Foods & Facts

Almost nothing is written about as much as nutrition. One week beautiful promises are made about all kinds of products, but a week later we read completely different stories. Is coconut oil healthy or not? And fruit juice?

It is not made easy for us. What is true and what is not? Time to debunk a few well-known fables once and for all.

#1 Carbohydrates are bad.
No! Absolutely a fable. However, it is important to consider what kind of type carbohydrates you eat. Simply put, there are two types of carbohydrates: simple and multiple. Simple carbohydrates are found in sugars, biscuits, and white bread or pasta. They briefly give your body lots of energy (a kind of ‘sugar rush’), but if you don't have that energy immediately used, it will eventually be stored as body fat. Moreover, half an hour later, you will suddenly find yourself yawning: the energy has run out again, and now you crave more food.
Multiple carbohydrates, for example, are found in wholemeal products and actually give you energy slowly. So your body has energy for longer, you are less likely to crave food again, and you suffer less from fatigue or hyperactivity.

#2 Brown bread is healthy
Unfortunately, this is a myth, and that's because manufacturers are very clever. Many of us have been taught that brown bread is good for you and contains a lot of fibre. What our parents were actually talking about was wholemeal bread. Now you may be thinking: but isn't that the same thing? Well, not quite. This is because wholemeal bread is a legally protected term, and brown bread is not. Manufacturers can do whatever they want with brown bread. It might as well be white bread with brown dye in it! Multigrain bread, farmhouse bread or primal bread are also not protected terms, so you can never be sure if it is really as healthy as it sounds. So the next time you are looking for brown bread in the supermarket, it is best to take the wholemeal bread. At least then you can be sure what you are getting in.

#3 Coconut oil is healthy
Another example of clever marketing. If the advertisements are to be believed, your kitchen cupboards should be full of jars of coconut fat, but your body thinks otherwise. Research has shown that of all vegetable oils, coconut oil has the most contains saturated fat - which is precisely the wrong fat! (Mnemonic: Saturated = Wrong and Unsaturated = Okay) Also, coconut oil naturally contains no omega-3, so if that's in the jar it's added. For some omega-3, then, you might as well eat a fish from the market, and for cooking you're better off using olive oil.

#4 Fruit juice is good
Unfortunately, sugar is added to almost all fruit juices in the supermarket, even when it says on the packet that it is not! What manufacturers then do is add apple juice, which contains huge amounts of sugar. For example, look on a pack of berry juice: usually the first ingredient is apple juice. (The ingredients on a pack are in order: the first ingredient contains the most).

And juice you've squeezed yourself? Unfortunately, that leaves much of the fibre and vitamins in the press, such a waste! So it's actually much smarter to just eat an orange, instead of drinking orange juice.

#5 If I don't eat or eat little before exercise I lose more weight
Myth! In fact, the opposite is true: to burn body fat, your body needs carbohydrates (fuel). You can think of fat burning as a campfire: you may have built a good fire (combustion), but without a pile of wood (fuel) your fire will go out nicely. However, it is important to pay a little attention to which carbohydrates you eat and when:

Multiple carbohydrates (as in pasta, bread, etc.) are best suited for prolonged workouts and are best eaten up to 2 hours before exercise.

Simple carbohydrates (as in bananas etc.) give short, quick energy, and you can eat up to an hour before your workout.

There are of course many more myths about nutrition, but this is already a good basis. So the next time someone tries to tell you that carbs are bad and fruit juice is good, you'll know better!

Sources: Whitney & Rolfes, Understanding Nutrition (2013); Nutrition Centre; central government, Commodities Act.

Written by Iris. Who is Iris, click here.