Healthy Food: Expert Claims There's No Such Thing

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Food companies and advertisements usually boast about their healthy product, but such claims might not be true at all. Independent shared that experts believe that there is no healthy food.

"Our food isn't healthy. We are healthy. Our food is nutritious. I'm all about the words. Words are the key to giving people the tools they need to figure out what to eat. Everyone's so confused," said Roxanne Sukol, Preventive Medicine Specialist at the Cleveland Clinic and Medical Director of its Wellness Enterprise, Clutch reported.

Your kale salad, for example, is not healthy but it is nutritious. It is a healthy crop because it is packed with nutrients, but it is still not sufficient to keep you healthy if it's the only food you consume.

Sukol added that the world "healthy" is bankrupt. The Food and Drug Administration sent the nut-bar maker, Kind, a letter last March informing them that their use of the world "healthy" on their packaging was a violation. Kind responded with a citizen's petition asking FDA to reevaluate its definition of the word.

The report suggested that there is confusion in the use of words in labeling products. Kraft cheese slices, for example, cannot be called cheese but should be labeled "cheese food" or "cheese product." The same applies to Pringles; it should be labeled "crisps" and not "chips."

Another word that adds confusion to consumers is "refined." This word generally means elegant and cultured in appearance, manner or taste. When a product is refined, all its impurities have been removed already.

Companies use this word for wheat after they removed the bran and germ, and made it pure starch instead. The product is devoid of fiber, oils, iron and vitamins after it is processed, which what makes it nutritious. Thus, Sukol suggested that the product is not refined but "stripped."

The report claimed that we will be healthy if we consume nutritious food. Our food is either nutritious or not, and we can be healthy or not. Eating nutritious food may enhance the health one possesses.

At the time, making smart choices on what to purchase will be harder because the labels on the food are not as what we perceived. We need a better and clearer language in defining the food.

Do you agree that the labels printed on the back of the grocery item can be misleading? And that we still need to work on formulating a clearer language for it? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.