Well spotted
8. Potato Crisps
Out of all the foods on my top 10 Unhealthy Food hit list, potato crisps are my biggest down fall and I have to admit to guiltily indulging in the odd packet of crisps despite knowing what a shockingly unhealthy food they are, whether they actually deserve to be called a food is another matter. If I know I’m headed somewhere that crisps will be laid out to tempt me, I eat a boiled egg before leaving the house which helps to keep me feeling full and satisfied and reduces cravings for unhealthy foods.
So if you find yourself falling afoul of the big bad top 10 unhealthy foods, don’t beat yourself up too badly. Simply avoid eating them every day (even once per week is too much) and if you’re regularly eating all ten super unhealthy foods remind yourself that by doing so you’re sending your body further into nutritional debt – think of it like going crazy with your credit card, at some point you’re going to have to pay for it, plus the interest.
The British Heart Foundation built an effective campaign around the slightly nauseating image of a young girl drinking cooking oil directly from a great big bottle to try and alert parents to the dangers of feeding their kids crips. British kids consume almost 10.5 pints of oil annually if they eat one bag of chips a day.
Another British crisp fact: Brits consume a ton of chips every 3 minutes, or enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool every 14 hours. I'm sure that Australian statistics are just as bad.
Gross statistics aside, just how bad are crisps?
Very bad.
The oil that crisps are cooked in is heated to extremely high temperatures forming all sorts of toxic compounds. To make matters worse, the oil is filtered and reused again and again and again.
Some of the toxic chemicals produced include carcinogens such as Acrylamide as well as toxic fat molecules that are cross-linked, fragmented, bond-shifted oils and polymerized (which translates into dangerous fats, far worse than trans fats).
Some brands of crisps tested had levels of cancer causing acrylamide 500 times more than the safe limit set by the World Health Organisation for acrylamide in drinking water.
After they’re cooked, crisps are then loaded with flavour enhancers (MSG), stabilizers, anti caking agents, preservatives and colourings.
Crisps are one of the most unhealthy foods that people eat on a regular basis and you'll be doing your body a huge favour if you boycot the crisp aisle in your supermarket.
