4 “Heart Healthy” Foods That Can Clog Your Arteries

Many foods that people believe to be healthy are actually seriously harmful.

Here are 4 common “heart healthy” foods that are more likely to clog your arteries.

1. “Healthy” Breakfast Cereals


The way foods are labelled is a disgrace.

This is particularly true of so-called “healthy” breakfast cereals.

Most of these cereals are highly processed foods and loaded with refined grains and sugar.

The manufacturers often add labels like “whole grain” with the purpose of deceiving people into thinking that their products are healthy.

However… usually, these “whole” grains have been pulverized into very fine flour and have pretty much the same effects on your blood sugar and metabolism as their refined counterparts.

These cereals, including the healthy looking ones, are also usually loaded with refined sugar, although the manufacturers often use clever tricks to hide the true amount of sugar in their products.

The worst part of this is… these incredibly harmful products are often marketed directly towards children, then the misleading health claims (lies) are added to convince the parents that it is a good idea to feed this stuff to their kids.

2. Modern Wheat, Including The “Heart Healthy” Whole Wheat


A few decades ago (around 1960), wheat changed.

Scientists started tampering with the plant’s genes in order to invent a new breed that had a much greater yield.

This was mostly a good thing at the time and had a major role in reducing starvation around the world. The lead scientist even won the Nobel Peace Prize for his discovery.

However, as often happens when humans start tampering with nature, it did have some unforeseen consequences.

Studies show that modern wheat (often called high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat) is significantly less nutritious than the older varieties (1, 2).

But there is also some evidence that modern “whole” wheat isn’t just less nutritious, it may also be significantly more harmful to your heart.

Studies that compare modern wheat to its older counterparts show that it can increase cholesterol levels and inflammatory markers… but inflammation is among the leading drivers of heart disease (3, 4).

Another study that compared modern whole wheat to whole oats, showed that the wheat raised LDL particle count by 14.2% and small, dense LDL by a whopping 60.4% compared to the oats (5).

Although this needs to be replicated in more studies, this does imply that modern wheat products may drastically increase the risk of cardiovascular disease… at least when compared to older wheat varieties or other healthier grains like oats.

Modern wheat also contains different gluten proteins than the older breeds and is significantly more harmful to people with celiac disease and irritable bowel syndrome (6, 7).

Although wheat may have been a relatively healthy food back in the day… the kind of wheat that over 90% of people are eating today is not healthy and should be avoided.

3. Low-Fat Dairy Products, Which Happen to be Loaded With Sugar

Dairy products tend to be high in saturated fat.

Therefore, it is often recommended that we consume low-fat dairy instead.

But there is a problem with this recommendation, because saturated fat doesn’t actually increase your risk of heart disease (8, 9).

Studies that look at dairy fat specifically show that people who eat the most high-fat dairy are less likely to be obese and don’t have an increased risk of heart disease or diabetes (10).

In countries where cows are largely grass-fed, dairy fat is linked to a drastically reduced risk of heart disease (11, 12).

If anything, the major health benefits of dairy products seem to be caused primarily by the fatty components.

Also, let’s not forget that low-fat dairy products (especially low-fat yogurt) are usually loaded with sugar… they often have more sugar than candy!

Many studies show that added sugar has severe harmful effects on metabolism and increases some major risk factors for heart disease, including triglycerides, abdominal obesity and small, dense LDL cholesterol (13, 14).

Saturated fat appears to be harmless, but added sugar is extremely unhealthy when consumed in excess.
Most low-fat dairy products are processed foods that have had the good stuff taken out, only to be replaced with something much worse.

4. Processed Vegetable Oils


Processed seed- and vegetable oils are often mistakenly assumed to be healthy.

These are oils extracted from seeds and include soybean, corn and canola oils.

The way these are made is very disgusting and involves high heat, various artificial chemicals and the toxic solvent hexane.

It is well known that these oils lower cholesterol levels, but… having lower cholesterol does NOT necessarily mean that you will have less heart disease (15).

After all, cholesterol is a risk factor, not an actual disease.

Many long-term studies where people replace saturated fats with these processed oils show that they increase the risk of heart disease… and cancer (16, 17, 18).

Interestingly, a study that looked at common cooking oils on store shelves found that that the trans fat content in these “heart healthy” oils was extremely high, from 0.56 to 4.2% (19).

These oils are high in trans fats and inflammatory, damage prone Omega-6 fats and several studies have shown that they increase the risk of death.

Why on earth are the mainstream nutrition organizations still recommending that we eat them? It makes absolutely no sense.

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