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Are your favorite ‘healthy’ snacks bad for you?

25. Blue corn chips

blue-corn-chips

Even though blue corn chips have a higher amount of amino acids and antioxidants per serving than their white corn brothers, these chips are unhealthy no matter what color they are.

Michael R. Peluso, Ph.D. states that: “Processing blue corn flour for the production of tortillas can result in significant losses of anthocyanins and antioxidant capacity. The lime-cooking extrusion process has been found to minimize loss of these valuable phytonutrients”.

When you buy blue corn chips, make sure they’re baked. When blue corn chips are fried, free radicals develop in the chips which causes inflammation and tissue damage in our bodies. Dr. Mercola writes, “High temperatures used to cook them can still cause the formation of carcinogenic substances like acrylamide”.

26. Rice cakes/crackers

rice-cakes

Since rice cakes seemed like a better option than fatty potato chips, I remember when it seemed like everyone was snacking on rice cakes or crackers to get thin. It was as if everyone forgot that white rice was bad for you.

But are rice cakes really all they are cracked up to be?

I don’t think so.

As Shape magazine points out: “Rice cakes can have a glycemic index rating as high as 91 (pure glucose has a rating of 100), making it the kind of carbohydrate that will send your blood sugar on a roller coaster ride”.

27. Pretzels

pretzel

You’re staring at the vending machine at work; you see a bag of fried potato chips and a bag of pretzels. You choose the pretzels thinking you’re opting for the lesser evil.

But then you learn that pretzels are nothing but flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. They are literally devoid of any kind of nutritional value. Pretzels score high on the glycemic index with a score of 70 or more. Thanks to the white flour and sugar in pretzels, your blood sugar and glucose levels spike and you end up feeling worse than before.

No thanks!

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