1. Fish Fillets
Generally, fried fish fillets are made from cod, which is rich in healthy unsaturated fatty acids (such as DHA), and various fish sticks and fillet products have consequently labeled themselves as "nutritious". However, please note that the packaging boxes/bags for cod fillets often list a dozen or more ingredients. The tedious processing has made it much less beneficial to health due to large amounts of salt, MSG, and saturated fats introduced during frying. Therefore, if you are purchasing processed fish products, the harm they may cause to human health may already outweigh the benefits they can bring.
2. Canned Soups
Soups are very healthy, inexpensive, and easy to prepare. However, canned soups are "mixtures" with very low nutritional value, made from salt, fat, artificial additives, preservatives, and perhaps some dehydrated carrots. A can of soup contains 1000 milligrams of sodium, about half of your daily requirement. Therefore, it's better to prepare your own chicken, beef bones, and vegetables, and make a steaming, fragrant bowl of soup by hand.
3. Green Tea Drinks
Asians generally love green tea, even turning it into an art form. Green tea contains antioxidants and other healthy ingredients that can prevent cancer, heart disease, aging, and other age-related diseases. However, most Americans do not like the taste, so manufacturers add sugar and other additives to make green tea drinks, selling them everywhere under the guise of healthy beverages. In fact, any ingredient on the "green tea" bottle, such as saccharin, preservatives, etc., makes it further from being healthy for us.
4. Yogurt Products
Yogurt is made from fresh milk fermentation and is rich in protein, calcium, and vitamins. For those who are lactose intolerant and cannot enjoy milk, yogurt can be a good alternative. However, the yogurt sold in major supermarkets in the United States has been turned into a "dessert" full of sugar and various processed fruits, and merchants use this "packaging" to disguise it as a health food. Therefore, when buying, it is best to choose plain non-fat yogurt and add some fruit yourself if necessary.
5. Brown Potatoes
The brown potatoes produced in Iowa are cheaper and easier to grow compared to common potatoes. However, after eating these potatoes, the starch they contain quickly turns into blood sugar, increasing the risk of diabetes and obesity. Because their taste is not very good, many people have to take measures to make them more delicious: boil them, then mash them, stuff them with butter, or peel and deep-fry them, and sprinkle a layer of salt on the surface. The food made this way is even less healthy.
6. Popcorn
Nowadays, people no longer consider popcorn a healthy food as they used to. In fact, popcorn is made from corn, it is rich in fiber, very low in calories, and contains almost no sugar, salt, or fat. However, today's microwave popcorn contains a large number of additional ingredients to improve its taste, so it is no longer a healthy and nutritious food. It is a good choice to choose cheap bulk popcorn when buying, and to control the amount of salt and butter yourself.
7. Bread
The most common bread in the United States is the mass-produced white loaf. High-quality bread is indeed made only from flour, water, plus a small amount of salt and yeast. However, today's finished packaged white bread contains sugar, corn syrup, and many other ingredients. After being processed through these procedures, the food quickly turns into blood sugar once you swallow it. Even, many mass-produced whole wheat breads on the market are now harmful to health because they improve their taste through some "harmful substances": sugar, salt, and softeners. It is best to choose raisin oat bread or barley bread spread with pure jam.
8. Breakfast Cereals, Corn Flakes
Cereals such as wheat, barley, rice, and oats have always been the most important food for humans. The protein, dietary fiber, and vitamins they contain are incomparable to other foods. However, food manufacturers have taken advantage of the word "cereal" to make a huge profit. They combine a small amount of cereals with a large amount of starch, white sugar, corn syrup, salt, food coloring, and preservatives to produce "colorful" breakfast cereals that are very popular with children, greatly reducing the nutritional value of these cereals.
9. Commercial Organic Foods
Organic foods use natural farming methods without the use of any pesticides or fertilizers, and are almost regarded as the "savior" in the era of large-scale food pollution. For more than 30 years, we have been pursuing this goal. But driven by profit, its nutritional value system has begun to face a crisis. The organic milk we drink now comes from feedlot cattle that are forced to eat organic grain. There are also various "junk foods" labeled "containing organic ingredients," which disguise themselves as healthy foods through organic labels, and only the manufacturers know how much organic ingredients are inside.
10. Pizza
In Italy, pizza is even legally protected, stipulating that it must be made from whole wheat flour, tomato sauce, white cheese, olive oil, basil, and other spices. Pizza is originally very nutritious. Many pizzas sold by fast-food chains today use preservatives, cheap artificial fats, nutritionless canned fruits, long-freezable meats, and a large amount of salt... These pizzas are very high in calories and sodium content, but their nutritional value is negligible.