10 of the most common food myths busted

Salt is bad for you

In fact, we all need some salt in our diet. The sodium in salt is helps control the amount of water in the body and maintain a normal in the blood. Salt is present to some extent in all foods.

Current recommendations are that no one consumes more than 6g of salt per day. Excessive salt consumption – largely due to eating processed foods which can contain large amounts – can cause high blood pressure and even stomach cancer. 

Eating too many eggs give you high cholesterol

The cholesterol found in eggs doesn’t contribute greatly to blood cholesterol levels, which are most often raised by eating too much saturated fat, such as that found in processed foods, butter, ghee, lard, palm oil and coconut oil.

Eggs are a great source of protein, iodine and vitamins D, A and B2. There’s currently no recommendation for the number of eggs we should be eating.

Foods labelled ‘low fat’ are good for you

While they’re undoubtedly better for you than foods that are high in saturated fat, the downside healthwise is often that low-fat foods are often high in sugar or salt to compensate in terms of taste.

Some foods, such as turkey and venison, are naturally low in fat and are therefore a healthy choice for dinner, but the ‘low-fat’ yoghurt you have to follow may not be as healthy as it seems.

Some foods are ‘superfoods’

In fact, no one food has earned the label of ‘superfood’ as endorsed by any experts in nutrition.

While some foods – highly coloured fruit and veg, which contain antioxidants – are known to be good choices in our daily diet, there isn’t a definitive ‘superfood’.

What we should be aiming to do is to eat a well-balance diet that includes foods from each food group in the right proportion.

Potatoes are fattening

Nope, it’s the way they’re cooked that can make them a bit of an indulgence.

Plain, boiled or baked spuds, preferably in their skins for added roughage and nutrient value, are a good source of slow-release carbohydrate and fibre.

It’s mashing them with butter and cream, cooking them in a chip pan or roasting them in lashings of fat that make them less healthy.

Ketchup is bad for you

In fact, because ketchup is made with cooked tomatoes, it contains higher levels of lycopene, a substance that helps cut the risk of heart disease and some cancers, than fresh tomatoes.

Look out for reduced-sugar varieties so you don’t counteract the health benefits of ketchup by overloading on sugar.

Cheese gives you nightmares

Cheese contains tryptophan – a substance that can help reduce stress and actually induce a good night’s sleep.

However, the British Cheese Board conducted a study and found that different types of cheese do seem to influence the types of dreams individuals may have. 

Apparently, Stilton can cause bizarre and vivid dreams;  Red Leicester is thought to provoke nostalgia and Cheshire caused the least dreaming of all.

Bottled water is better than tap water

Not true, at least not in the UK where the quality and purity of tap water is very high.

In fact, one Canadian research study found that many brands of bottled water contained unacceptably high levels of bacteria, with some harbouring up to 100 times the permitted limit, so tap water is arguably healthier.

Tea and coffee contain the same amount of caffeine

In fact, coffee – whether instant or ground – contains higher levels of caffeine.

A survey by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) found that on average, a serving of tea contained 40mg of caffeine, compared with the same serving of instant coffee, which contained 54mg and the same serving of ground coffee, which contained 105mg.