We all eat food to get enough nutrients and which is low in fat and less in calories. But, the few edible items we come across have a tasty side but have no nutrient value at all.
We often heard the phrase ‘empty calories’ and these foods belong to that category apparently. The most concerning part are that these foods actually hamper your health badly. So, not only for the bad calorie part but for the useless void of nutrient quality as well, we must avoid these foods attentively all the time.
Zero Calories And Bad Empty Calorie Foods
White is rice is nearly empty calories with few essential nutrients
Pasta may give us a full feeling yet its plain carbs with fewer nutrients
Fruits and veggies like broccoli, apple, cabbage, leafy greens, asparagus can be called (nearly) zero calorie foods
Regarding calories, homemade potato fries are better than factory processed bread in terms of calories and gluten-free food.
It is worth counting the calories if we are planning to maintain or lose weight. As it can help us to note down and change the schedule. As you can make changes to your eating habits, and choose a healthy diet with perfect protein, nutrients, and carbs ratio.
Eating more calories than your daily value can make you fat. As the body is made in a way to store the extra calories as fat.
Regarding calories, the ideal value for women and men ranges between 2000 to 2500 calories per day. A minimum of nearly 1200 calories is needed per day for a person.
Eggs, popcorn, fish, broth, yogurt, apples, and oats are few healthy low-calorie foods.
Eating only empty calorie foods for a long time not only makes you fat and increases sugar levels, but it may also contribute to factors for chronic diseases. Fat accumulates if your daily calorie intake exceeds your physical activity.
Foods To Avoid Which Are Not Worth The Calories
1. Raw Soda and Carbonated Drinks:
Numbers of analyses confirmed that soda is a ‘good-for-nothing’ drink that only spikes the unhealthiness in our body noticeably. This drink contains zero nutrient value and ample empty calories which are made of 32 grams of sugar granules for each can. Hence, that is enough to escalate your weight to almost 20 pounds in a year, if you take them on a regular basis.
So, try to cut this soda off from your drinking list entirely for its no-nutrient and high-empty-calorie nature. Carbonated drinks used soda in almost 50% proportions, and some added sugar and artificial colors, so, they should be avoided too!
2. Pretzel:
Pretzel is one all-time favorite snack to many of us, which contains a tasty crispy side along with a sweet taste. But, if you look closely, you will find, this crunchy snack actually does no enhancement to our growth or nutritional attempt. It neither helps you to lose some weight control your appetite as well. While the sugar content and the flour part effectively prove bad consequences to your health.
So, it is better to avoid this type of unhealthy snack or replace it with some other healthy alternatives smartly.
3. Low-Fat Peanut Butter:
Peanut butter has an amazing taste and could make any toast mouthwatering with just a single stroke. Sometimes, we prefer the low-fat peanut butter we include our low-fat diet chart to avoid the fatty content. However, unfortunately, this low-fat quality comes with a less nutrient value as well. Such products also come with an added sugar content to compensate for the low-fat quality and this makes this butter a complete –empty-calorie item for our health.
Pick only normal peanut butter especially, which is made of roasted peanuts, and avoid low-fat peanut butter for your regular toasts.
4. White Pasta:
Pasta is a wonderful food comment which is considered as a good source of carbs but, only if you pick the right kind of them. There are several white pasta categories that are literally overflowing the market with their different catchy shapes. No matter what but the ingredient which is used to prepare such kinds of pasta add no nutrient value to our body.
So, try to avoid this white pasta and replace them with some healthy pasta alternatives like whole-wheat pasta, zucchini pasta, spaghetti squash, etc.
5. Margarine:
People, who are on a diet plan to reduce their weight, always prefer margarine as a tasty replacement of butter. But unfortunately, you will be disappointed to know that this low-fat alternative actually adds no helpful quality to your health at all. The hydrogenated oil that usually used to compensate for the fatty part of the butter in margarine usually hikes bad cholesterol levels in your blood and comes with a Trans-fat quality.
So, one must not switch to margarine instead of butter due to its totally empty-calorie and no-nutrient worth.
6. Items Made of White Flour:
White flour is a completely avoidable ingredient from all aspects, as it is a refined carbohydrate product. This type of wheat item is made out of heavily refined grains and kills that fiber part entirely which wheat products actually provide our body.
So, you must skip this low-nutrient & high-calorie product from your regular diet consistently and replace it with some whole-wheat product for the full nutrient value.
7. Canned Fruits:
Fruits are not doubted the natural sources of plenty of minerals and vitamins, thus they are recommended for a healthy diet for long. But, regrettably, there are some kinds of fruits which come with no good nutrient and only some bad calorie parts in the result.
Canned fruits, which mostly detect in any supermarket destinations, are one of those kinds which are immensely rich in calorie due to the added syrup quality.
You must avoid the void-of-nutrient fruits and replace them with the freshly plucked fruits or which are collected from the farmer’s market only.
8. Pasteurized Fruits Juices:
Fruit juices are one type of nutrient-dense component that offers us immense mineral and vitamin part with its every drop. But things turn unhealthy when you drink ready-made packet juices instead of homemade ones. These packed juices come with a pasteurization process that destroys the nutrient part and offers some secretly added sugar consent along with some bad preservatives.
Avoid these readymade canned or packed juices which are pasteurized and replace them with self-made juices out of fresh fruits only.
9. Popsicles or Ice Pops:
Popsicles or ice pops are one kind of sweet cold item that is made with heavy added sugar content along with some unhealthy artificial color and flavoring. Definitely, some preservatives also used to make them edible for a long while. Hence, these items offer us no nutrient value and cater only to unwanted calories in reality.
Homemade ice creams made of fresh fruit juices could be a great choice instead of these unhealthy empty-calorie-based ice sticks.
10. Sweet Wine:
Wine may be recommended for achieving some health effects due to the richness of antioxidant properties, but this theory goes only with natural wine products. Sweet wines or wine bottles with added sugar quality could contain 100-400 calories in a single glass!
So you must learn to say no to this sweet glass of wine and always recommend the product which comes in a natural form.
11. Coffee-Based Sugary Beverages:
The richness of antioxidants and some fiber particles found in coffee do well for our health. But the café based coffee beverages are far away from such nutrient values and comes with high sugar content. Sometimes, some unhealthy cream added fats and flavored also include in a glass of coffee-based beverages, like in cappuccino, caffeine cooler, etc. item.
This type of product offers almost more than 500 calories in one single glass without any beneficial nutrient value as well. So, one must avoid this type of drink in the shake of their good health.
12. Cotton Candies:
Cotton candies are just sugar granules and a bit of food coloring along with some artificial flavoring products. Hence, this product is nothing but a calorie-rich good-for-nothing candy that only induces us to gain weight and nothing else.
Try to alter this type of candies with fruit-based candies or some homemade sweeties to treat yourself with adequate nutrients as well.
13. Croissants:
Croissants are mouthwatering with butter, flour sugar, and through a healthy baking process. However, this tasty, floppy, sweet snack actually provides no contribution to our nutrient level at all. All a croissant could do just provide a bunch of calories about 150 or more with its single piece.
So, try to avoid these calorie-dense snacks and replace them with some oat-made granola bars or wholegrain sweeteners instead.
14. Frosting with Confectionary Sweets:
Frosting, which makes our asking products absolutely eat-worthy is actually never worth the calories due to its no-nutrient quality. This type of product mostly made of liquid chocolate, condensed milk, confectionary sugar content, and some flavoring parts. The hydrogenated fats used to prepare such tasty frosty things to make this one calorie-rich but lack nutrient value indeed.
No-color whipped cream is good to use for your cake topping instead of these empty-calorie-rich items in your baking dishes.
15. Doughnuts:
Doughnuts are one type of must-avoidable item. It is made of completely refined grains and uses high sugar-based frostings to make it tastier. Consequently, this dessert food comes with a heavy scale of calorie and a low amount of fiber in reality. According to recent research, a single doughnut contains almost 500 calories and almost 0 grams of nutrients in health value.
If you are really fond of doughnuts, try to prepare them at home. Homemade Doughnuts with healthy ingredients for the dough and low-fat components for the toppings as well.
Oats, whole-wheat flour, honey, etc. are good for the dough. However, you can added chopped nuts, dried fruits, whipped whole cream for the toppings which is optional in this regard.
