Unhealthy VS “Healthy” Snack Foods - Mind Over Munch
Intro
Hey friends! After my unhealthy health foods or deceivingly unhealthy foods episode a lot of you requested that I do a part 2. So today I am drawing inspiration from that and I am sharing 5 unhealthy healthy snack foods. So that is snacks that are marketed with claims that they are healthy but I'm gonna show you today that they actually aren't much better for you than their conventional counterparts. Pretty much I went to the store, I sat down on the floor, and I read the labels for hours. First up: veggie chips. Did you see my organic foods rant video? Oh look! These are free from 101 artificial preservatives and ingredients and they look organic.
Veggie Chips
First let's talk about macros and compare these two a good old-fashioned bag of potato chips. So side-by-side you can see that the macros are pretty similar. So the first thing you want to do when you compare 2 labels is make sure that the serving size is the same and when you look at that here you see it's 1 ounce and 28 grams for both so great this is easy. There is only a 30 calorie and 3 grams of fat difference between the two which isn't really that much and the carbohydrates are exactly the same and when most people think about what scares them with these unhealthy snack foods like chips what do they think? Carbs, yes. Now we must remember carbs are not the enemy and neither of these choices are bad because of the carbs. Carbs are fantastic fuel and so are potatoes but both of these have so much added fat that they aren't really offering any fuel and it's not healthy fat. So the main reason that these and most of the other items you're gonna look at today aren't healthy is because they aren't fuel.
So once you look at the nutrition label you're gonna wanna move down to the ingredients list and I always say that a shorter ingredients list is better. But wait! The original lays have less ingredients! So yes, the lays only require potatoes, oil, and salt. That's a pretty short list and remember that these labels are required to put those ingredients in order of most used to least used in the product. So there's obviously mostly potatoes followed by oil and salt. The veggie chips however have a longer list. Probably because of all the vegetables The first ingredient is potatoes. Where are the veggies? Oh wait, there they are at the bottom. There is tomato puree, spinach powder, and beet powder for color. So this means there isn't really any vegetables in these. If there were there would be a little bit of fiber. Which we can see comparing the 2 there's not. There's the exact same amount 1 gram of fiber in both. These chips are dyed these colors to make me think they're nutritious! How rude! So as you can see these are pretty much fried potatoes. That's what chips are and even a lot of the baked brands have just as much oil and fat as the healthier healthier veggie chips or the classic potato chips and they're going to try and get you with the claims. They're gluten-free, no preservatives, reduced fat. But remember these claims don't make an item healthy. They don't make it fuel. They just make them less bad. The unfortunate truth in there isn't really a healthy chip that is providing fuel on the market.
I guess quest chips might kind of count. Now options like these oh so delicious snap pea crisps might be considered a little bit better. They do have a little bit less fat and a little bit more fiber the base is a true vegetable but it's still a vegetable that is baked in a ton of oil. With that much added fat it can hardly count as a vegetable.
Next up, fruit snacks. Oh so these are just like fruits but in gummy form.
Fruit Snacks
Not quite in reality these aren't much better for you than the traditional gummy bear. Now if you watched my healthy candy choices from Halloween then you'll know that gummy candies have their own nutritional drawbacks. Alright so comparing the macros of these the first thing we have to recognize is the serving size is not the same 23 grams for the gummies and 39 grams for the gummy bears. So let's take a look at what happens to the macros when we change the 39 grams of gummy bears to equate to the 23 grams. Cross multiply, divide, channel your 7th grade math teacher, and WHOA they're the same. Yup, the macros are almost identical.
Please note that even though these are fruity there is no fiber noted even in the label at all.
How about the ingredients? Is there actually any fruit? The lists are about the same length, the organic might actually have a little bit of a longer list. Both of the fruit snacks contains some fruit juice from concentrate but we know if you watch my concentrates video that concentrate isn't really good for us either. It's not fuel.
Now the first ingredient in all of these is corn syrup the organic is tapioca syrup but that is pretty much a replacement for corn syrup. Now tapioca is made from cassava or yucca. It's a woody shrub or root usually grown in South America. It is still pure sugar it is just as dense in calories, it just doesn't sound as scary. Admittedly the gummy bears do use artificial colorings to get those unnatural colors and both of the fruit snacks use natural color. So I guess that's a thumbs up. Still these do not qualify as fuel and are by no means a fruit substitute. Moving on!
Sandwich Cookies
Sandwich cookies. Well that's funny these look just like Oreos. That is funny cuz that's what we're comparing them to. Alright so looking at the macros comparing the serving size we have 27 grams compared to 34 grams only a seven gram difference between the two. But note for 3 Oreo cookies you only get 2 Newman's cookies. For the sake of consistency let's do that math again and compare these same amount for both 27 grams and we find that they are the exact same, pretty much. A little bit less fat in the Oreos even. Wowza!
So let's look at the the ingredients list. They're both about the same length. The first ingredient for the Oreos is unbleached enriched flour. So we know that is refined and offers essentially no fuel. But take a look at the first ingredient on the healthy oreos organic powdered sugar. At least it's organic. Essentially these are both refined sugar and refined flour cookies. They aren't fuel and some people will say 'Well I'd rather get the organic snacks because I know the ingredients are better and there is less sugar" but as you can see that is not the case. The first ingredient in these is sugar and they are cookies. They should really be an occasional treat not a daily one and if we are consuming these regularly we aren't doing our bodies or our kids bodies any good. I'm not saying to not buy them do whatever you want I'm just saying we have to be honest about what these are and these are not any healthier than the reg. We now have yogurt covered anything.
Yogurt Covered Goji Berries
At Whole Foods I picked out these yogurt covered goji berries because MAN DO THEY SEEM HEALTHY! What even is a goji berry? It looks disgusting so it must be good for me. Yogurt-covered items might as well be chocolate covered items. The coating is just sugar and oil and maybe you'll find some milk or yogurt somewhere down there on the ingredient list and again there's that healthy tapioca.
We could of course just compare these yogurt covered goji berries to yogurt covered raisins but we're gonna take it a step further and compare it to the chocolate covered raisins cuz I want to show you they're literally the same. So again let's make sure we're looking at the same serving size, which we are not. So we're gonna adjust the Raisinets to match the goji berries and we find...
You gotta be kidding me! Nope the Raisinets are the same infact they have a few less calories and the ingredients list is just as long. Truth is a raisin isn't bad either until you cover it in sugar and oil. These gojis are literally the same thing.
These are candy. The dark chocolate ones too. In my moderation rant video I briefly touch on dark chocolate and a lot of people seemed confused about whether or not it is healthy. So if you are interested in me doing a dark chocolate video please comment below and let me know. Last but certainly not least, a salty corn puff.
Salty Corn Pop
I hate to break it to you but these salty goods are essentially Cheetos in disguise. Macros both are 28 grams per serving only 20 calorie difference. Now admittedly the Pirates booty does have half the fat which is awesome but it also has about 30 percent more carbs and no they're not the fuel kind. You win some you lose some.
Ingredients wise the first ingredient in both is cornmeal. It is worthy to note that the Cheetos use enriched cornmeal. So that pretty much means that the nutrients have been stripped and then added back in. It pretty much means they are more processed or that the corn meal is more processed but that doesn't make the Pirates Booty a clean choice either. It does use slightly less ingredients and oil which is good don't get me wrong but it's a treat, it's not fuel. I know I'm sad too. Those of you who wonder what we do with these foods that we share in these educational videos that we don't use we return them. I said the ones we don't use. But seriously guys this video is not here to campaign against these items.
I love processed foods it's a problem. They are a huge weakness of mine. I like to indulge in them here and there. I actually can't even buy them in my house because I have no control but the fact is as delicious as they are they're not fuel, they are not whole foods and because of that they should not be a part of our regular daily diet and remember we crave what we eat. So if we eat these a lot or if our kids eat these a lot then we're going to crave them more. So if we do choose to indulge in these on occasion or let or kids indulge in these on occasion we just need to be honest with ourselves and our kids about the fact that these are not healthy for our bodies. It doesn't matter if they're lower in calories, fat, and carbs or not. They're not fuel.
Now if I'm really craving a processed food one option that helps me is buying these single-serve packets. I get it. I enjoy it at that moment and then I move on from it. I don't keep a bunch of it in the house to temp me.
So I hope you guys found this video insightful and moderately interesting. Please give it a thumbs up if you want more videos like this and if you wouldn't mind sharing it was someone else so that they can learn about this too that would be amazing. I hope you guys have a fantastic week and remember especially when choosing healthy junk foods it's all a matter of