Monday, September 22, 2014

Thanks to the Internet, there is a lot of information floating around out there that is misleading or downright false. Nowhere is that truer, says dietitian Julie Upton, than in the area of nutrition, where weird diets and weirder health notions proliferate for all to see.

Upton, who blogs at Appetite For Health, debunks five common nutrition myths that are not worth their space in the cloud:

You should detox your body with a juice cleanse – There’s no shortage of so-called experts advocating juice cleanses. But there’s little proof that fasting or following a deprivation diet actually delivers on the promise. A day of juice dieting won’t cause harm, but you’ll be less cranky and probably healthier if you eat lean protein and lots of fruits and veggies.

Diet sodas make you gain weight – There’s a common myth-conception floating around the social media that implies drinking diet soda causes weight gain as opposed to drinking water. The fact is, diet soda drinkers generally feel fuller and more satisfied and therefore may eat less at meals than people who’ve had only water.

Muscle can turn to fat (and vice versa) – that’s the equivalent of believing you can turn water into wine. If you don’t exercise, muscle mass can get flabby. But fat tissue is only generated when you consume more calories than you burn. Watch your diet and your exercise routine and you might start burning excess body fat.

Canola oil can be toxic – False. This came from a misinformation that canola oil is made from rapeseed oil, which can, in fact, be toxic. But the truth is that canola oil is made from crushed seeds of the canola plant – a distant cousin of the rapeseed plant – and is one of the healthiest oils (behind olive oil) that we can consume.

Some foods, like celery, have negative calories – Don’t know where this idea came from, but when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is – and this is a prime example. There are no negative calorie foods. So don’t try scarfing down more celery than you want. Strive instead for a healthy diet and burn off extra calories with exercise.

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