'Unhealthy' foods that aren’t so unhealthy after all

The American diet, as it’s come to be recognized, is unhealthy—too much sugary soda and fattening fast food. This has led to an obesity epidemic and a startling rise in type 2 diabetes.

But if you usually avoid junk food and you get a modicum of exercise as well as a reasonable amount of sleep, then maybe it’s not the end of the world if you indulge in your favorite treat once in a while. In fact, maybe that junk food isn’t quite as unhealthy as we’ve been led to believe.

Oh, it’s still unhealthy—no question about that. But there are a few foods that might not be all bad. See for yourself.

French fries

French fries are greasy, salty—and delicious! Even though we demonize French fries as junk food, we Americans each eat nearly 30 lb of fries per year, on average.

Consuming lots of French fries is linked to increased risks of high blood pressure, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. Potatoes—whether fried, boiled, or baked—are also high in starch and have a high glycemic index and glycemic load.

On the upside, potatoes are loaded with potassium—though that benefit is likely negated when French fries are heavily sprinkled with salt.

Despite the risks and dangers of French fries, they might not be all that bad. In a large prospective study of more than 69,000 adults in Sweden—a population with a high potato consumption—researchers found that those who ate 3 servings of potatoes per week (whether boiled, pan-fried, or French fried) had no increased risk of major cardiovascular events, including heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and cardiovascular disease-related mortality.

So, you don’t need to banish fries from your diet entirely. Then again, you might want to take these results with a grain of salt.

“French fry consumption was not associated with an increased risk of any CVD outcome in the current study, but we had limited statistical power to assess the association with a very high consumption of French fries,” the authors acknowledged. “Because this study population had a high consumption of boiled potatoes but a low consumption of French fries, findings from this study may not be applicable to populations in whom potatoes are mainly consumed as French fries.”

Perhaps the key lies in moderation.

Refined grains

Refined grain foods—like white bread, white rice, and pasta—are another food group that we’ve been told to avoid for health reasons. While whole-grain foods are nutritious, refined grains are the equivalent of refined sugar—just simple carbs, nutritionists have told us. 

But a study published in Advances in Nutrition challenges that assertion, concluding that refined-grain consumption isn’t directly associated with increased risk of chronic disease and premature death. The study reviewed 11 meta-analyses involving 32 publications with data from 24 distinct cohorts.

“Quite simply, refined grains are not the bad guy," said study author Glenn Gaesser, PhD, professor of exercise science and health promotion and director of the Healthy Lifestyles Research Center at Arizona State University. “Contrary to popular belief and current dietary guidance, refined grain intake is not associated with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, cancer, or death.”

Refined grains have developed a “guilty-by-association” reputation, according to Dr. Gaesser.

“While refined grains are frequently characterized as unhealthy, this can be attributed to their inclusion in a dietary pattern that contains foods that are the real culprits in the link between an unhealthy dietary pattern and increased risk of a number of chronic diseases,” he said. “[The] Western dietary pattern—which includes red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, French fries, high-fat dairy products, and refined grains—is linked to many chronic diseases. However, when analyzed as a distinct food group, refined grain consumption is not linked to chronic diseases or death.”

It’s worth noting that this research was supported in part by a grant from the Wheat Foods Council and Grain Foods Foundation—if that helps you separate the wheat from the chaff.

Eggs

“Don’t eat eggs,” we’ve often heard. “They’re full of cholesterol!” And too much cholesterol is bad for your heart, right? Well, yeah, but that simple equation has been expanded in recent years as we’ve learned more about eggs and dietary cholesterol.

Turns out, regular egg consumption (one egg per day) isn’t associated with incident cardiovascular disease risk—after adjusting for confounding factors like high BMI and red meat consumption—according to the largest-ever meta-analysis on the subject.

Furthermore, studies in Asian populations have found that daily egg consumption is associated with lower CVD risk and stroke.

Eggs might be another food that’s guilty by association. How so? Because, in Western diets, eggs are often eaten with bacon, sausage, or other breakfast meat high in saturated fat.

“Although evidence from observational studies examining the relationship between dietary cholesterol and CVD risk is inconsistent, the discrepant results are likely heavily contributed to by residual confounding,” according to an advisory from the American Heart Association. “It is difficult to distinguish between the effect of dietary cholesterol per se and the effect of dietary patterns high in cholesterol or saturated fat, for example, sausage or bacon eaten with eggs.”

So, go ahead and order the eggs, but 86 the sausage and bacon.

Salt

We take the dangers of sodium as a given. Too much salt (sodium) in your diet will increase your blood pressure, and high blood pressure leads to greater risk of cardiovascular disease. So, to avoid heart disease, you have to cut back on salt. Everyone knows that, right?

Believe it or not, a hot debate about salt started more than a decade ago—and it’s still raging. At issue: Whether reducing salt intake actually lowers the risk of heart disease and mortality.

A Cochrane review of eight randomized clinical trials involving more than 7,000 patients found no substantial evidence that reducing salt intake reduces cardiovascular disease in patients without high blood pressure, and only weak evidence in people with hypertension. Moreover, a low-sodium diet (< 3 g sodium per day) may even increase the risks of heart disease and stroke, the authors reported.

So, does this mean you can eat all the salty snacks you like? Probably not.

“The findings of our review do not mean that advising people to reduce salt should be stopped,” the Cochrane authors wrote. “However, additional measures—reducing the amount of hidden salt in processed foods, for example—will make it much easier for people to achieve a lower salt diet.”

Bottom line

No one is saying that you should be eating more white bread or salty French fries. But know that the occasional splurge won’t destroy your diet or shorten your lifespan.