5 Food Lies That Sabotage My Diet
I'm a liar, and you probably are too when it comes to your diet. According to a recent Consumer Reports study, almost 90 percent of adults said their diets were healthy. Um, have you looked around America lately? Healthy diets are clearly not making up the majority of this country's diet. So basically, we're lying ourselves right out of jeans and into an obese oblivion.
It's oh so easy to do, I know. I constantly reason, rationalize, and talk myself into food choices all the time that I deem healthy. Somewhere in my head the truth I know is shouting for my attention, but I'm much happier to drown it out with lies ... and a side of fries.
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Here are the five biggest fat food lies I tell myself:
1. Mayonnaise Is Misunderstood
It's just eggs, some oil (even healthy ones like olive or soybean oil), and vinegar, so it doesn't really deserve its standard place at the top of diet don't lists. I think it may be the lasting stigma of the egg that's sticking with mayo, but we now know that an egg a day can be good for us, so shouldn't some mayo be too? I say yes -- especially if served with French fries, because then you get a vegetable in too.
2. Wine Counts as a Serving of Fruit
It's made from grapes, just grapes, so what else could it be but a fruit?
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3. It's Organic!
If I bought it at Whole Foods for $12 million, of course it's good for me. This ice cream is organic so it doesn't really count as dessert; and these cheese puffs, which are made with no preservatives but still retain that great orange color, are certainly not junk food.
4. Anything at Chipotle Is Cool
They use grass-fed beef, food from local farms, and their whole slogan is "Food With Integrity." I feel healthier just driving by the place. A burrito with 1,000 calories is at least 1,000 healthy calories. Right?
5. I Deserve It
After running five miles or doing an hour-long exercise class, I surely burned enough calories to make up for this little bit of candy ... and a few fries ... another latte ... oh, and some extra mayo on that, please.
What food lies do you tell yourself?
Image via Like_the_Grand_Canyon/Flickr
Written by Julie Ryan Evans for CafeMom's blog, The Stir.
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