Nutrition Videos

The title question of today's video sounds almost funny and provocative, and many will think that I must be making some silly joke or pun, because of course, no one believes that soft drinks are healthier than oil. Of course; No. Many in Europe believe that oil is not just more unhealthy than soft drinks, but much more unhealthy. Give me some time to explain. Many countries in Europe, including France, Spain and Germany, have been implementing for a few years a food quality evaluation system based on a rating from A to E. According to this rating, foods that receive an A and B are considered the healthiest foods one can consume, while foods rated D and E are considered the least healthy foods. C-rated foods are considered to be somewhere in the middle. The logic behind this food calibration is to direct us to choose foods that are better for our health and avoid foods that are not so good. At first it sounds like it's a good idea and that it can help with healthier food choices, but unfortunately it's not like that at all. First, I must emphasize that this directive is not mandatory for all countries to implement and Greece is one of the countries that refuses to implement this calibration. That is, it refuses to require food manufacturing industries to use this calibration on the labels of the foods they manufacture and market, and as you will soon see, this is a very good choice. Without boring you with how this calibration comes out, in practice it is mainly based on the calories contained in each food you will find in the supermarket. Foods that have a lot of calories per serving get a poor rating while foods that have few calories per serving get a good rating. This may make a bit of sense when you don't cook, and what you buy from the supermarket you take out of the bag and eat, but it has its problems when you buy ingredients from the market and cook food like we all should do every day or at least almost everyday. Let's look at some examples to see where this calibration system is problematic. To begin with, let me emphasize that in most foods the system produces reasonable results. We will focus on the problematic results, which unfortunately are quite significant. Everyone knows that soft drinks should be absent from our diet. Unfortunately, according to the nutriscore grading system, low-calorie sodas, which are full of sweeteners that we all know aren't very good to consume, are rated B, meaning they get a very good grade. On the other, olive oil, which according to many is one of the most important components of the Mediterranean diet, the healthiest diet in the world, is rated one of the worst ratings, D or C. I've even read that originally the rating for olive oil was E, but the Italians pushed so that the rating goes to D and for extra virgin olive oil to C. To understand what the D rating means, suffice it to say that cereal bars with 25% of their energy from pure sugar are rated the same as ketchup, which is also full of sugar and sweeteners. On the other hand, a B score goes to plant-based burger substitutes, which, as I've said repeatedly, I don't believe are any healthier than regular burgers, as well as some children's breakfast cereal with sugar. When I say childish, I mean cereals that have animal drawings on the outside and are definitely not aimed at people trying to follow a healthy diet. We see something similar with honey, which is graded E, the same grade that chocolate spreads get. That is, cocoa spreads containing palm oil and sugar are the same as honey. I do not think! You don't need a medical degree or a medical nutritionist to know that olive oil is a healthier choice than sugar-free sodas, sugary cereal bars, and kids' cereals that kids shouldn't even be eating. Countless studies have been published time and time again pointing out that both sugar and some sweeteners are linked to cancer, heart disease and diabetes. On the contrary, there is no study that proves that olive oil causes cancer, diabetes and heart diseases. However, this system does not evaluate the effect of foods on our health, but the calories they contain per serving. As we have seen, this can lead to results that do not help one follow a healthy diet. I am troubled by the adoption of this system. Fortunately Greece, Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary and other countries have not adopted it so far and I hope it stays that way. One good development is that I recently read that extra virgin olive oil may in the future be upgraded even further and move up to category B, along with aspartame and cyclamic acid soft drinks, following pressure from European oil producers. Let's see! By pressing the like button and sharing the video with people who will find it interesting you help me a lot. If you want to know more foods that are considered healthy and are the exact opposite, it's worth clicking on the video currently showing to my right where I explain what foods I think they are. Thank you