The media tends to have a huge influence on what we eat. As soon a food is deemed a "health food," it starts to fly off the shelves at warp speed. But as I mentioned in my post about nutrition labels, the media and food manufacturers are free to make over-glorified health claims where they are often unjustified.
For decades, saturated fat—also known as "bad" fat—has been labeled one of the leading causes of heart disease. Greasy hamburgers, T-Bone steaks, cheesy pizza and cream sauces have long been avoided because of advice given by nutrition professionals such as myself, health officials, and as laid out by national health authorities and heart associations. But the truth is, there is absolutely no link between saturated fat and heart disease risk. But wait. Don't let this new evidence be your license to gorge on greasy burgers everyday.
How many times have you gone to the grocery store and spent more money than you planned, buying foods that you didn't need, and forgetting the few key ingredients that you actually did need? And how many times have you had to take extra trips to the store during the week to buy one or two ingredients? Oh, and what about forgetting veggies that are in your fridge and having to throw them out because they went bad?