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4 Overrated Health Foods

There’s no question that health science is a constantly changing field.  Depending on what decade you are living in, cigarettes may be good for you, high protein may be bad for your kidneys, and cocaine may be the new wonder drug everyone’s talking about.

Luckily, we’re past much the dark ages for health ignorance.  However, due to either marketing hype or honest scientific mistakes, we continue to swallow misinformation that has to be corrected.  Some misinformation is about foods that are supposed to save the day, but turn out to be either just normal, or even unhealthy.

Let’s look at the biggest offenders.

Soy

It’s getting hard to recall why exactly soy made a splash as an ideal animal protein replacement.

True, the powder from soybeans makes a fairly tasty protein shake.

And yes, if you’re a vegan, soy is the best chance you have of getting 40g or more of protein in one place without a ton of carbs in each bite.

However, unless you’re physically or morally incapable of digesting cow’s milk, then the benefits of soy collapse in seconds.

Take just about anything you don’t like about dairy, and soy is a worse offender.

Don’t like how milk is homogenized and pasteurized?  Soy protein has to be ultra-processed to take the rest of the bean out of the product

And just compare the ingredients of a hunk of cheese to any type of soy meat.  You’ll be stunned that fans of “natural food” would ever consider putting a soyburger on their plate.

What about sugar?   Milk does have more of the sweet stuff, but at least it comes straight from the cow.  Soy milk requires refined sugar to be added to the product, which is not doing your body any favors.

This is all before we get to the bigger problem that soy has: phytoestrogens.  This should especially be a concern to males trying to build muscle and maintain high testosterone levels.  The last thing you want to do is start putting additional estrogen into your body.  Some studies even suggest high amounts of soy can increase risk for memory loss or breast cancer in females

Avoid this one as much as possible.

2. Egg Whites

cracked-brown-egg-whites

This is probably the food on this list that is most used by athletes and health-minded people.
To be honest, there’s nothing wrong with egg whites as a protein supplement.  They are fat free and have a lot of protein.

However, the original reasons for separating the egg whites from the yellow yolks were fear of fat and cholesterol, which research continues to suggest is an unnecessary worry when eating natural foods.

The yolk actually is very good for you.  It’s packed with amino acids as well as a ton of vitamins and minerals.

So you can use egg whites as a supplement to your food, but that’s all it is.  It is an incomplete food and you should feel confident getting all your omelets “whole egg”-style from now on…

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