Sometimes it’s the unlikely foodstuffs that cause a diet to come unstuck. Dietitian Susie Burrell shares five seemingly innocuous foods that you should avoid if you’re trying to lose weight.
Rice crackers
They seem innocent enough, but the brutal truth is that there are not a lot of nutritional positives when it comes to the majority of flavoured rice crackers.
Ms Burrell told bodyandsoul.com.au: “Not only are they made from refined white rice that sends blood glucose levels soaring, but many of the flavoured varieties still contain added MSG in an attempt to get them tasting like cheese or chicken. Rice crackers also have no dietary fibre or protein, meaning they are the definition of empty calories.
Hummus
Make hummus at home and it gets a tick, buy it in the dips section at supermarkets it’s likely made with a base of far more processed vegetable oil, than chickpeas.
“Then, when we enjoy it as a snack with high-fat crackers, your ‘healthy snack’, is a lot more processed fat than protein and a truckload of calories,” says Ms Burrell.
Sweet biscuits
Most sweet biscuits are made with refined flour, sugar and vegetable oil, which is likely palm oil. That mix would go close to being the worst ingredients you can include in your diet, says Ms Burrell.
Processed meat snack packs
You may have noticed the growing range of meat, cheese and cracker snack packs in supermarkets, but processed meat isn’t good for us, and our intake should be minimised.
Muffins and banana bread
If you bake your own muffins or sweet bread at home using fresh fruit, butter and wholemeal flour, you can create a relatively healthy sweet snack, says Ms Burrell, but unfortunately, that’s not how most commercial cakes and muffins are made.
Ms Burrell says: “In Australia there are still several baked goods such as doughnuts and iced cakes that contain trans fats. Thanks to the hydrogenated fats used to make them, and with upwards of 20-30g of added sugars per serve, if you can’t make a cake at home, you are better off avoiding it.”
Were you surprised that rice crackers and hummus were on that list?
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