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How Healthy are Those Health Food Trends?

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Nutrition is complicated.  One minute smoothie bowls are all the health food rage, and the next minute you are told the high sugar content can lead to diabetes. The Health Initiatives (HI) dietitians have created two programs to help you learn easy recipes that are still highly Instagrammable. Creating the Next® Healthy Plate and Flavorful Fridays feature dining location favorites and easy to recreate nutritious samples and recipe cards. Events run all semester long beginning September 10th!

Still not convinced that a juice cleanse won’t revolutionize your life? Our dietitians are debunking some of the top trending food myths to help you better understand what you are eating. 

Smoothie Bowls

Sure, we all love a good pastel- colored meal but these beautiful unicorn bowls can contain high amounts of sugar if you are not careful. Yes, they contain natural fructose from the fiber-rich fruit, but this will leave you hungry pretty soon after. HI Dietitian Leah Galante said, “It’s important for a meal to include a balanced variety of foods that satisfy both your body and mind.”

Juice Cleanse

We’ve all heard the rumors about juice cleanses detoxifying our bodies, but do they really? HI dietitian, Amber Johnson said, “juice cleanses are extremely restrictive and ineffective. When your body doesn’t have adequate energy it begins breaking down muscle tissue and leaves you feeling fatigued. Inadequate energy also slows your metabolism.” So leave the detoxifying to our built-in systems - the kidneys and liver!

Activated Charcoal

Black is clearly the new culinary green of 2018 food trends and activated charcoal, you know the kind used when you’ve ingested poison, is hot on the list. Activated charcoal may look really cool in your lemonade, but it also does a really good job of binding and blocking the absorption of foods and medications. Activated charcoal is extremely adsorbent, allowing it to bind to molecules, ions, or atoms. Galante said, “Charcoal can slow the digestive tract causing constipation.” Even though these items are darkly alluring, we recommend leaving the charcoal to the experts at Poison Control.

Make informed nutrition decisions today and leave the fad food trends behind. To find a full list of dates, locations and times for the Creating the Next® Healthy Plate or Flavorful Fridays events go to healthinitiatives.gatech.edu/nutrition/outreach  

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Christine Kapurch
  • Created:09/13/2018
  • Modified By:Christine Kapurch
  • Modified:09/13/2018