MSN Health published an article about the 10 worst foods you
can eat. It's an appealing concept, though the article was poorly constructed. The author wrote that she wanted to
select "food categories" rather than brands, but she ended up selecting individual food additives and
ingredients anyway, with a few rather narrow categories thrown in. She also failed to identify the criteria she used to
compile the list. The MSN list is as follows, along with their description as given in the article, though
paraphrased here:
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Hydrogenated fats - These might contain trans-fats, but it depends on the company's use of the term vs. partially hydrogenated.
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Olestra - You could be eating fruits and non-"junk food" instead of anything with this fat substitute.
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Nitrates - Used as a preservative, they could turn into nitrite, which has been deemed safe by the FDA.
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Alcohol - Only acceptable in the form of a fine glass of wine with dinner.
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Raw Oysters - Can carry deadly bacteria and should be cooked well.
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Saturated animal fats - Beef, pork and full fat dairy, including butter, cause far, far more harm than good. Flavor was not mentioned.
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Soda - Sugar and sweeteners are bad.
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Home canned foods, esp. low acid ones - Improperly canned food items are a leading cause of food poisoning (clearly high risk, since so many people can their own foods).
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High fat snacks - You could be eating fruits and non-fat snacks (wait, like those made with Olestra?), instead.
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Liquid meals - You could be eating whole, nutritious foods instead of drinking liquid, nutritious foods.
Thank you, MSN, for providing this list. It has inspired us to start a better one. What do you think the worst foods are? My list starts with trans-fats and fast food, followed by artificially genetically modified crops and muffins that have a shelf life of more than 10 days.
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