Are Foods Marketed as "Healthy, Whole Foods" Really Healthy?

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It's Your Health Radio, a special podcast series presented by Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Here's Melanie Cole.

Melanie Cole (Host): Today, we're asking the question, are foods that are marketed as being healthy or whole foods really good for you? Jodi Dalyai, a registered dietician nutritionist, certified diabetes care and education specialist at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital's Community Education is here to discuss how to spot foods that are advertised as being healthy, but really may not be.

Welcome to Its Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole. So Jody, I'm so glad you're with us. This is a really, really good topic because so many people over the years have been asking me basically this same question. So, let's talk about how we know. Are the foods that are advertised as healthy really good for you? How do we know if they are or if they're not?

Jodi Dalyai: Well, it's definitely a very confusing question and, of course, as professionals working in dietetics and nutrition, this is kind of the same kind of question we get all the time, right? How do we find foods when we're shopping in the supermarket that are really good for you? And I think one important thing you said in the beginning was really we do want to start by looking at whole foods. When we talk about whole foods, we're talking about just the actual food itself, right? An egg, an apple, and we choose those foods we don't have to worry about what's in it or what we have to be concerned about. You might be able to, say, "Okay, do we want organic or non-organic?" But when we're talking about things that are advertised as healthy, those are things that are in boxes and packages and cans. They've got advertising there cause they want you to buy it based on its pretty pictures, its words. And we're going to have to just do a little more detective work before you decide if it's something that you want to take home. We're going to have to look at the nutrition facts label. We're going to have to turn it over and do a little bit more digging.

Melanie Cole (Host): So then, let's dig into it. What foods are we talking about? People look and they think tofu, for an example, is a really healthy food. And you look at the package and you see there's firm and soft and there's all the different types of tofu. How do we know when we're looking at a package and what foods are we specifically talking about?

Jodi Dalyai: Well, I would say tofu actually is a good food. And that's something that's not going to differentiate too much between what's in it. Some have calcium, some don't. That's just how it's manufactured. But tofu isn't a heavily processed food. It is made from soybeans, and firm or soft that just has to do with the texture it has and how you want to cook it.

But I'm talking more about maybe cereals, granola bars, protein powders, meat substitutes, right? These foods that do have a lot of different ingredients to make them, these are processed foods. Some might have fewer ingredients than others. Some might have a little less fat or sugar than others. You're only going to know, if you look at the label, you're going to want to look at the nutrition facts label. And you're probably going to want to look at the ingredient list too. This takes time. This takes knowing a little bit what you're looking for. So, that can be a little tricky for people. We're all busy. We want to get in and out of the store. We want to grab the things we need. I've even been fooled before by a package where I just looked at it quickly and thought, "That looks really great," took it home and saw the sodium level was so high, I really wouldn't want to eat it. So, we're going to have to take the time to really look. So, you want to go into the store knowing that, "Hey, if I see something, I'm going to have to take a minute and check it out."

Melanie Cole (Host): Well then, let's dig into that. You said meat substitutes, that's a big, huge market right now. People are looking for these alternates to beef and to meats, and there's a lot of them now showing up in the refrigerated section. So, what are we looking at with those?

Jodi Dalyai: Yeah. I mean, I think it's really great that people who want to follow a vegetarian and vegan diet now have options. I think even for people who prefer to eat meat more often, to have some alternatives that might be healthier in certain ways, they have that option as well. So, really similar to most packaged foods, what we're looking for are how many ingredients are in there? Do you recognize the ingredients when you look at the ingredients list? The ingredients list is very small, usually very small print, very hard to find on a package. So, it might take a minute to pick it up, flip it over if it's on the back, look around the front and find that little tiny print. Some people might even need a magnifying glass to look and see what's in certain foods.

But we're looking for things that we recognize, we're looking for lower fat, lower sodium. That's going to come on the nutrition facts label. So, we're going to want to choose things. If things are 5% or less fat on the nutrition facts label, that's going to be a lower fat. A lot of the meat substitutes to get that mouth feel, to get that texture are using things like coconut oil. These are also saturated fats just like fats in animal foods, and sometimes they're even much higher in saturated fat than the animal version. So, you're going to want to take a look and see where does that fat come in on the ingredients list.

The things that are the first few ingredients on the ingredients list are the majority of what is in that food. So, the first three are really what you're concerned about. The ones that are at the very end, there's very, very small amounts. But if that ingredients list is 20, 30 ingredients long, that probably has way too many additives and really wouldn't be a food you want to eat regularly.

Melanie Cole (Host): I mean, I think one of the key messages here is to eat foods that don't come in a package. But of course, we do have have to do that sometimes. And as you say, pastas and cereals. And I'd like to touch on cereals for a minute, Jodi, because that is something that, you know, if we have kids, it makes a nice easy breakfast, or they like to snack on cereals after school. And cereals are just full of all of this crap, but some of them are advertised as being healthier choices. When we're looking at these things for our kids, I mean the dye and the sugar and all this kind of stuff, how do we know if a cereal is healthy? And usually if it is, the kids aren't going to like it as well.

Jodi Dalyai: Yeah, it's definitely tricky. We love things that taste sweet, right? We're born that way. It's how we survive as humans. So, we do have to parse things out, right? Again, take the time, look at the label. And I think sometimes also just have that conversation with our kids. "Hey, I'll buy you this once a month. And it's okay if you have it once in a while, but these can't be foods that we eat every morning for breakfast." We need to find a healthier choice if this is something you want to eat every day. Kids understand that, right? And we know this is our job as parents to try to lead them in that direction. So, I think it's just that balance.

Again, on the nutrition facts labels, things like cereals, these are green foods. Ideally, we want something that has fiber in it. We want to see how much fiber is there that's under the carbohydrates. Ideally, maybe three grams of fiber or more preserving. We want to look for less sugar, as you mentioned. Four grams of sugar is the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar. We shouldn't be having a lot of added sugar every day. So, compare and look for lower sugar choices. It's going to be hard to find something that's even, you know, 7, 8, 10, 12 grams of sugar. But the lower, the better.

The other thing I have done as a parent is I've done a mix. So, I'll get something that's low sugar, like Cheerios that has some fiber, and I'll do like a half and half. So, I'll be like, "Okay, we're going to throw a little bit of regular Cheerios in there and then we'll throw in a little bit of handful of a sweeter cereal." And that way you're kind of, you know, meeting kids halfway. You're giving them some choice and letting them know, "Hey, it's okay to like this food," because we don't want to demonize something, that creates a whole bunch of other problems. But to let them know, you got to get some healthy stuff in there as well. And then, of course, with something like cereal or anything, we want to pair a healthy food with it. So if you're having a kid eat some cut a apple banana along with that breakfast, you're making sure they've got some really nutritious whole foods in there as well.

Melanie Cole (Host): That's great advice to pair some of these less than healthy foods with the healthier choices so that you kind of at least are getting some of that extra fiber and good antioxidants in. Now, you mentioned lower sugar. One of the things, Jodi, I mean, I have a jive against this, I do not like sugar substitutes. I don't like the way they taste, I don't like the taste in my mouth. I can tell you if something has one of those in it, if I ate it three days ago. So, those sugar substitutes, are they better than having the real sugar now? My son and I discuss this all the time. And if he really, really wants a soda, I will let him have the mini, like a mini soda, a mini Sprite, or a mini Coke, but not the diet version. But he can have one of those every once in a while and he's fine with that. Because I think that having one of those every once in a while rather than diet soda with that substitute stuff has got to be better. What do you think about that? I know that was a long rant, but what do you think about that?

Jodi Dalyai: Well, I have to say I'm with you. I've never been a person who can stomach Stevia or any of the sugar substitutes. I'm averse to their aftertaste as well. I think the main thing is, like you said, is frequency. I mean, even if you decide in your home that a diet soda once a week is okay, something that you do so infrequently isn't probably going to have that huge impact on your overall health. But we know that at a bare minimum, people who consume sugar substitutes regularly seem to be affecting their gut microbiome, which we now know that bacteria in our large and small intestine are responsible for a lot of our health, our immune system, and do many important things for us. And that consuming sugar substitutes regularly is potentially interfering with how those bacteria work. We also have just all kinds of studies that show that people who eat foods with sugar substitutes aren't necessarily healthier or don't lose weight.

So, I would say that if you're a person who can have sugar in moderation, it would be perfectly fine to have regular sugar. For people with diabetes who used to put two tablespoons of sugar in their coffee, switching to a packet of Splenda, which is 600 times sweeter than sugar, is definitely going to be better for their blood sugars. So, it really depends on the individual, but I do think if we can just eat everything in moderation, including honey and sugar and other real sugar foods, it's probably better for your health than having a sugar substitute. But for some people, that might not be true. It just really depends on the individual.

Melanie Cole (Host): I agree with you. It's kind of a paradox, isn't it? All those studies that show that people that drink more diet soda, that's another podcast. We'll get into that one another time. But meanwhile, speaking of substitutes, supplements versus whole foods. We've talked about this before. It's something that I think people don't really understand. Do supplements or drinks, protein drinks things, do they replace the actual foods? Now, I know for athletes, maybe some protein drinks, electrolyte drinks, those kinds of things can help replace because they're losing them in large amounts and maybe they can't eat that much of what they need, you know, certainly before an event. But for the rest of us, are supplements as good as the actual food? And are we getting as much in the actual food as we would get or need if we're taking supplements like vitamin D? Or I take magnesium, vitamin D, probiotic, and a multi. Are we getting what we need? Should we be doing that?

Jodi Dalyai: So, like you said earlier, there's definitely a group of people that might need supplements, whether it's a drink like electrolytes, a protein supplement. But then, taking multivitamins, minerals is kind of a whole 'nother ball of wax, right? So, we have people who get tested and their vitamin D is low, or maybe they have osteoporosis and they need extra calcium. So, there are populations of people where supplementation is warranted, and that's something that you should get from discussing it with your physician or having testing done. But generally speaking, we know that nutrients, when they're removed from foods, we might not be digesting them and getting what we need from them in the same way when they're condensed down into a supplement form.

They also can have some side effects that can be negative. So, eating garlic is really healthy for us and flavors our food, tastes delicious when we put it in a pasta sauce. But when we take a garlic pill, where its properties are concentrated, we're not having it with the food and we could potentially be interfering with like a medication you might take, like a blood thinner. So, there's always situations that might come up when we take something and extract it and concentrate it, that might not be beneficial. But there are certain people where it may be warranted.

You're never going to go wrong, and you're almost never going to overdose on an individual vitamin mineral nutrient by having it from food. It's very rare. It can happen if someone just exclusively consumes one food for a period of time, or excludes a lot of foods for a long period of time. But in general, if we eat a balanced diet and we get all kinds of different foods, especially a variety in a lot of fruit and vegetables, we're going to get the nutrients we need and we don't necessarily need supplementation. But again, there's always the people who might, like you mentioned, vitamin D, it's pretty common to have low vitamin D. Now, we can't really get it from food, so we would need a supplement with it.

Melanie Cole (Host): This is all really important information. So, I'd like you to wrap it up, Jodi. And if you want to, I would love for you to give us a bit of a sample shopping list or just kind of your best advice as we walk around the grocery store, and you and I have talked before about hitting the perimeter as opposed to inside the aisles and staying a little bit away from the packaged items and hitting the perimeter where you've got your fresh foods, your whole foods, your dairy, and your vegetables and your produce and, you know, your meats and fishes and all those things. But aside from that, if you were to tell people some of the healthiest foods that you would like them to be looking into, learning how to work with, cooking, using, eating, give us your best advice for how we know when foods that are advertised as healthy are not. This is a big ask, Jodi. It's a lot. I know it. But you can do it. You're a rockstar. So, kind of summarize the whole thing for us.

Jodi Dalyai: Yeah, I think exactly like you said, Melanie, right? Shop the perimeter, but go in with a plan. So before you head out to the store, if you are going to take the time and pick up some packaged foods and check the labels, see what you have at home, see what you maybe want to change. Maybe you realize you've been eating too much of a certain snack or a bread and you need to look for something, an alternative, write that down. Go through your refrigerator, what do you need for the week? And let's start by making sure you have plenty of fruits and vegetables. We should all be getting two to three servings of fruit at least and, ideally, five or more servings of vegetables a day. So, that's going to mean you've got to shop for them. You've got to have them in the fridge and freezer. So, put down a plan in writing, take it with you. Like you said, shop the perimeter. Start with your whole foods, your fruits, veggies, what proteins you may need.

And the protein I'd really like you to start adding is beans. I would love it if everyone would start to have at least a half a cup of beans every day, whether you make them fresh, you boil them on the stove top, whether you use an Instapot or a slow cooker to make them, which can be very, very easy, or if you have to just go for convenience in a pre-cooked steam or canned low sodium beans. Beans are almost no fat, fiber, protein, inexpensive, extremely nutritious. This is one food everyone could have on hand and have a easy, nutritious, inexpensive meal. At least once a day, half a cup of beans would be my choice of where everyone should start to eat a little healthier and eat a whole food.

Melanie Cole (Host): Rock on. I love that advice. And tonight, I am serving black beans. I love beans. So, I try and serve beans many times a week as well. So, that's awesome. What a great show and a great episode. Thanks so much, Jodi. You're always an excellent guest and you can find out more about Henry Mayo Nutrition Classes at henrymayo.com/classes. Additionally, you can access the Henry Mayo Health Library at library.henrymayo.com for more information on nutrition.

That concludes this episode of It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.