Moderation is the key, not any sort of gimmicky list. If you look at the food on the dinner plates of people all around the world, there's all sorts of things. However, the portions are smaller.

Americans simply eat way, way, WAY too much. The portions here are insane. The concept of moderation is lacking here, as well as common sense for a significant group of people.

Deprong Mori

@DEPRONG: That's because eating's one of the few things we're still really really good at, besides homicide.

wormfarming

@Deprong Mori: I totally agree. Well said. We Americans, being that I too, am a little overweight, have found that we do eat too much. It can be eating too much fruit or vegetables that cause problems too. Not just the fatty foods or the fried foods.

thethrizzle

@wormfarming: Tell that to Takeru Kobayashi.

Eddie C.

Given the average American diet, I would hazard a guess that pigging out on brussel sprouts and tangerines is not a major cause of obesity.

abhowell

Hey everybody let's lose weight! Make sure the following things are in your shopping cart:

Sauces,Condiments, and Marinades
Dressing and Dips
Candy
Frozen Dessert

Is this a joke?

What a worthless article. My favorite I think is the advice to stock up on cereal.

Yeah! Cereal is one of the reasons we are so fat!

Well at least I can have "popcorn and fruit" or frozen dinners to lose weight.

Jasoncscs

The article recommends products with Nutra Sweet.
If you want to remain healthy, I would avoid anything with Nutra-Sweet/Aspartame, Sucralose, or any other artificial sweetener for that matter.

It is shocking that there is not more public concern over the dangers of Nutra-Sweet.

suburbancowboy

I don't agree with that article much either, for example, they recommend soups. They can be great if they are homemade, but if you buy canned soups from the store, they are loaded with salt which is bad for you. You can get your whole sodium intake for the day with one can of soup.

zerbe

Grain, sugar, low calorie, HFCS, and low fat foods? Aren't those what got us overweight in the first place.

My personal favorite is the list of proteins:
Soy Protein (look at Weston A Price for what's wrong with that)
Legumes
Seafood (I like my Mercury in Thermometers or fronting Queen, thank you)

Question: Where is my B-12 coming from in this list of 127 foods?

Solution: Eat protein. Eat fat. Limit cereals, starch and sugar. And soy if you know what's really good for you. Lift weights. That's how I got rid of the useless 21% (55lbs) of me.

PotKettleBlack

All "Americans are pigs" comments aside, all it takes is an act of will to change your eating habits to something more healthy. I grew up with the "clean your plate" mentality drilled into me as a kid. Worked fine until I hit 30 and started equaling more pounds.

Due to a recent health warning from my Doctor about high blood pressure, I made a conscious decision to lose weight. No fad diets, just portion control and watching what I eat. Once the decision was put into practice, the pounds dropped right off. 2 months into this and I've lost 26 lbs.

What really helped for me was thinking of dieting as a numbers game. Calories in versus calories out.

brucifer

Popular diet tips fail because no one diet is right for everyone. We all know someone who stays fit and healthy on a certain diet that would be disastrous for us!

The key is biochemiical individuality, and there's a way to get a computerized analysis of each person's individual needs, so you can know which foods are best for you, and which are best to avoid. See www.guideforselfhealing.com

Sorbet, as mentioned as a "health food" in the article above, is loaded with refined sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup, two of the worse offenders! And likewise, many other foods like soy have been hyped as health foods, when they're anything but.

Distinguishing marketing hype from sound information is the key.

karen110

"Every time you toss a low-calorie food into the cart, you're taking responsibility for losing weight-even before you sit down to a meal."

Spreading the wrong information. Low-calorie != fat fighting.

There's much more to nutrition than counting calories and fat content. If you want a list of low calorie foods, do yourself a favor and look at the label on the food instead of the internet.

"There's a very simple formula for low-calorie eating: Stock up on low-calorie staples. These are the basic packaged, canned, and frozen ingredients that you'll reach for to create tasty, healthful, low-calorie meals anytime."

Ever take into account preservatives in these canned and frozen ingredients? How about sugar and sodium content? Again, you're spreading the wrong information here. You're telling me to go for prepackaged foods instead of fresh ones?

"When the Anytime List becomes the core of your eating-in other words, the main dish around which you build your meals-you'll have no trouble staying thin for life."

What a joke. I hope the author isn't serious about this statement.

"You've heard of value for your money. Soups give you very good value for the calories. They are filling; a bowl of soup can be an entire meal."

True enough. If it's made properly and includes a variety of ingredients. Your cream of broccoli for every meal isn't going to make you thin. It's going to make you have diarrhea. Do you honestly think we should all go on a Campbell's soup diet? Do you realize the havoc this will reek on our kidneys with the obscene sodium content? Do me a favor and look at the label and tell me what the percentage of sodium is per can.

"# Avoid beverages labeled "naturally sweetened" or "fruit-juice sweetened," but help yourself to these:
...
# Diet teas and juices: Crystal Light, Diet Snapple, Diet Natural Lemon Nestea, Diet Mistic, and others"

There was a recent study done that compared the eating habits of those who drank diet sodas to those who drank regular soda. Essentially, diet sodas prevent a consumer from feeling full due to the lack of calories, thus increasing appetite of the consumer. In the end, the group that drank diet sodas consumed more total calories than the group that drank regular sodas, due to the increased appetite. Chew on that.

There is some legitimacy to this article. But I consider it rubbish due to the fact that it promotes a style of eating that emphasizes frozen and canned foods. There are no hacks when it comes to eating healthy. We all already know what is good food and what is bad food and what we should eat if we want to be healthy. The hard part is following what we know.

scribbles1015

I've never had a real issue with weight loss, but my husband currently needs to lose quite a bit of weight. I had never fully considered why weight loss hasn't been an issue for me until we started discussing how to peel off his pounds. For some reason, I've never been a big fan of starches and eat primarily fruits, veggies, and proteins. I also eat smaller meals throughout the day (I actually remember telling an employer when he asked if there was anything he should know about me --that I liked to eat throughout the day). I eat in moderation - but try to stay away from fried foods because they upset my stomach.

My husband, on the other hand, loves starches, eats 3 meals a day, and has multiple cups of caffeinated beverages. A few weeks ago, he was on jury duty and had extra time to read a wellness book that suggested what I do naturally. He figured - why not? So he cut out the caffeine gradually (he still has a cup of caffeinated tea once a day), snacks now on veggies, drinks mostly water, takes a fish oil supplement, and said bye bye to the starches... Since then, he has lost 13 pounds - and feels considerably better. He's also started walking home from work a few nights a week (even though it is bitterly cold here in NYC). He's also the cook in our household - so he has integrated some exciting ideas with garlic and other healthy things into all of our diets. We were eating well before - but we have definitely benefited from his new choices. This in turn means that our kids are eating that much better too.

Good luck to everyone else out there that is not dieting - but making healthier food choices...

Andamom