In this video, I'll uncover healthy alternatives to your favorite junk food.
One of the things that happens to people when they start eating a healthy diet is they start
to crave the old foods that they really enjoy. Those old foods, those junk foods, they come
back to haunt you and you want to start eating them again. Now the truth is, if you're going
to have any type of sustainable long-term diet, you have to find lateral shifts to the
foods that you once enjoyed and that's what I'm going to help you find in this video today.
We're going to find healthy alternatives to some of your favorite junk foods. So, let's
go ahead and dive in. But before we get started, I'm Dr. Zyrowski and welcome to the channel.
If you're new to the channel, it's a pleasure to have you here. Be sure to subscribe, hit
that notification bell, and join our notification community so I can help you excel your health
and your life.
Now I'm excited to do this video because a lot of people were asking questions, and one
of my past videos that I did in the kitchen, one of the things people are asking me when
I said, we need to focus on making lateral shifts from junk food to healthy food. You
have to know those lateral shifts and that's what makes eating healthy sustainable. People
are asking, what are those lateral shifts? What are you talking about? We're breaking
that down today.
So, let's go ahead and kick this off with pizza. Now a lot of people love pizza. I'm
someone who loves pizza. And once again, if you're following that really unhealthy diet,
and then you're trying to make that shift over, you have to know that you can have healthier
options and you can still eat the things that you love. So, for instance, let's go ahead
and take a look at pizza. So, here's a DiGiorno pizza right here. Now, when we look at this,
this is going to be bleached white flour. This is going to have a lot of ingredients
in it. I mean, it even has sugar in it. It has a lot of ingredients that you just don't
necessarily want. So, we want to make sure that we're always eating healthy options and
not going for something like this - high carb, and also, like I said, sugar in it, some not
so great ingredients. Now, what would be a healthier alternative to pizza? If you're
someone who really loves pizza, what would that be? Well, you could go and get a good
low carb option. This is a cauliflower crust pizza, margarita pizza. It's, gluten-free,
it's grain free. It doesn't have sugar in the ingredients, really clean ingredients
here. And one of the things you'll find when you look at a lot of the not so healthy option
versus the healthier options is you will find that you're going to see about half the ingredients.
So, we're always going to have about half of the ingredients or less in the healthier
option. So, if you love pizza, a cauliflower crust pizza with good ingredients in it is
always going to be a really good way to go. So, I still love having pizza and pizza is
a family favorite so we like to go with the cauliflower crust pizza.
Let's go ahead and talk about cereal next. This is a big one. How many kids, how many
adults wake up in America? And the first thing they go to is cereal. As a matter of fact,
it's funny cause we don't ever have cereal like this in the house and when we pulled
this box out, my kids were like, oh my gosh, what is that? I can't wait to have this! Because
it's got this beautiful, colorful bird on it, and it’s got all this fun stuff on the
back, but let me tell you the ingredients, the cereal are pretty horrendous. I mean,
you, aren't going to want to be giving this to your kids when it's got over 18 different
ingredients in it, half of them you can't even pronounce. And the other thing that really
is disruptive or disturbing about this is that it's got a red 40, yellow 5, blue 2,
yellow 6. I mean, it's got all these different food colorings in it. This is not a good way
for anybody to start or finish their day. So, if we go and we really love cereal because
I know that my family does love cereal, one of the things that you can do is you can go
in use something like this cereal right here. Now this is by Magic Spoon. A bowl of this
cereal is going to have it 0 grams of sugar, 3 grams of net carbs, and 11 grams of protein.
And so, this is a really solid way to go. When we look at the ingredients in here, it's
mostly like a whey protein, it’s got some oils in it, but overall all natural, good,
healthy ingredients - an excellent way to go for anybody who loves cereal.
Let's keep breaking this down a little bit further because another big favorite - and
this is something when I switched to a healthy diet that I struggled with - and it was to
stop drinking soda. Soda is a big problem for a lot of people. And I mean, when we look
at this, I was actually surprised because I used to be somebody who drank one of these
every afternoon, like every afternoon without fail. And this has 77 grams of sugar in it.
I can't remember the last time I consumed something with 77 grams of sugar in it because
that's actually just alarming to me. Now, a lot of people, like I said, they find this
to be very addictive if they've drank soda for years. I grew up drinking soda. I continued
to drink soda when I was a conscious adult making my own decisions. And then one day
it dawned on me, hm I'm starting to get a little bit overweight. I'm starting off feels
so well, I better start eating healthy. And this is about the same time I was going to
school and actually getting an education on what it was to actually live a healthy lifestyle.
And so, if you love soda, if you're somebody who has a hard time with soda, here's a great
option. And there's a lot of great options out there. There's this Stevia brand, but
there's also brands like Virgil's. Now what I find is if you're someone who likes like
Coca Cola, you're someone who likes Mountain Dew, the Virgil's brand is going to be about
as close as it comes. Now this is going to have 77 grams of sugar in it. This has no
sugar in it. It simply has 18 grams of erythritol, sugar-free, and it also is just a good natural
sugar versus 77 grams of sugar. And this is in the way of high fructose corn syrup and
food coloring and everything else. So, if you're someone who likes soda, this is a great
option. The Stevia brand is a great option or just drinking sparkling water is a great
option to take the edge off if you miss your soda and you're trying to follow that good,
healthy diet.
Now, let's talk about the next big one and this goes back to starting your day coffee
creamer. I grew up drinking this stuff right here. A matter of fact, I probably would put
it in my coffee and go, wow, that's delicious. And a lot of this stuff is delicious. I'm
not arguing that. A lot of it is designed to taste very good. But did you know that
this creamer right here actually is not half and half. This is actually hydrogenated oil
that is sweetened and flavored and everything else. And so, when you have a coffee in the
morning, you don't want to be dumping a big old dose of highly inflammatory oils into
your coffee. You actually want to make sure that you're using a good quality coffee creamer,
just a plain old half and half is a great way to go about it. So, ditch this stuff,
go ahead and use some half and half. Now another thing that you can use in your coffee. So,
let's say you want to sweeten it a little bit. I get that because if you are coming
from using this, this right here has five grams of sugar per one tablespoon. Sometimes
it can be hard to make that switch. If you want to go and keep using some sweetener in
your coffee, what you can do is you can use erythritol. Erythritol is a great way to sweeten
your coffee and keep it sugar-free okay. This is no sugar. You can also use things like
Stevia and monk fruit. These are good lateral options. If you're somebody who likes dessert,
remember you can still sweetened desserts, you just do it with a erythritol, a Stevia,
a monk fruit, one of these natural ones. And then when we look at switching the creamer
up, what we want to do is use something like this. This is called grass milk, grass fed
a 10%, a half and half, and it doesn't have all that garbage in it. So, if we switch from
this to a little bit of erythritol with some half and half, it is an incredibly better
option and an incredibly better way to start your day.
Now let's go ahead and talk about chips. I'm a big fan of chips. As a matter of fact, I
was for many, many years and you know, most people are, and a lot of typical Americans
they're going and having like a sandwich with some chips or getting a sub with some chips
for lunch. And, of course, that's really troublesome because when you look at chips like there's
over 30 ingredients in them. I mean, we can look at some of these ingredients. We got
MSG, we got corn and vegetable oil, I mean, we got all the different dyes and colorings
in there. A lot of bad stuff in there - over 30 ingredients in this bag of chips. And what
could we use as a healthier option if you're somebody who really likes chips? Using something
like this, this is by Boulder Canyon and this is an avocado oil chip with sea salt. This
has 30 ingredients in it. This has three. It's got potatoes on avocado oil and the sea
salt. The other thing that we have to realize is when we talk about like a chip or something
like that, that's fried, we have to make sure that we understand that we don't want to be
using these hydrogenated oils, frying them up because then they're highly inflammatory
in our body. So, here's a better option. Now to be fair, this has cheese and some different
spices on it where this is more simple. But my point being is that we're going from 30
ingredients, a lot of bad stuff in there to three simple ingredients that is all healthy.
So, this is going to be the better option if we want to go with chips. And what I'm
trying to really instill in you is that you can enjoy some of the things that you love.
These are all things that many, many people love, whether it's this particular soda or
whether it's this particular cereal, it doesn't matter. It's still that most of these out
there are complete trash and there's better options.
Let's go ahead and talk about some other things here, such as salad dressing. A lot of people
say, well, I'm going to live a healthier lifestyle and I'm going to eat a salad for lunch, but
then they go and they pour on something like this that's loaded with vegetable oils. That's
not something that's good - high in Omega-6, highly inflammatory like I mentioned - kind
of like this here, creamer kind of like the same oils that are in all these foods. You
know why these particular oils or in these foods in order to make them taste good? Because
not only are they going to be satiating and most people enjoy the flavor of them, but
also they're very inexpensive. So, these companies want to go and make these foods inexpensive
and also make them delicious - vegetable oils is the way to go if it is your goal. Now,
this particular dressing right here, a lot of calories in it. And also, a lot of not
so good and ingredients. Here is a healthier option. We got a Primal Kitchen Green Goodness,
avocado oil dressing right here. Really good fats. Lots of good satiating nutrients in
it. Good stuff. So, ditch the cheap salad dressings and go for something that's actually
good for you.
Let's set this right here and jump into one of the next favorites of a lot of people.
A lot of people enjoy ice cream. When we look at ice cream, here's a Ben and Jerry's peanut
butter, half baked. Now let's go ahead and talk about just in general, what is in this?
You're going to find 1,110 calories in this. You're going to find about 10 different kinds
of sugar in this. It's unbelievable all the things that are within this ice cream. And
the truth is you think about it, and you're like, well, it's just ice cream. I mean, it
just needs to be cream. I mean, cream tastes good, right? And could you maybe sweeten it
with something other than sugar? Absolutely. What I have here is a comparison. If you're
someone who likes ice cream know that you're going to be okay, and that there's better
options out there. Because like I said, my family likes this kind of stuff. I mean, we
do. There’s no doubt about it. People enjoy this. If you're saying that you don't enjoy
any of these things, you don't enjoy cereal, you don't enjoy pizza, you don't enjoy soda,
I mean, it's highly unlikely. Maybe you're convincing yourself that in the now, but long-term
falling a healthy diet for many years to come, you're going to start to miss this stuff.
So, here's a healthier option. So get rid of this Ben and Jerry's right here and we'll
go with a Keto ice cream right here. This whole container right here has 640 calories
in it. It’s sweetened with not sugar, but it's sweetened with things like erythritol.
So, a much, much healthier options completely delicious. You do not feel like you're missing
out on anything when you go from this to this. And the best part is this is half the calories
cause it doesn't have all the sugar in it. It's got lots of great fats in it. So, know
that there is better options. And the thing is too about all of these different items
we're talking about here, you don't have to search far and wide. Your typical grocery
store will have these items. We didn't have to go to a health food store. We didn't have
to go to a store that was exclusive and didn't have any junk food and was all just focused
on eating healthy. You can find these in your typical grocery stores now. There is some
of this stuff like the magic food cereal that we ordered online, but for the most part,
you can find it in your grocery store. And I mention that because when my wife and I
first started eating healthy, we'd have to go to like four grocery stores in order to
actually complete our grocery shopping. And so, we had this like cycle where every other
week we went to Whole Foods and then every week we went to Kroger and so we had to break
it down. It was very convoluted, but now he can pretty much get it all under one roof
if you go to a good basic grocery store.
Now let's go ahead and talk about another thing that a lot of people love and that is
candy. So candy bars, whether it's in the form of chocolate bars, Snickers bar, Twix
bars, Butterfinger bars, whatever it is, the thing is know that you can still have a really
delicious candy bar in the form of something like extra dark Lily's chocolate. I was blown
away the first time I had these because when I first started eating healthy, it was like,
you went from a Snickers bar if you were just eating normal, like the standard American
diet, I should say, and then when you tried to eat healthy, it was always just like really
bitter, dark chocolate. Well, the truth is, is now things like Lily's is around. And this
Lilly's is a 70 percent cacao, which is loaded with antioxidants, flavanols, all of these
different benefits that it offers you. And then not to mention it's delicious and it
has no sugar in it. And this also has an enormous amount of really good fats in it. When you
look at the calories from fat in this, two servings is 180 calories and 140 of those
calories is actually fat calories. So chocolate is a great way to really take the edge off
when you're switching to a healthy diet and know that you don't have to go from this to
nothing. You can go from this to something like a Lilly's chocolate bar and there's also
plenty of other forms comes out there with almonds and all kinds of other delicious things
that aren't going to throw you off your diet. And by the way, if you want to learn more
about just avoiding sugar altogether and healthier sugar alternatives, the sweeteners that aren't
going to raise your blood sugar, check this video out right here. And I'll also put a
link in the description below because a lot of people are going to ask that question right
there. How do we avoid sugar? How do we make baked goods? All of that stuff.
Now last on our list is going to be gum because we're talking about candy, and when we talk
about candy, it's in the way of gum, it's in the way of mint, it's in the way of bars,
chocolate bars, that kind of stuff. And always know that there is a healthier option out
there. We already about Snickers to Lily's, but also look at gum. This has aspartame in
it. This has xylitol in it as well. Now it's great that it has xylitol. It's a much better
option, but I don't want that chemical sweetener aspartame in there. So, what I like to do
is avoid this stuff all together and you can go and use something like the Spry gum, which
is sweetened with xylitol 100%, no aspartame. Tons of delicious flavors. My kids use this.
And one of the things that we love about this is actually really good for your teeth. As
a matter of fact, we go to a holistic dentist. The whole family goes, and the holistic dentist
actually advocates eating this kind of gum because it will help kill the bacteria in
your mouth - those bacteria that actually cause cavities. So not only do we have our
kids to this, but I use it myself and it's all something that is going to be a healthier
alternative to the junk food that we once knew.
So, here's the deal. When you look at any junk food out there, I always know that there's
a better option. If you love cereal, there's cereal for you. If you love chips, there's
chips for you. And these healthier options, these alternatives are so important to actually
make, because if you don't make those switches, then at some point you're going to get thrown
off your diet.
You're going to go, you know what? I just am craving chips so bad. And I haven't had
chips in months and I'm just going back to Doritos. I'm just going back to Fruit Loops
because I just want a bowl of cereal, but know that you can have these healthier options
and live a healthy lifestyle and it's sustainable, delicious, and you'll enjoy every bit of it.
If you want to learn more about how you can improve your diet and also make sure that
you're not eating a high sugar diet selecting fruits that are low in sugar, check this video
out right here where I break down some of the healthiest fruits and some that you need
to avoid.
What we'll do is we'll go through the fruit, talk about the sugar content in it, and some
of the benefits that the fruit has to offer. And then from there, we'll break it down and
help you determine whether or not it's right for you.