Trap Foods - Drinks

Aug 23, 2024

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Note
The following is an excerpt from my post ‘Healthy’ Trap Foods, in which I made a detailed list of foods that I believe to deceptively unhealthy. I’ve broken that list down into easier to digest categories based on what food they are. Linked below are all the individual posts:

Introduction
I wanted to put together a list of foods that people consider to be healthy, but are really just either a product of good marketing or misinformation. These foods are typically referred to “Trap Foods”, or “Fake Healthy Foods”, as they can lure customers into thinking they’re making better decisions, when in realty these “healthy” alternatives can be just as bad, if not worse.

TLDR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

Extensively read ingredient labels
Avoid ultra processed foods, especially ones containing refined sugar, refined grains, and vegetable/seed oils
Don’t believe marketing claims
Prioritize nutrient dense whole foods or minimally processed foods

Disclaimer
I’m not saying you should absolutely never eat any of these foods. Moderation is key, and the dose makes the poison. Most of the foods on this list are treats, and should be treated as such, but it’s healthy to enjoy treats every once in a while. Don’t eat them all the time, but don’t forbid yourself from having anything. Find a proper balance.

List of Foods

Fruit Juice
Smoothies
Sports Drinks
Energy Drinks
Coffee
Iced Tea
Diet Soda
Milk

Fruit Juice
So dried fruit is a highly concentrated source of sugar, even natural, that you should be mindful of consuming. But what if we did the opposite: remove all the fiber, but keep all the water? That’s fruit juice. In reality, a glass of fruit juice, even 100% without any added sugar, is only marginally better for you than a glass of soda. You’ll get some Vitamin C, but that’s really about it. You wouldn’t give your child a Coke with breakfast, so why a glass of orange juice (I’ll tell you: really good marketing). Just eat the whole fruit. At the end of your day, all fructose is the same to your liver, so without fiber to slow it’s absorption, it really doesn’t matter what the source is, even if it any isn’t technically added.

Smoothies
So if dried fruit is a maybe and fruit juice is a hard no, then where do smoothies fall then? Well about somewhere in the middle. Smoothies are made with whole fruit, and thus do contain more fiber than fruit juice. However, the process of blending fruit destroys some of it’s fiber. A smoothie can still be healthy however. Just make sure to add some protein and fat to slow down the spike to your blood sugar. I prefer using protein powder, greek yogurt, and chia seeds for a Protein Fruit Smoothie if I do have one, but peanut butter, almond butter, avocado, or flaxseeds also work as great fat sources. The healthiest smoothies also include some vegetables like spinach as well.

And of course, only use an unsweetened liquid for your smoothies like milk, unsweetened plant milks, or water. Fruit is already plenty sweet without the addition of added sugars from the milk or any additional honey. Smoothies are great to make yourself, but be very weary of ordering one anywhere, since you don’t know how much added sugar is secretly in that glass.

Sports Drinks
Sports drinks, when used as they are intended, can be exactly what your body needs. One medium 12 oz bottle of Gatorade contains 21 g of added sugar and 160 mg of sodium. Which after a really strenuous activity, like a marathon, is exactly what you need. The simple sugars replenish your glycogen stores in your liver, and sodium is an essential nutrient that is lost through sweating. If you’re sweating a ton, sick, or hungover, a Gatorade can be a lifesaver.

Or it can be a noncarbinated salt soda if you’re consuming it incorrectly. The fact of the matter is that most Americans are not exercising enough, and consuming way too much ultraprocessed foods. That means a high consumption of added sugar and salt, without any way of your body to use it. So another addition source of the 2 is way more likely to do harm than good. Save sports drinks for after intense physical activity, and not after a kid’s leisurely soccer game or as a sipping drink throughout the day. Give little Jimmy an orange instead.

Energy Drinks
What if you take a sports drinks, remove some of the salt, and instead add a ton of caffeine and some B vitamins? You end up with a Red Bull. Surprisingly, most energy drinks actually come packed with vitamins and minerals, with concentrations as much as a multivitamin. They also contain a ton of added sugar (go figure) and caffeine (which isn’t necessarily good or bad, just something to be mindful of).

I found this image under the listing for Red Bull on Walmart, where they out themselves as being worse for you than a typical soda or fruit juice. Thankfully there are some brands of energy drinks that don’t have any added sugar like Celsius, but that doesn’t make them healthy, just less bad. Energy drinks aren’t bad if you got a particularly terrible night’s sleep, need to pull the (occasional) all nighter, or if you’re out partying. Just dont rely on them; I see people drinking these all the time at the office or the gym.

Coffee
As I mentioned above with energy drinks, caffeine isn’t inherently good or bad. It can absolutely be a substance of toxic abuse, or it can help improve alertness and brain function. For clarity, I’ll say that I don’t consume coffee or any caffeine. I’ve just never drank it, so my body has never developed a dependency for it like most people. There are studies showing the benefits of caffeine in moderation however; every coin has 2 sides.

So why is coffee on this list then? Added fat and sugar. Starbucks Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino contains a tooth shattering and diabetes inducing 73 g of added sugar (that’s over 6 tablespoons!), as well as 470 calories and 17 g of fat. That’s almost 10 g more sugar and double the calories of a 16.9 fl oz Mountain Dew. One of these every morning along with a muffin is a one way ticket to metabolic syndrome. Only black coffee contains any benefits; this is just a caffeinated milkshake.

Iced Tea
I think most people can agree that while tea is healthy, there’s no health benefits of a Snapple or Arnold Palmer iced tea. The issue comes from the iced teas that are marketed as being “healthy”, with Pure Leaf being the main brand. For a 16.9 fl oz serving of Pure Leaf, there’s 42 g of added sugar, or 2.5 g per fl oz. Just a single bottle contains over 1.5x your daily added sugar maximum. The nutrition facts for the Pure Leaf are on the left below.

Compare that to this Great Value Iced Tea (on the right in the above image). This store brand iced tea has 30 g of added sugar in a 12 fl oz serving, or 2.5 g of sugar per fl oz. Hey look at that; it’s the exact same amounts of added sugar! Don’t be a fool to marketing.

Diet Soda
So no sugar = healthy, right? Not quite. While the issue of artificial sweeteners is a highly contested topic, it is generally agreed that artificial sweeteners, and by extension diet coke, are less bad than their full sugar counterparts. Less bad, but that doesn’t mean good. Diet soda is good if you’re addicted to regular soda, and are trying to wean yourself off. In the same way that vaping could be helpful as a way to quit cigarettes. That doesn’t mean you should take up vaping, and the same holds true for a Diet Coke.

Milk
Ah, the humble milk. Whether you get whole milk, low fat, or skim, milk can be a nutrition option. It’s a complete protein, the fat helps with feeling satiated, and of course is a good source of calcium. Milk isn’t on this list because of it’s fat content. I think we know by now that fat is very good for you when not overconsumed; we don’t live in the low fat craze of the 90s anymore.

The issue is again, added sugars (are you seeing a pattern?), and this plagues both milk and milk adjacent products. Firstly, let’s look at chocolate milk and strawberry milk. A 14 fl oz bottle of Chocolate Milk or Strawberry Milk contain 39 g of sugar, 18 g of which are added. But they’re made with low fat milk, so people were duped into thinking these were helathy ways to give their kids calcium. Oh, and strawberry milk doesn’t contain any strawberry. Go figure.

The other main issue with milk is it’s non-dairy counterparts. I’m talking about almond, oat, soy, pea, cashew, and any other type of plant milk you can think of. I’ll be fully transparant and say that I keep almond milk in my fridge instead of cow’s milk, mainly because it lasts way longer in the fridge (a few months instead of just a week). I hardly ever drink milk too; normally it gets used a little at a time in my oatmeal or something.

As long as you purchsae an unsweetened variety, you should be relatively okay. Most plant based milk do contain other gums and weird ingredients, so as an almond milk purchaser, I will say that cow’s milk is almost always the better choice (assuming you can digest it). Sweetened plant based milk can have 12 g of added sugar in just a cup, as is the case with this Sweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. I always stick to either Unsweetened Original Almond Milk or Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, or occasionally I’ll make my own Homemade Plant Based Milk using either oats or peanuts for a cheaper option.

I’ll be honest and say that in high school, I never used to understand why my mom would get mad at me for buying vanilla almond milk instead of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, but we all grow up and learn from our mistakes. Be willing to change, and keep an open milk (I mean mind).

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