Office workers, busy with their jobs, often overlook the principles of healthy eating and unknowingly violate certain dietary taboos, which, over time, can harm their health.
Dietary Taboo 1: Brewing Tea in a Vacuum Flask
Tea contains a large amount of tannic acid, theine, tea essential oil, and various vitamins. It is more suitable to brew it with water at about 80°C. If tea is steeped in high-temperature water in a vacuum flask for a long time, it is like simmering it with low heat, which will destroy all the vitamins in the tea, cause a large amount of tea essential oil to evaporate, and lead to the excessive leaching of tannic acid and theine. This not only reduces the nutritional value of the tea and diminishes its aroma but also increases the amount of harmful substances.
Dietary Taboo 2: Skipping Breakfast
This severely damages the stomach, making it difficult to work with full energy, and can also make you "look older." Researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany, after a long-term follow-up study of 7,000 men and women, found that 40% of them were in the habit of skipping breakfast, and their average lifespan was 2.5 years shorter than the remaining 60%. Another university, in a study of people aged 80-90, found that one common factor among their longevity was eating a substantial breakfast every day.
Dietary Taboo 3: Loving Coffee
American medical researchers have found that a person who drinks 5 or more cups of coffee a day is twice as likely to develop heart disease as a non-drinker. The longer the duration of coffee consumption and the more one drinks, the higher the likelihood of developing heart disease. A survey of 858 people aged 45-69 who had their first heart attack showed that those who drank more than 5 cups of coffee a day had a 70% increased risk of the disease.
Dietary Taboo 4: Insufficient Water Intake
Office workers, due to high levels of concentration during work, can easily forget to drink water, leading to insufficient replenishment of fluids in the body. A decrease in body fluids causes blood to become concentrated and more viscous, which can easily lead to thrombosis, trigger cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases, and also affect the metabolic function of the kidneys.
Dietary Taboo 5: Smoking After Meals
Smoking a cigarette after a meal is more toxic than smoking ten cigarettes at other times. This is because after eating, gastrointestinal motility increases and blood circulation accelerates. At this time, the body's ability to absorb smoke is in an "optimal state," making it easier for toxic substances in the smoke to enter the body, thus further damaging health.
Dietary Taboo 6: Too Lavish Dinner
For office workers, dinner often becomes the main meal of the day. Breakfast depends on the "clock," lunch on the "work," and it is only in the evening that one can truly relax and sit down at the dining table for a hearty meal.
Dietary Taboo 7: Eating Too Quickly
This increases the burden on the digestive system and can lead to obesity. Many office workers eat their lunch in a very hurry. Eating too quickly means food is not chewed sufficiently, which is not conducive to the initial digestion by food and salivary amylase in the mouth, thus increasing the burden on the digestive system. A short chewing time keeps the vagus nerve in a state of over-excitement, and over the long term, this can easily lead to obesity due to excessive appetite.
Dietary Taboo 8: Eating Raw Food at Banquets
Among the preferred foods for office workers at business banquets—such as salmon, geoduck, sea bass, snakehead fish, sashimi, snake, turtle, and crab—the chances of parasites and pathogenic bacteria are very high. Furthermore, to pursue a fresh taste, chefs often do not cook these foods sufficiently, making it easy for you to get sick from what you eat while enjoying a feast.
Dietary Taboo 9: Using Fruit as a Staple Food
Many office workers suffer from poor digestion, high blood lipids, and vascular sclerosis due to their sedentary workstyles and do indeed need the nutrients in fruit to alleviate these conditions. However, fruit cannot be a staple food. Although fruit contains various vitamins and sugars, it lacks the protein and certain trace elements that the human body needs.
Dietary Taboo 10: Excessive Drinking
The optimal alcohol intake for a person weighing 60 kg should be limited to less than 60 grams per day. For those weighing less than 60 kg, the amount should be reduced accordingly, preferably to around 45 grams. This translates to the following for various finished alcoholic beverages: 50 grams of 60-degree liquor, 1 kilogram of beer, or 250 milliliters of whiskey. Although red wine is beneficial to health, it should not be consumed in excess; 2 to 3 glasses per day is ideal.