In the spirit of moving forward into the new year and helping to stop the spread of misinformation, here are 10 food and nutrition misconceptions to leave behind this new year:
1. ‘Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients’
What? Why? Who came up with this, and why do I still hear it being given as nutrition advice?… There’s no scientific basis to this rule and certainly no need to continue perpetuating it.
3. ‘It’s Banned in Europe!’
In some cases, yes, it’s true that certain ingredients are approved in the U.S. and banned in the EU, but the opposite is true as well. There are actually more approved food colors in the EU than in the U.S., but whether an ingredient is banned in a specific country tells you nothing about it’s safety.
…
4. Detox Diets
Get ready for the diet and detox frenzy come the new year, but please pay no mind to it. Chances are you don’t have a toxic amount of any substance in your body as you’d be in the hospital if that were the case. So, claims that “toxins” are building up in the body so that they are at a toxic dose are pretty ridiculous.