The Deadliest Foods

There’s a myriad of things we eat that are not optimally healthy, but today’s question is what are the deadliest common foods or food ingredients? Rat poison doesn’t count, nor do contaminated items. This is just a general prioritization from my perspective of the three most significant health risks in what we commonly eat.

1. Aspartame – the ever-abundant artificial sweetener found in NutraSweet and Equal.

2. Trans Fats – all hydrogenated oils.

3. Fructose/Glucose – sugar in high quantities without fiber.

Aspartame contains known carcinogens and neurotoxins and has been responsible for the majority of all food-related complaints to the FDA during the time they tracked that information. Trans fatty acids are a science experiment gone awry. They wreak havoc inside the body, especially on a cellular level. A person is much better just eating saturated fats than trans fats.

Fructose in small quantities, especially with fiber is fine. However, when it’s gulped down in mega doses (such as in a soda), it can cause a variety of health problems leading to obesity and liver disease. Glucose, the other half of table sugar, is also the simple sugar that starches and complex carbohydrates break down into. When the body is flooded with glucose, either from sweet foods, or low-fiber starchy foods such as white bread, a surge of insulin is released to break down the glucose. The excess sugar is stored as fat and energy levels fall rapidly. This can lead to type 2 diabetes and a slew of other health problems.

There are many more. I would certainly rank Sucralose (Splenda) along with some other chemical sweeteners up there with aspartame, except that there isn’t enough research to give even an educated guess on just how dangerous it is. It could be worse than aspartame, or it might not be as bad.

In case you’re wondering, I’d put saturated fat next, especially fat from beef that is not grass-fed, free-range beef. It contains hormones and antibiotics given to the cows along with a drastically out of balance ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids compared to free range beef.