12 “Health” Foods That Are Actually Bad For You

Eating healthy is a struggle. Yes you want to do it, but it seems so hard. Not only do you have to deal with cravings for sweets, but you also have to navigate what is actually good for you and what is just marketed that way. Well, to help with the second struggle (I still don't have any tips for the first), here's a short list of items that try to pass themselves off as healthy but are actually damaging your body.

Multi-Grain Bread

Although it sounds healthy, a lot of wheat bread contains “refined” flour, which means it isn’t whole grain and you aren’t maximizing the value of the calories you’re consuming.

Fruit Chips

While these may have fewer trans fats than stereotypically unhealthy snack chips like Doritos and Lays, fruit chips are still cooked at extremely high temperatures, which means they contain carcinogens.

Rice Cakes

Sure they’re low in fat and calorories, but rice cakes also have an extremely high glycemic index. This means they’ll cause your blood sugar to skyrocket, which can cause significant long-term health problems.

Bran Muffins

These are mostly unhealthy because they tend to be so big. Even if the ingredients are good, a 600-calorie muffin isn’t healthy.

Packaged Meat

Most people think cold cuts are healthy, but these people don’t realize how much sodium is contained in these salty slabs of meat.

Reduced-Fat Peanut Butter

While it sounds healthy, reduced-fat peanut butter can actually be worse for you than normal peanut butter because it removes healthy monosaturated fats and replaces them with sugar.

Granola

Although it’s seen as a healthy snack, many mass-produced granolas contain too much sugar and not enough fiber for them to actually improve your health.

Fat-Free Cookies

These are usually filled with less fat but more sugar and calories than their normal counterparts, meaning they might cause you to gain weight faster than a regular chocolate chip cookie would.

Veggie Burgers

Although some of these are healthy, many veggie burgers are packed with empty calories in the form of corn starch, soy, and gluten. This makes it feel like a real burger, but also makes it much worse for your health.

Diet Soda

Of course soda is unhealthy in any form, but diet sodas are actually significantly worse than their full-sugar counterparts. These sweet drinks are nutritionally deficient and the artificial sweeteners they contain raise your risk of heard disease and diabetes.

Frozen Yogurt

Most frozen yogurt either isn’t yogurt at all but an ice cream substitute or has been heated during production, a process that kills the beneficial bacteria that make yogurt healthy.

Couscous

It seems healthy, but couscous is actually made up only of refined weat and empty calories. A dish of this is basically the equivalent of a bowl of pasta.