To be honest, Food Science and Medicine is a vast and diverse topic. Every other person who we meet will tell us different things about one specific Food. We are surrounded by so many myths and confusions that ultimately we lead to doing nothing. For eg: If we are Obese or underweight, people around us will give so many advise as they are the only Dietitian or Nutritionist. And what we do is we start experimenting with our own body and health and when nothing works we go to experts. Hence, we need to come out of Myths and need to know the actual facts. So, here I am to burst all such Myths.
MYTH 1# Medicines or Drugs are the ultimate treatment to every disease.
Fact: Medicines are for emergency and after taking medicines for life-time diseases are not cured especially the lifestyle diseases. Lifestyle diseases are primarily based on the routine habits which have false relationship of people with their particular environment. It includes disease like Diabetes, Cardio Vascular Diseases, Hypertension, Chronic respiratory diseases, PCOD etc. If we take any medicines for these diseases we will not able to cure it from root cause. So, we need to manage these lifestyle diseases through lifestyle modification like improving eating habits, sleep, physical activity etc.
MYTH 2# Spinach leaves have greatest amount of Iron.
Fact: Whenever the topic of rich sources of iron comes, usually Spinach pops up in our mind and see the irony; Spinach leaves just have 2.95 mg Iron per 100 gm while Mint leaves have 8.56 mg Iron per 100 gm (authentic reference from IFCT book, NIN) Know well, Eat right.
MYTH 3# Intake of one meal a day will help to lose weight.
Fact: If a person will take only one meal a day then his/her metabolism will crash and weight loss journey will become much difficult. So, please stop skipping meals and start having balanced protein rich meals.
MYTH 4# Every time when you eat, you should count calories.
Fact: It’s very impractical to count calories every time while eating and even the process is little difficult that you might drop this calorie counting after sometime. We want something that could be consistent. So, Instead of counting calories we should see which food is more nutritious. If we will start choosing more nutritious food we can always make sure that we are eating healthy, that also in a smart way. For example; In our front there are two food items i.e. Normal Idli and Vegetable Idli. So, what we need to choose? Of course Vegetable Idli is more nutritious. So we need to make these smart choices to stay healthy and lose weight.
MYTH 5# One should eat small and frequent meals to lose weight.
Fact: If we will eat frequently then there will be frequent insulin spike and cells will become resistant to insulin and will not able to respond effectively. Infact, with little insulin resistance also all fat burning hormones shut down like somatotrophin. So, frequent meals are not a good option to lose weight and there is no science that proved that it improves metabolism. So, stop eating every 2 hrs and start walking every 2 hrs.
STAY HEALTHY, GROOVE HEALTHY!!!