6 Reasons Organic Food May Cause You to Gain Weight

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Written by Richard L. Lipman M.D.

Monday, 09 March 2009 19:04

Eating foods labeled "natural," healthy" or "organic " will not help you lose weight. In fact, you might gain weight eating these foods and drinks without even knowing the reason.

Here are the 6 reasons organically grown foods may not be the best choice:

More limited choices, less low calorie foods are organic
Have poor portion control
May have higher calories due to avoidance of artificial sweeteners
Have shorter shelve life -often eaten quickly
Are definitely more expensive
Have a "healthy" aura round them which often leads to more eating

Below are a group of chips. Look at the calories, fat, and carbs and make your own decision. Remember the price for the Lays is lower. The Baked Lays have 110 cal, 1.5 g fat & 23 carbs--more carbs and less fat than the regular Lay chips.

Just looking at these chips shows you how dieters might make all kinds of mistakes when they assume healthy," "organic" or "natural" will help them lose weight because they have less calories or fat. They will ignore the calories thinking that the "organic" or natural" on the label makes them better for weight loss than the orignials. The label gives them license to ea even more. Not so bad with these bags, but what happens when the dieter eats from a larger, multi-portion bag of "healthy" or "natural" chips? It's easy to do.

"Natural" foods have a semi-legal definition:
Legally, food labeled "natural" does not contain any artificial ingredients, coloring ingredients, or chemical preservatives. It means that the food stuff is simple, requiring minimal processing and conforms with how it is found in nature. Organically grown wheat that is taken to a factory to turn into wheat flakes has added sugar and salt to make it palatable. It might be organic, but not natural.

What does "healthy" mean on a label?

The term "healthy" refers to a lifestyle of exercising, not smoking, minimal alcohol, minimal prescription drugs, no illegal drugs, sleeping 9 hours a day, taking vitamins and supplements and drinking and eating foodstuffs that will prevent cancer, heart disease, strokes, and diabetes and reduce cholesterol. It does not mean that the substance is low in calories nor does it mean that consuming it will produce weight loss. It means the consumer might lessen the chance of heart disease, and cancer in 20 years.

Organic foods have to do with how they are grown:

A tomato is a tomato, there is no difference between the inside of an organic than a non-organic one. Organic food is produced by farmers who avoid the use of biochemical pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers. The grower pays for an inspector come to their farm to certify that the food is grown according to Department of Agriculture standards.

Natural." "healthy," and "organic," based foods have nothing to do with calories, fat, carbs or protein, nor are they related to weight loss. Most overweight people lose focus on what is important when over concerning themselves with these foods and end up eating more calories and gaining weight and are mystified why it is happening.

What is healthy is LOSING WEIGHT- AS LITTLE AS 12 LB. WILL:

Increase lifespan by 1-2 years

Decrease cholesterol by 25%

Decrease and blood sugar (if diabetic) by 25%.

Decrease heart attacks and strokes by 25%