I’ve noticed recently that a lot of folks are talking about how food products in America compare to the rest of the world and I came across an article written by an individual on this topic with a pretty big following, she has 1.7m followers on Instagram and a very popular blog and…
This article was highlighting the differences between food products in the US compared to the same products in the UK and there were 6 specific items mentioned and each item had a list of the ingredients in the US version side by side with a list of ingredients in the UK version.
The first item was McDonalds French fries and it turns out that there are more ingredients, preservatives, additivities etc. in McDonalds french fries in the US compared with the UK. The same comparison was drawn for quaker strawberries and cream instant oatmeal packets, mountain dew, Heinz ketchup, Doritos and Kellogg’s frosted flakes.
I saw folks in the health industry reposting this article talking about how we should be ‘disturbed’ by these differences and how the US is all about profit and how they don’t care about their population and on and on and on…
In my opinion, all of these folks are completely missing the point because the question that I have is…why are people, especially in the health industry focusing on how there are a few extra ingredients in things like McDonalds French fries, mountain dew and Doritos in the US vs. the UK…is it because they’re recommending these things to people?
These ‘foods,’ which is generous to even call them that…should be consumed so infrequently that a few extra shitty ingredients in an already shitty product ultimately shouldn’t really move the needle in the big scheme of things and if it does, it’s because they’re being eaten way too often!
I totally understand when folks say well, ‘but why add the additional stuff to the US versions’ and I agree in a sense…however, this is still missing the forest for the trees because these are all heavily processed hyper-palatable foods that aren’t meant to be eaten consistently anyway.
If they were adding additional ingredients to single ingredient whole foods I would be disturbed, for example…if the meat, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy, fruit, veggies etc. had added funky ingredients and additives that would be a terrible, but they’re talking about a little bit more bullshit in bullshit foods to begin with…
It’s like, ‘oh my god guys, can you believe this, they’re adding corn syrup, preservatives and food dyes to your cinnamon toast crunch cereal!? As if it’s not cereal to begin with lol…what are we even talking about here!? It’s sort of like thinking that opting for gluten-free Oreos over regular Oreos is really going to impact your health in a significant way…they’re still Oreos!!
The whole point of this article is to stay focused on what actually matters, which is eating the vast majority of your food as single ingredient whole foods and not missing the forest for the trees in the sense that a few extra ingredients or additives in something like Doritos isn’t a big deal because…
One, it’s a Dorito and two, these foods shouldn’t be consumed often enough for it make a real difference in your health.
Once in a while, enjoy some McDonalds fries, chips or cereal, it’s not going to impact your health to a drastic degree if it’s an irregular thing and if you want to eat foods similar to the 6 listed on a regular basis, here is how I’d recommend consuming them…
Instead of McDonalds french fries…go get some potatoes, sweet potatoes or yams from the grocery store, slice em’ up, add some salt and bake them yourself and you’ve got some healthy single ingredient whole food fries.
If you want strawberries and cream flavoured instant oatmeal, pick up some plain instant oats, cook em’ up and add some actual strawberries…you can even toss in some coconut milk for a creamier texture.
If you want mountain dew, there are a bunch of 0 calorie pop options out there that have 0g of sugar and yes, they have a few calorie-free sweeteners in them however, the research points towards calorie-free sweeteners being totally fine in small amounts and they’re certainly miles ahead of ingesting 40 - 50+ grams of pure liquid sugar.
Personally, I really like Zevia, which is a stevia flavoured 0 calorie pop option with a ton of different flavours to choose from. Regular water or sparkling water is always on the table too!
If you want ketchup, there are plenty of reduced sugar versions and also other condiments like various types of mustard and hot sauce that are essentially calorie-free and quote unquote ‘cleaner.’
Doritos…I mean, you could pick up some 100% corn chips and melt some cheese on them, but no matter how ya spin it, chips are just not a fat loss or health friendly option. If I’m going to eat chips, I go for chicharrons or pork rinds where the only ingredients are pork and salt.
Frosted flakes…these are similar to the Doritos in that there aren’t really alternatives just because cereal is essentially just straight up dessert being that it’s almost all pure sugar, I’d recommend oats or something like cream of rice instead.
So big picture, don’t let articles like this let you think that a few extra ingredients, preservatives or additives in these highly processed food products is the primary problem because it is not, the problem is the products themselves as whole, so…
Focus on eating single ingredient whole foods and the best part of this strategy is that you don’t even have to think about preservatives, additives or extra funky ingredients!
In fact, you don’t even really need to able to read a calorie or ingredient label because the vast majority of single ingredient whole foods don’t require labels, they don’t come in packages and they don’t have barcodes…they just are what they are, which is exactly the way that mother nature intended us to eat!
