Maintaining a balanced diet is crucial for your overall health, but many common food habits can make this more difficult. Various eating habits may be harmful to your health over time, such as eating oversized portions or snacking too often. These bad habits can lead to weight gain, nutrient deficiencies, and even chronic diseases. Understanding these pitfalls is the first step toward making healthier choices. Here are 18 unhealthy food habits that you should give up.
Skipping Breakfast Regularly
Many of us skip breakfast quite often, but this can have consequences. Missing breakfast may cause a drop in energy levels and concentration and can lead to overeating later in the day. It can also increase the risk of metabolic disorders! According to the Cleveland Clinic, “many of the 25% of Americans who skip breakfast say they just can’t fit the meal into their morning routine.” However, carving out time for breakfast in the morning is important for a healthy lifestyle.
Defrosting Frozen Foods on the Counter
You should kick the habit of defrosting frozen foods on the counter, as leaving frozen food out to thaw can increase the risk of bacterial growth and foodborne illnesses! This method of defrosting your food can also lead to uneven thawing, leaving parts of the food still frozen while other parts are at unsafe temperatures. It can compromise the texture and quality of the food too, affecting its taste and nutritional value.
Overcooking Meat
We can all agree that chewing on overcooked meat is horrible! However, overcooking your meat actually causes more problems than just the tough and less palatable texture that we hate. Overcooking can also reduce the nutritional value of the meat and limit its health benefits. On top of this, overcooking meat can increase the formation of harmful compounds like HCAs and PAHs, which can be detrimental to your health.
Only Eating Gluten-Free
It’s a no-brainer that people with celiac disease and gluten intolerance should limit or eliminate gluten from their diet. However, if you don’t have these dietary requirements, removing gluten from your diet may lead to deficiencies in fiber and essential nutrients found in whole grains. Only eating gluten-free often involves eating more processed foods that can have negative effects on your health, and it can also be more expensive and less convenient.
Ignoring Portion Control
It doesn’t matter how healthy you eat if you eat too much! Whether you eat healthily or unhealthily, ignoring portion sizes and eating more than you should can lead to an excessive calorie intake and potentially cause you to gain weight. Eating portions that are too large can also disrupt your digestion and cause discomfort. Most seriously, big portions can increase your risk of developing chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease!
Adding Salt Before Testing It
You should always do a taste test on your dish before adding salt so that you can determine whether the dish requires any more salt or not first. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it, as they say! Adding salt without testing the dish can make your food too salty, which can result in excessive sodium intake and contribute to high blood pressure. Too much salt can also mask the natural flavors of the food.
Eating Too Much or Too Little Fat
Verywell Health says that “dietary guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) recommend a daily fat intake between 20% and 35% of your daily calories.” There are consequences of eating both too much and too little fat. Eating too much fat can lead to weight gain and cardiovascular issues while eating too little fat can deprive your body of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K). Imbalance can also affect your hormone production and overall health.
Eating Late at Night
We’re all guilty of having our dinner really late every now and again or snacking late at night. However, nutritionists advise against eating late at night, as it can disrupt your body’s natural circadian rhythm, which can cause various health issues. Eating too late can also increase the likelihood of weight gain and indigestion, as your body can’t digest and metabolize the food properly. No more sneaky midnight snacks!
Avoiding Fruit Because of the Sugar
One bad food habit you should give up right now is avoiding eating fruit because of its sugar content. While fruit does typically contain a lot of natural sugar, it also offers a variety of health benefits you don’t want to miss out on. Fruit provides essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber that your body needs. Also, if you don’t eat fruit, your body will begin to crave candy and other worse sugary foods.
Frequently Snacking
Sometimes our bodies just crave a little snack, and it’s fine to satisfy that craving as long as you don’t do it too often. Snacking too frequently usually leads to overeating and weight gain. It can also disrupt your regular meal patterns and make your body confused about when it’s meant to eat. People will typically snack on unhealthy, processed foods too, which makes the habit of snacking even worse for you.
Cooking Everything With the Same Oil
Reusing oil and cooking everything with the same oil can be a pretty unhealthy and even dangerous habit! Heating oil repeatedly can degrade its quality and nutritional value. It’s also important to be careful what oil you use, as using the wrong oil for high-heat cooking can actually produce harmful compounds. Using the same oil for every dish can also limit the flavor and nutritional variety of your meals.
Only Using Egg Whites
Consistently only using egg whites and always leaving out the yolks when you’re cooking can mean you miss out on the essential nutrients found in the yolk, such as vitamins A, D, and E. Skipping the yolk can also result in an unbalanced intake of protein and fat. The yolk is the most satisfying part of the egg, so not eating the yolk may cause you to overeat later.
Eating While Distracted
Forbes reports that “obesity currently affects four out of 10 Americans, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).” The bad habit of eating while distracted can cause you to gain weight and increase your risk of obesity, as you don’t pay attention to the amount that you’re eating. If you’re distracted, you’re also less likely to notice the cues your body gives you when you’re full.
Throwing Out Food Past Its Sell-By Date
Believing you need to throw out food when it’s past its sell-by date is a common misconception and a bad habit that can waste food and money. These dates should be taken as more of a guideline, so you don’t waste perfectly good food that’s still safe to eat. Throwing away food that’s past its sell-by date can also result in unnecessary grocery expenses and negatively impact the environment.
Not Eating Whole Grains
Not including whole grains in your diet can be a mistake, as they contain essential fiber that’s crucial for your digestive health. If you refuse to eat whole grains, you may not get enough nutrients like vitamin B and iron, and you can also become more susceptible to chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. If you don’t like them, try to find creative ways to hide whole grains in your meals to reap their health benefits.
Following Extreme Diets
People have been warned about the risks of following extreme diets for years, and luckily these fad diets have become less popular because of this. Extreme diets can lead to you having nutrient deficiencies and imbalanced nutrition. They can also cause both physical and mental stress, as you deprive your body of certain things it needs. These diets are often unsustainable too and will typically result in unhealthy yo-yo dieting.
Always Cooking the Same Meals
If you always cook and eat the same meals, it might be time to break this habit. Repetitively eating the same meals can limit the nutritional variety and the intake of different essential nutrients. You will also be missing out on the benefits of a varied diet if you always cook the same food. At the end of the day, you’ll likely become bored of these meals and won’t enjoy eating as much as you should.
Relying on Fast Food
One of the most unhealthy eating habits is regularly relying on fast food! Fast food is typically high in unhealthy fats, sugars, and sodium, which can greatly increase your risk of developing various health problems. This type of takeout also usually lacks the essential nutrients that your body needs to function properly and healthily. Fast food portion sizes are often large too and have a high calorie content.
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