Ageing Foods to Avoid
Can foods really age you?
OK you have checked our list of anti-ageing foods Foods That Feed Your Skin so what are the foods that will damage and therefore age you?
Some of the foods below are combined into finished foods and therefore you get a double whammy – shop bought cakes are a good example.
So when you are next in the super market say to yourself “Nothing will age me quite like….."
Sugar
At our lectures on nutrition, whenever sugar was mentioned it was always referred to as ‘White Poison’. Says it all really!
- Ages the skin faster than sun or smoking
- Has an inflammatory response in the body
- Lowers immune function
- Plays havoc with your insulin levels
- Is a mood buster – highs followed by lows
Where found:
In nearly ALL products even savoury and disguised under different names *see below for the tricks that manufacturers get up to you to con you.
If you cannot live without sweetening your food and drinks try honey as a substitute.
Artificial Sweeteners
Worse than sugar by a long chalk. If you must have your sweet fix (and do not like honey) choose sugar, maybe cutting your portions down, not these chemical substitutes
- Places an extra burden on the liver
- Headaches
- Confusion and memory loss
- Insomnia
- High Blood Pressure
Where found: Diet foods, ‘light’ foods, sugar-free products
Trans Fats/Hydrogenated Fats & Oils
What are they? It is a process where cheap sources of liquid oils are heated and turned into solid fats. *see below for the tricks that manufacturers get up to you to con you.
- Heart disease
- Malabsorption of healthy oils
- Diabetes
- Adult Acne
- Attacks the nervous system
Where found: Cakes, biscuits, pastries, oils, spreads and most snack foods.
Refined Flour
What is it? It is where all the goodness is stripped from the natural product during processing.
Q: What do you get if you mix white flour with water?
A: Glue – great for the kids to stick their pictures with - no good for you
- Clogs up the bowels
- Puts pressure on the digestive system
- Has no nutritional value therefore empty calories
- Causes weight gain and obesity
- Accelerates ageing
Where found: Cakes, biscuits, pasta, processed foods, cereals, prepared meals.
Carbonated drinks
What are they? Artificially ‘fizzed’ up drinks that also contain E211 a preservative that has been linked to ageing and accelerated degenerative diseases usually associated with alcohol.
- Loss of bone mass
- Addictive because of caffeine content in popular drinks
- Mineral imbalance
- Obesity
- Type 2 diabetes
Where found: Soft, sweetened fizzy drinks. Not to be confused with drinks that are naturally fizzy such as mineral water.
Preserved and Smoked Foods
What are they? Meats and fish that have gone through a smoking process to lengthen their shelf life. Chemicals and salts used in the process are considered harmful.
- Can cause cancer
- Contains nitrites and nitrates
- Can contain botulism
- Full of salt
- De-hydrating
Salt
Well all we need a bit of it for the body to perform its essential functions. But some of us overload on this condiment without knowing it because it is ‘hidden’ in prepared foods.
- Linked to heart disease and strokes
- Causes de-hydration
- Kidney problems
- Bone thinning
- Water retention leading to bloating
Where found: In nearly ALL products even sweet ones. Especially used in prepared foods as a flavour enhancer. Look out for salt content on the label.
Stimulants - Caffeine in drinks and foods.
The interesting thing about caffeine is that there are 2 schools of thought. Good for you or bad for you – so we end up confused.
Here is the downside.
- Exhaustion, fatigue
- Addictive
- Creates artificial highs and lows
- Insomnia
- Dehydration
Where found: Coffee, tea, cola drinks
Stimulants – Alcohol
We all know by now that alcohol is not good for us but we're social animals and drinking is part of life today.
It really is just ‘empty’ calories adding weight without any nutritive value at all.
- Robs us of vitamins especial Vitamin B and minerals
- Dehydrates leading to wrinkles
- Affects brain cells
- Ages skin and organs
- Liver disease
How do you do your cooking?
In addition to ‘bad’ foods the way you cook can also cause health issues.
Fried Foods – as with trans fats the problem is heating and sometimes re-heating fats and oils. The heat changes the chemical balance causing the same problems as trans fats.
- Produces cancer causing chemicals
- Increases bad cholesterol
- Turns ‘OK’ food into ‘bad’ food
- Weight gain and obesity
- Ages the skin
*Labelling
If you are concerned about what you are eating, you should always check the ingredient list on prepared foods.
On an ingredients list the one at the top is the highest percentage very often you will see it’s water.
With sugar, the manufacturers try and hide the fact that it is in the first ingredients by calling it another name and distributing it throughout the list.
Sugar is also called: sucrose, fructose, cane sugar, corn syrup, dextrose – there are in fact over 40 different names for sugar.
Trans fats – lately there has been a lot of lobbying to remove this nasty ingredient from products but the manufacturers can get around it by using 0.5grms per serving and declare the product to be trans fat free and its not.
Avoid this if you can. Get savvy in reading ingredient lists and cook your own food.