How Healthy Is Your Diet, Really?

It’s no secret that, as a whole, we Americans aren’t the healthiest of eaters.

Ultra-processed foods like soda and chips account for 58 percent of the calories that we consume in a given day, according to 2016 research published in BMJ Journal. And, according to findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of us get at least 10 percent of our daily calories from added sugars. More than 80 percent of us don’t eat our fruits and veggies like we should, per the CDC. And, of course, more than one-third of us are obese.

But while those aren’t the sunniest of stats, most of us also think that, individually, we’re doing pretty OK when it comes to our eating habits. Great, even. (Someone else is clearly pulling down the average, right?) In fact, when a recent national poll asked 3,000 adults “How healthy would you consider your eating habits to be?” more than 3 in 4 chirped back with “good,” “very good” or “excellent.” Hmm.

“Most Americans do not know what healthy eating is,” says Brian Quebbemann, a bariatric surgeon with the Chapman Medical Center in California and president of The N.E.W. Program in California. “People tell me that they ‘avoid carbs’ because ‘carbs cause weight gain.’ When I ask them if they know of anyone who is overweight because of eating too many apples, they laugh. If I ask them to tell me what carbohydrates they do eat, they say ‘whole grain bread and pasta.’ I ask them to tell my how they know it’s whole grain, and they say ‘because its brown.’ Then we get onto junk food. They tell me they ‘never eat junk.’ But then they tell me that they have a granola bar for breakfast because it has lots of protein.”

“The fact is, all of these answers are incorrect. Ninety-eight percent of apples’ calories come from carbohydrates, but nobody will eat enough apples in order to become overweight, brown grain products are often brown because of food coloring and not because they are ‘natural’ or whole grain, and most granola bars are made up of less than 5 percent protein,” he says.

It’s important to realize that, no, getting these answers incorrect doesn’t mean you’re a dunce. It means you’re a consumer. And as such, you’ve been hit with so much confusing, conflicting and, quite often, deceptive nutritional info that of course you’re going to think you’re eating healthy. After all, you’re really trying to eat healthy.

But for most Americans, trying to follow a healthy diet includes eating so-called “health foods.” Which seems logical, right? Unfortunately, these foods – whether you’re shopping for low-calorie crackers and fat-free ice cream or gluten-free pasta and frozen meals made with “natural” ingredients – typically don’t do much (good) for your health, explains Kylene Bogden, a registered dietitian nutritionist with the Center for Functional Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. That’s because these foods still often contain harmful ingredients, including high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oil and chemical additives – despite their consumer-friendly labels, she says. Plus, when food manufacturers take something out of their formulas (not recipes), they have to put something else in to keep things palatable. Generally, that means fat, sugar, salt or other chemicals.

“Consumers take a quick glance, think they are doing a great job because they chose a low-calorie item, for example, when really they are doing the exact opposite of what they intended to do,” Bogden says. “When you see ‘whole grains’ written in bold print across that bright rainbow colored box of sugar-laden cereal, it should be a red flag.”

What’s more, these “health” foods make overeating, which most of us struggle with to some degree, all but a biological inevitability. “It is almost impossible to overeat pure, real food. Have you ever heard of someone eating five avocados in one sitting or 6 cups of broccoli? No, but I think we all know a friend or two who can polish off an entire bag of potato chips or half of a sheet cake in one sitting,” Bogden says. “This is because processed foods have the ability to hijack our hormones, brain chemistry and metabolism. They always leave us wanting more.”

And, when we eat these processed “health foods” or, more rarely, real, fresh foods like those avocados and broccoli, we think we’re doing well. We give ourselves a pat on the back because, hey, it’s human nature to want to succeed at our goals. We think that any healthy (or seemingly healthy) foods we eat “cancel out” any of the unhealthy foods we eat each day, Quebbemann says. But it doesn’t work that way.

So how do you know your diet is really, truly healthy? The simplest way to make sure you’re on the healthy track is to follow these two steps:

1. Ask yourself, “How do I feel each day?” How you feel is a barometer for how you are fueling your body, Bogden says. Are you often tired, especially after meals? Do you go back and forth between periods of constipation and/or diarrhea? Pay attention to how the foods you eat make you feel. Which ones make you feel sluggish, lead to stomachaches or headaches, or often end in overeating? Which ones make you feel energetic, light and like you can perform your best?

2. Scan your food’s list of ingredients. “One of the best marks of whether the foods you are eating are healthy is whether you actually recognize all of the ingredients,” Quebbemann says. In fact, Bogden says reading the ingredients label is even more important than checking out the nutrition facts. “If you are eating chemicals, fake coloring, added sugars and other additives, then calories, fiber and fat are irrelevant.” Of course, any time you reach for whole, unprocessed food, you know it contains only one ingredient: food.