetable oil using coconut oil. Coconut oil contains harmful saturated fat when heated. Alternatively, it is better to process foods that do not use oils such as steaming or grilling. It can also use olive oil but in low temperatures.
5. Crash Diet and bad habits
Gabriella Peacock, nutritionist revealed many people who want to lose weight in quick time so do a diet or diet crash suddenly. This diet will reduce calories in the body, drastically caloric restrictions can turn the body into a mode of 'survival' that makes the body's metabolism becomes slow, the more difficult to lose weight and release neurotransmitters that will increase appetite.
It is recommended in 2018 to improve the nutritional quality of food and reduce bad habits. Reduce the habit of eating fast food and try adding healthy food in the portion of food to be consumed. (rah)