We wish we could tell you the red coloring in Swedish Fish was a sign of lots of antioxidants or that a glass of wine counted as a serving of fruit. But we know you’d catch our April Fools’ joke right off the bat.
Instead, this April Fools’ Day, we’re lifting the curtain on some other pranksters. While plenty of junk foods aren’t fooling anyone — everybody knows a bunch of sugar, gelatin and preservatives, for instance, doesn’t have much to offer when it comes to nutritional value — there are a number of other tricksy foods masquerading as beneficial bounty. Oatmeal? Granola? VitaminWater? The jig is up!
Check out the 12 jokesters below, then let us know in the comments what other foods are trying to trick you into thinking they have something nutritious to offer.
More and more people are jumping on the gluten-free trend — and not for medical reasons. But just because everybody’s doing it, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy (or conducive to weight loss). A gluten-free dessert may not contain any wheat, but that doesn’t mean it’s sugar- or calorie-free.
Homemade pureed fruits and veggies can make for a nutritious mix, but store- or restaurant-bought smoothies often come overloaded with sugar. While you might stir in yogurt at home, restaurants likely add juice or even ice cream to the mix.
The same can be said for those oh-so-convenient drinkable fruit and vegetable pouches. What’s so inconvenient about an apple or a banana, we’d like to know? Confusion aside, they’re often made with concentrated fruit juice, a healthier-sounding name for — you guessed it — sugar.
We’ve all been there: Given the choice between a number of packaged eats, we’ll reach for the one touting its all-natural ingredients. But there’s actually no FDA guideline for what can and cannot be labeled natural — it’s just a ploy meant to sell more products (and, we’ll admit, it works!).
At least meat and poultry require additional labeling to explain why they’re deemed natural.
It’s true that after (and sometimes during) very vigorous exercise, you may need to replenish your body with water and nutrients. But you can probably get away with doing it on a lot less sugar (and none of the artificial colors) in traditional sports drinks.
Not to mention that most of us aren’t even pushing our bodies to the point where we need the extra calories, sugars and salts. It takes more than an hour to deplete the average athlete’s electrolyte and glycogen stores, HuffPost Healthy Living’s Meredith Melnick reported. Water and a banana or some raisins will probably do the trick.
![Starbucks Egg-White Wraps An egg-white omelet is a great idea -- when made with actual egg whites. The egg whites in Starbucks' spinach and feta wrap also contain (surprise!) the following: whey powder, unmodified corn starch, nonfat dry milk, salt, butter flavor [sunflower oil, natural flavors, medium chain triglycerides, palm kernel oil], xantham gum, guar gum, liquid pepper extract, for a grand total of 11 ingredients other than egg whites in the "egg whites" alone.](http://static.ynaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/slide_289175_2281143_free.jpg)
An egg-white omelet is a great idea — when made with actual egg whites. The egg whites in Starbucks’ spinach and feta wrap also contain (surprise!) the following: whey powder, unmodified corn starch, nonfat dry milk, salt, butter flavor [sunflower oil, natural flavors, medium chain triglycerides, palm kernel oil], xantham gum, guar gum, liquid pepper extract, for a grand total of 11 ingredients other than egg whites in the “egg whites” alone.
What could make for a healthier breakfast than oatmeal? A lot, if the oatmeal in question came from beneath the Golden Arches. In his well-read smackdown of McDonald’s oatmeal, titled “How to Make Oatmeal … Wrong,” New York Times columnist Mark Bittman wrote that this breakfast offering was far from the natural, fruit-filled dish promised, and more like “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.” Thanks, but no thanks.
It’s not a Whopper, but it’s not far off. Burger King’s recently unveiled “healthy” turkey burger totals only 100 fewer calories than a regular burger at the chain. It also comes with high-fat toppings including guacamole (which we know is more than just avocado when commercially prepared) and pepperjack cheese, the Associated Press reported.
We were big fans of these seemingly nutritious picks when they started showing up in the snack baskets at the HuffPost offices. The visible nuts and identifiable fruits are a vast improvement over the indistinguishable mush of some bars. But while the components of a KIND bar are beneficial on their own — fruit, nuts, maybe even a little dark chocolate — the sugar content, unfortunately, isn’t negligible. In some varieties, there are as many as 16 grams of the sweet stuff. In others, there are only five. But with a recommended daily intake of only 20 grams of sugar a day for women, even five isn’t insignificant. How unkind.
Lean meats and protein, sure. But we could do without all that sodium. A number of deli meats are surprisingly salty, with some varieties packing half of an entire day’s worth of salt (if not more) into just a single serving.
Some also contain nitrites and nitrates, forms of sodium used as preservatives and coloring agents, that may act as carcinogens. And all that’s without saying that processed meat in general is bad news. Regular consumption has been linked to increased risks of pancreatic cancer, diabetes and dying of heart disease.
General wisdom would have us believe that a muffin has got to be a better pick at the bakery than a donut, right? Not necessarily. A large, commercially-prepared blueberry muffin can have more than 500 calories and 26 grams of fat, according to the U.S.D.A., while a medium-sized glazed donut might only set you back 192 calories and 10 grams of fat. Going with whole grains is always a smart choice, but even a bran muffin can pack 375 calories and 10 grams of fat.
The words “vitamin” and “water” get a lot more real estate on the label than “crystalline fructose,” which happens to be a fancy name for sugar derived from corn. At 50 calories a serving, and two-and-a-half servings per bottle, that flavored sip isn’t far from drinking a soda.
If you can see past the health halo on this crunchy breakfast staple, you’ll be faced with the harsh reality that many commercially prepared picks are loaded with fat, sugar and calories — not the way to start a morning. Some of the fat is certainly healthy fats from nuts, but note the serving size on your favorite brand. Chances are you’ve been pouring with a heavy hand.
Read more: Huffington Post
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