Breakfast Cereals
So-called “healthy” cereals are the worst foods you can possibly eat at the start of the day.
They are usually loaded with sugar and refined carbs, which are some of the most fattening ingredients in existence (1, 2).
Starting your day off with a processed cereal will spike your blood sugar and insulin levels. When your blood sugar crashes a few hours later, your body will call for another snack high in refined carbs (3).
This is the blood sugar roller coaster that is familiar to people on high-carb diets.
Seriously… READ the label. Most breakfast cereals, even those with health claims like “low-fat” or “whole grain” on the package, are usually loaded with sugar.
Agave Nectar
Honey
Agave nectar (or Agave syrup) is often marketed as a natural alternative to sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
The problem with Agave, is that it is not healthy at all. If anything, it is even worse than sugar.
One of the main reasons sugar is so unhealthy, is that it contains excessive amounts of the simple sugar fructose.
Whereas sugar contains 50% fructose, Agave contains as much as 70-90%!
Of course, small amounts of fructose from fruit are fine, but consuming excessive amounts from added sugars can have devastating effects on metabolic health (4).
Whole Wheat Bread
Whole wheat is often recommended as a healthy alternative to refined wheat.
Man With a Stack of Bread Slices
Well… it’s true. Whole wheat is, at the very least, “less bad” than refined wheat.
But one of the main problem with most whole grain foods, is that they aren’t made from actual whole grains. It is a marketing ploy.
Almost without exception, the grains have been pulverized into very fine flour that is just as easily digestible and spikes blood sugar just as fast as the refined grains.
In fact, whole wheat bread has a glycemic index (a measure of how quickly foods spike blood sugar) that is just as high as regular white bread (8).
Granola
Granola Bars
If granola is made with real ingredients, it certainly can be healthy.
But it suffers from the same problem as most other “health foods.”
When the food manufacturers start mass producing them, they alter them in a way that they aren’t healthy anymore.
Granola contains some healthy ingredients like oats and nuts, but when you add sugar and oil to it and combine it in a package that encourages overconsumption, then it isn’t healthy anymore.