5 Foods You Should Never Eat
GUPTA: The truth is most of us probably avoid certain foods because we simply don't like the way they taste. But even if we're told that they're healthy, there are many foods in the market that will taste great but still contain ingredients that are potentially hazardous to your health. And this is where it gets interesting. Food industry experts compiled this list of foods they say we should never eat. David Jack has insight on this. He's a nutrition expert. He's also contributing editor to "Men's Health" magazine. Thanks for being here.</s>DAVID JACK, NUTRITION EXPERT: It's a pleasure to be here.</s>GUPTA: You know, this is going to open up a lot of eyes I think because, again, you know, and I'm guilty to this as well. As a doc, you tell people what you think are the rights to food eat. And nutrition is such an important part of their health, but then, we have to dig deeper sometimes, as you've done here. We've got some of these foods that are laid out. Maybe we can just sort of talk through this.</s>JACK: Sure.</s>GUPTA: The strawberries.</s>JACK: Right here.</s>GUPTA: Healthy food.</s>JACK: So, strawberries, Environmental Working Group that comes up each with this list of a clean 15 and a dirty dozen.</s>GUPTA: Right.</s>JACK: And basically what they look at it is, they look at fruits and vegetables, how they're grown and how they're treated with pesticides. So, we have a fruit like a strawberry that actually when they spray strawberries with pesticides they're in gear that protects them while they're spraying the strawberries with the pesticides. Is that good for our body? So they've studied there's over 13 pesticides in the common strawberry. So we think we're eating healthy, but really we have to choose in this case organic to get away from those pesticides, which are so detrimental to our health, and ultimately get back to good food as it was designed.</s>GUPTA: You don't need to buy everything organic?</s>JACK: Correct.</s>GUPTA: Then this dirty dozen, if you're peeling the fruit.</s>JACK: Yes.</s>GUPTA: You're getting rid of it. But strawberries, you don't have that luxury.</s>JACK: Yes, this year, we're finding kale on that list which never was because it's in such popular demand now that some of, it's getting the overspray because it's grown in crops near other things. So, it's really getting interesting.</s>GUPTA: It's fascinating. White chocolate -- now, a lot of people aren't going to put white chocolate on the healthy list, but there's again more than meets the eye here?</s>JACK: Well, chocolate is something that actually in its rare form, cacao, that bean, is really very healthy and high antioxidants, that really helps our body to be well. There's obviously things that help brain function in chocolate. What happens like with other foods is the beauty of that food gets stripped down and stripped away and gets processed. So, what we end up with this kind of healthy snack we want to give ourselves just to feel good, and we think we're doing good for ourselves. It takes out all the nutrition. We really want to stay closer to the dark chocolate at organic cacao that keeps all of those key nutrients inside of it. You get the healthy snack, but you also get benefit from it.</s>GUPTA: So, it's more of the cacao butter, right?</s>JACK: Yes.</s>GUPTA: Not really chocolate per se?</s>JACK: Correct. It's the butter. It's the actual -- that actual --</s>GUPTA: It's marketing genius. We'll call it white chocolate.</s>JACK: Further away from the truth as you get down to it.</s>GUPTA: And then you realize.</s>JACK: Yes.</s>GUPTA: Sprouts, again, you know, this is something that a lot of doctors recommend?</s>JACK: Yes. Healthy. Here's the problem. Sprouts, the seed generally needs moist, warm environments to grow, which is a breeding ground for bacteria.</s>GUPTA: All sorts of different organisms and food recalls.</s>JACK: Exactly. They found sprouts are usually the cull pretty at the sent of these massive food recall and getting people sick. So, if you're going to do sprouts, we recommend that you heat them to try to kill some of the bacteria, or you get some crunch with the sprouts. So, you take your carrots, you take your cabbages and you shred them and use those instead.</s>GUPTA: To try to get that texture.</s>JACK: Sure. Get the texture. Stay away from the bacteria.</s>GUPTA: Canned tomatoes. Is it the can or is it the tomatoes?</s>JACK: It's really the can. So, there's a resin n the can that brings these synthetic estrogens into our body, which starts to mess with our hormones. And hormone regulation is really the issue that a lot of people are facing and being unwell and unhealthy weight gain. So, we want to get away from the can and we want to move to things like glass that don't have those resins in there or even like a tetra pak like Trader Joe's has tomatoes in a tetra pak, which also helps get us away from the dangers that would be inside the can.</s>GUPTA: And, finally, and specifically swordfish over here.</s>JACK: Sure.</s>GUPTA: And I should point out, you guys interviewed a lot of different experts for this column.</s>JACK: We did.</s>GUPTA: Dr. Lander (ph), someone I know well, weighed in on this. What do you say?</s>JACK: Swordfish is really high in mercury. The other thing, it's not sustainably fished a lot. So, they'll use methods that damage other sea life. So, you're getting double whammy with it. You're getting high mercury, which there's tons of issues with that. It's a toxin. But you're also having this insustainable fishing practices. So, you want to move to things like, you know, wild Alaskan salmon. You want to move to things like Pacific -- even Pacific tuna, closer. Snakehead fish now, they're saying, tastes a lot like swordfish but these are more sustainably fished. They're line caught, they're trolled for, the mercury is down, so, it's better for the environment. It's better for your body.</s>GUPTA: Have you had snakehead fish?</s>JACK: I haven't yet.</s>GUPTA: I heard it tastes a lot like swordfish.</s>JACK: I know. I got to get over the name a little but I'm willing to give it a shot.</s>GUPTA: Change that name. I really appreciate it.</s>JACK: Thank you so much.</s>GUPTA: Thanks for being here.</s>JACK: Pleasure.</s>GUPTA: We appreciate it. 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