Hey friends! After my unhealthy health foods or deceivingly unhealthy foods
episode a lot of you requested that I do a part 2. So today I am drawing
inspiration from that and I am sharing 5 unhealthy healthy snack foods.
So that is snacks that are marketed with claims that they are healthy but I'm
gonna show you today that they actually aren't much better for you than their
conventional counterparts. Pretty much I went to the store, I sat down on the
floor, and I read the labels for hours.
First up: veggie chips. Did you see my organic foods rant video? Oh look! These are free from
101 artificial preservatives and ingredients and they look organic. First let's talk
about macros and compare these two a good old-fashioned bag of potato chips.
So side-by-side you can see that the macros are pretty similar. So the first
thing you want to do when you compare 2 labels is make sure that the serving
size is the same and when you look at that here you see it's 1 ounce and
28 grams for both so great this is easy. There is only a 30 calorie
and 3 grams of fat difference between the two which isn't really that much and
the carbohydrates are exactly the same and when most people think about what
scares them with these unhealthy snack foods like chips what do they think? Carbs, yes. Now we
must remember carbs are not the enemy and neither of these choices are bad
because of the carbs. Carbs are fantastic fuel and so are potatoes but both of
these have so much added fat that they aren't really offering any fuel and it's
not healthy fat. So the main reason that these and most of the other items
you're gonna look at today aren't healthy is because they aren't fuel. So
once you look at the nutrition label you're gonna wanna move down to the
ingredients list and I always say that a shorter ingredients list is better. But
wait! The original lays have less ingredients! So yes, the lays only require potatoes,
oil, and salt. That's a pretty short list and remember that these labels are
required to put those ingredients in order of most used to least used in the
product. So there's obviously mostly potatoes followed by oil and salt. The
veggie chips however have a longer list. Probably because of all the vegetables
The first ingredient is potatoes. Where are the veggies? Oh wait, there they are at the bottom. There is tomato
puree, spinach powder, and beet powder for color. So this means there isn't really any
vegetables in these. If there were there would be a little bit of fiber. Which we can see
comparing the 2 there's not. There's the exact same amount 1 gram of fiber in both.
These chips are dyed these colors to make me think they're nutritious! How rude! So as you can see
these are pretty much fried potatoes. That's what chips are and even a lot of the baked brands
have just as much oil and fat as the healthier healthier veggie chips or the
classic potato chips and they're going to try and get you with the claims. They're
gluten-free, no preservatives, reduced fat. But remember these claims don't make an item
healthy. They don't make it fuel. They just make them less bad. The unfortunate
truth in there isn't really a healthy chip that is providing fuel on the
market. I guess quest chips might kind of count.
Now options like these oh so delicious snap pea crisps might be considered a little
bit better. They do have a little bit less fat and a little bit more fiber the
base is a true vegetable but it's still a vegetable that is baked in a ton of oil.
With that much added fat it can hardly count as a vegetable.
Next up, fruit snacks. Oh so these are just like fruits but in gummy form.
Not quite in reality these aren't much better for you than the traditional
gummy bear. Now if you watched my healthy candy choices from Halloween then you'll know
that gummy candies have their own nutritional drawbacks. Alright so
comparing the macros of these the first thing we have to recognize is the
serving size is not the same 23 grams for the gummies and 39 grams for the
gummy bears. So let's take a look at what happens to the macros when we change the 39 grams
of gummy bears to equate to the 23 grams. Cross multiply, divide, channel your 7th
grade math teacher, and WHOA they're the same. Yup, the macros are almost identical. Please
note that even though these are fruity there is no fiber noted even in the
label at all. How about the ingredients? Is there actually any fruit? The lists are
about the same length, the organic might actually have a little bit of a longer
list. Both of the fruit snacks contains some fruit juice from concentrate but we know
if you watch my concentrates video that concentrate isn't really good for us
either. It's not fuel. Now the first ingredient in all of these is corn syrup
the organic is tapioca syrup but that is pretty much a replacement for corn
syrup. Now tapioca is made from cassava or yucca. It's a woody shrub or root usually grown in South
America. It is still pure sugar it is just as dense in calories, it just doesn't sound
as scary. Admittedly the gummy bears do use artificial colorings to get those
unnatural colors and both of the fruit snacks use natural color. So I guess that's
a thumbs up. Still these do not qualify as fuel and are by no means a fruit substitute. Moving on!
Sandwich cookies. Well that's funny these look just like Oreos. That is funny cuz that's what we're
comparing them to. Alright so looking at the macros comparing the serving
size we have 27 grams compared to 34 grams only a seven gram difference
between the two. But note for 3 Oreo cookies you only get 2 Newman's cookies. For the
sake of consistency let's do that math again and compare these same amount for
both 27 grams and we find that they are the exact same, pretty much. A little bit
less fat in the Oreos even. Wowza! So let's look at the the ingredients list. They're
both about the same length. The first ingredient for the Oreos is unbleached
enriched flour. So we know that is refined and offers essentially no fuel.
But take a look at the first ingredient on the healthy oreos organic powdered
sugar. At least it's organic. Essentially these are both refined sugar
and refined flour cookies. They aren't fuel and some people will say 'Well I'd rather get the organic
snacks because I know the ingredients are better and there is less sugar" but as you can see that is not the
case. The first ingredient in these is sugar and they are cookies. They should really
be an occasional treat not a daily one and if we are consuming these regularly we
aren't doing our bodies or our kids bodies any good. I'm not saying to not buy
them do whatever you want I'm just saying we have to be honest about what
these are
and these are not any healthier than the reg. We now have yogurt covered anything.
At Whole Foods I picked out these yogurt covered goji berries because MAN DO THEY SEEM
HEALTHY! What even is a goji berry? It looks disgusting so it must be good for me.
Yogurt-covered items might as well be chocolate covered items. The coating is
just sugar and oil and maybe you'll find some milk or yogurt somewhere down there
on the ingredient list and again there's that healthy tapioca. We could of course
just compare these yogurt covered goji berries to yogurt covered raisins but we're gonna take it
a step further and compare it to the chocolate covered raisins cuz I want
to show you they're literally the same. So again let's make sure we're looking at
the same serving size, which we are not. So we're gonna adjust the Raisinets to
match the goji berries and we find... You gotta be kidding me! Nope the Raisinets are the same infact they
have a few less calories and the ingredients list is just as long.
Truth is a raisin isn't bad either until you cover it in sugar and oil.
These gojis are literally the same thing. These are candy. The dark chocolate ones too. In my
moderation rant video I briefly touch on dark chocolate and a lot of people
seemed confused about whether or not it is healthy. So if you are interested in me
doing a dark chocolate video please comment below and let me know. Last but
certainly not least, a salty corn puff. I hate to break it to you but these salty goods are
essentially Cheetos in disguise. Macros both are 28 grams per serving only 20 calorie
difference. Now admittedly the Pirates booty does have half the fat which is
awesome but it also has about 30 percent more carbs and no they're not the fuel kind.
You win some you lose some. Ingredients wise the first ingredient in
both is cornmeal. It is worthy to note that the Cheetos use enriched cornmeal.
So that pretty much means that the nutrients have been stripped and then
added back in. It pretty much means they are more processed or that the corn
meal is more processed but that doesn't make the Pirates Booty a clean choice either.
It does use slightly less ingredients and oil which is good don't get me wrong but
it's a treat, it's not fuel. I know I'm sad too. Those of you who wonder what we do with
these foods that we share in these educational videos that we don't use
we return them. I said the ones we don't use. But seriously guys this video
is not here to campaign against these items. I love processed foods it's a problem.
They are a huge weakness of mine. I like to indulge in them here and there. I
actually can't even buy them in my house because I have no control but the fact
is as delicious as they are they're not fuel, they are not whole foods and because of that
they should not be a part of our regular daily diet and remember we crave what we
eat. So if we eat these a lot or if our kids eat these a lot then we're going to crave them more.
So if we do choose to indulge in these on occasion or let or kids indulge in these
on occasion we just need to be honest with ourselves and our kids about the
fact that these are not healthy for our bodies. It doesn't matter if they're
lower in calories, fat, and carbs or not. They're not fuel.
Now if I'm really craving a processed food one option that helps me is buying these
single-serve packets. I get it. I enjoy it at that moment and then I move on from
it. I don't keep a bunch of it in the house to temp me. So I hope you guys found this
video insightful and moderately interesting. Please give it a thumbs up
if you want more videos like this and if you wouldn't mind sharing it was someone
else so that they can learn about this too that would be amazing. I hope you
guys have a fantastic week and remember especially when choosing healthy junk
foods it's all a matter of Mind Over Munch.