Top 10 dietary sins of Poles

One of nutritionists’ favorite proverbs is: eat breakfast royally, share lunch with a friend, give dinner to the enemy. It should not be read too literally – because it is not about overeating in the morning and starving yourself in the evening. It is more about balancing the proportions. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. When we get up with an empty stomach after a few hours of sleep, the body demands an injection of energy. Unfortunately, many of us leave home on an empty stomach due to haste or lack of appetite. This is a poor way to start a work or study day. Skipping breakfast results in a feeling of drowsiness, less resistance to stress, slower metabolism and digestive disorders that can lead to the development of peptic ulcer disease. A study published a few years ago in the American journal “Circulation” also found that people who do not eat breakfast are 27 percent. more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease than those who regularly eat their morning meal.

This is one of the worst patterns we have adopted from the United States, the home of “fast food”. We eagerly reach for fast food dishes not only because they (as the name suggests) allow us to quickly satisfy our hunger. It may be a shame to admit it, but burgers, cheeseburgers and “crispy nuggets” are simply delicious. At least until we start thinking about their composition. There are a number of revelations on the Internet about hamburgers that do not mold over the years, or dozens of synthetic compounds added to “quick” delicacies. Currently, there is no doubt that regular eating at fast food outlets has a negative impact on your health. In addition to artificial additives, junk food also contains large amounts of trans fats, which contribute to, inter alia, for the development of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. So if we want to eat out, choose slow food. It is not much more expensive than fast food, and much healthier. And, contrary to its name, you don’t have to wait much longer for the fulfillment of the order than for a Big Mac with chips.

Drinking during or immediately after meals is a very popular habit. However, nutritionists recommend that you refrain from consuming liquids at least half an hour before and after eating. Some even suggest extending this time. What is the point of such a recommendation? The point is not to dilute the stomach acid, which could interfere with your digestive function. It is worth considering that if we reach for a cold compote after a fatty dinner or, worse, a cold beer, a large amount of low-temperature liquid will not only dilute the gastric juices, but also make the fat solidify and make it difficult for the intestinal villi to absorb nutrients from food . Therefore, if we often “water” pork chops with hops extract, it may have a negative impact on our health in the long run.

We live in a hurry and eat in a hurry. Unfortunately, greedy consumption of food, without thorough chewing, has an impact on health. According to research conducted by scientists at the University of Osaka, people who quickly eat and swallow larger pieces of food are twice as likely to be overweight than those who chew their food thoroughly. This is because the satiety center of the brain reacts with a delay to the food we eat – when we eat quickly, we will consume more calories before we feel full. But that’s not all. Pre-digestion takes place in the mouth. If we swallow badly chewed pieces of food, we put a strain on the stomach. This results in an increased secretion of hydrochloric acid, which in turn can lead to heartburn. If we often eat “on a hitch” and heartburn becomes a regular problem, the mucosa of the gastrointestinal tract may be damaged.

We sweeten the coffee, sweeten the tea, kill our hunger with a sweet bun, and when we eat a decent meal, we usually feel like something sweet – which we usually indulge in. According to the recommendations of the World Health Organization, the daily consumption of sugar should not exceed 50 grams. However, last year the WHO suggested that this limit should be cut in half – to 25 grams. It is not only about white sugar, but also simple sugars and disaccharides consumed in any form, incl. sweet snacks, pastries and even fruit containing fructose. Why is WHO’s suggestion worth taking to heart? If only because the excess sugar does not tolerate our heart – and the entire circulatory system. Scientific research shows undeniably that excessive consumption of mono- and disaccharides (including glucose, fructose, lactose) leads to obesity, vascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and a number of other chronic diseases. The good news is that with the current range of healthy sugar substitutes (e.g. stevia or xylitol), you can easily limit the amount of sweets you eat.

Salt “competes” with sugar for the title of “white death”. It is one of the most insidious substances in our diet. Even if we feel that we are not abusing it, unfortunately we are often wrong in this regard. Salt, like sugar, is present in a hidden form in a wide range of products, such as bread, cold cuts, smoked fish, cheese, spices, fast food, instant meals, and in particular salty snacks. The World Health Organization’s daily salt intake limit for salt is 5 grams – that’s the amount you can fit in a teaspoon. Poles exceed this value by half: a statistical inhabitant of our country consumes 7,5 g of salt a day. What are the consequences of this? Excessive salting leads to increased blood pressure and damages blood vessels. If we add that lack of exercise and stress, we get a recipe for a stroke or stroke. The long-term effects of excess sodium chloride in our diet include: cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, as well as kidney diseases – an organ responsible for removing waste products and filtering the blood. Unfortunately, salt, unlike sugar, is difficult to replace with a healthier substitute, so you need to – or at least it’s worth – to gradually wean yourself off of its taste.

This is often the result of under-eating during the day. The morning rush does not allow you to eat breakfast, the busy work makes it impossible to take a full meal, and only in the evening, when we come home starved, we make up for the caloric backlog from the whole day. Unfortunately, loading your stomach at night, when it’s time to rest and recover, is a bad idea. Digestion is an energy-consuming process that the body cannot cope with while sleeping. Therefore, nutritionists recommend eating your last meal at least two hours before falling asleep. However, even this interval will be too short if we are going to devour a hearty dinner of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It may take up to six hours for this “potion” to digest. Binge eating before going to bed means that the food is not fully broken down into substances available for the body. This can cause stomach discomfort, heartburn, and a feeling of heaviness when waking up. In addition, studies in mice showed elevated blood sugar and cholesterol levels and even liver damage in animals that had access to food around the clock, as opposed to those that consumed the same amount of calories eight hours a day. Interestingly, after a hundred days of the experiment, rodents from the latter group had 30 percent. lower body weight than their “colleagues” with XNUMX-hour access to food. There is therefore a great risk that night meals will also harm people.

When they are at hand, it’s hard to shake them off – it’s probably best not to just buy them. However, it is difficult when you are hungry, there is no time, and in addition, there is a habit bordering on addiction. Snacks such as bars, cookies, crisps or sticks are a common way to quickly replenish the missing calories that our body demands. However, when we reach for this type of sweets, it turns out that our appetite is endless and the feeling of hunger disappears only for a moment. Chips or sticks actually never fill you up, only the unpleasant feeling of overeating. In addition, their nutritional value is negligible at best, if not negative. Some of these “delicacies” are so packed with additives, salt, sugar and trans fats that the body probably needs more energy to get rid of harmful chemicals than it received with this type of meal. It is worth being aware that junk snacks are one of the main risk factors in the development of civilization diseases and in the event of hunger it is better to reach for fruit or nuts.

Haste, economy or a simple lack of culinary invention make us eat quickly and haphazardly. Most often also cold. A sandwich with cheese or cold cuts, canned food, a quick snack – this is a simpler way to satisfy your hunger than cooking pea soup or potatoes. In the short run, such a “delicatessen” diet may seem harmless, but in the long run we have to take into account health consequences. Firstly, because cold meals are most often based on processed products containing various types of additional substances. Secondly – our body, especially in the cold season, needs warm food that warms up and stimulates circulation. Refined flour products, sugar or milk products, on the other hand, increase the production of mucus in the body, cool it down and promote the development of infection. Cooked meals, e.g. thick, nutritious soups, which drain mucus from the body, warm up and give energy, have a completely different effect.

Sugar-free products, organic food, fit yoghurt, lean cheese and 0% milk – these are just some of the food “fetishes” of modern consumers. We very often reach for products relying solely on the impressions that marketing specialists have created in us about them. However, when we start looking for the basis for common opinions in the realm of facts, it turns out that promotional gimmicks have little to do with reality. Products without added sugar may contain aspartame more dangerous than sucrose, organic food is by no means spray-free, and lean dairy products are less healthy than fatty ones (fat is necessary for the absorption of vitamins A, B and D contained in dairy products), and it does not help lose weight because you get fat primarily from excess sugar in your diet. It is true that the occasional fat-free yogurt or sugar free gum leaf will not ruin our health, but too obsessive following dietary news can have unpleasant consequences. The concept of orthorexia functions in dietetics, meaning pathological “attachment” to healthy food. Such an ailment can disrupt the body and even result in psychosomatic ailments.