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15 'health foods' you're better off avoiding

Dietitian Andy Bellatti gives advice about which "health foods" are worth eating and which aren't. It seems you can stop paying $11 for a jar of almond butter.

Eating healthy can often feel like torture in a country whose crowning achievement in food is the Crunchwrap Supreme.

To make matters worse, a lot of supposedly healthy foods aren't actually very good for you.

With that in mind, Business Insider asked Andy Bellatti, a registered dietitian and the cofounder of Dietitians for Professional Integrity, which "health foods" you should skip on your next trip to the grocery store

Juice

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When you juice fresh fruits and veggies, you remove their fiber, the key ingredient that keeps you feeling full and satisfied until your next meal.

What you keep is the sugar. In the short term, a high-sugar, low-protein diet meanshunger pangs, mood swings, and low energy. In the long term, you can lose muscle mass, since muscles rely on protein.

Coconut oil

Coconut oil is roughly identical to olive oil in overall calorie and fat content.

But as opposed to a tablespoon of olive oil, which has just 1 gram of saturated fat and more than 10 grams of healthy mono- or polyunsaturated fats, a tablespoon of coconut oil has a whopping 12 grams of saturated fat and just 1 gram of healthy fat. Experts suggestavoiding saturated fats because they've been linked with high cholesterol and a risk of Type 2 diabetes.

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Agave nectar

Once upon a time, many health proponents (including Dr. Oz) suggested swapping your sugar for agave, since it has a low-glycemic index and doesn't lead to the impromptu spikes in blood sugar (aka glucose) that happen after consuming plain white sugar.

But while agave isn't high in glucose, it is high in another type of sweetener — fructose (the same stuff in high-fructose corn syrup). Somerecentstudiessuggest that diets high in fructose are linked with several health problems, including heart disease.

It doesn't so much matterwhichsweetener you use as how much you're using. "Sugar is sugar is sugar," says Bellatti.

Egg whites

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Lots of people began avoiding egg yolks after nutrition experts suggested that eating cholesterol was bad for you because it raised your cholesterol levels.

But there's good news.A growing bodyofresearch showsthat for the vast majority of people, dietary cholesterol (that comes from foods you eat)doesn't really have much of an effect on your blood cholesterol. So unless you have high cholesterol, ditch those nasty egg-white-only alternatives. Good morning, eggs Benedict!

Low-fat products

We've been led to believe that low-fat products will lead to increased overall health and weight loss. However, aneight-year trial involving nearly 50,000 womensuggested that that's highly unlikely. When roughly half of them went on a low-fat diet, they didn't lower their risk ofbreast cancer,colorectal cancer, orheart disease. Plus, theydidn't lose much weight, if any.

New recommendationsshow that healthy fats, like those from nuts, fish, and avocados, are actually good for you in moderation. So add them back into your diet if you haven't already.

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Granola

Almond butter

Everything fromGwyneth Paltrow's daily breakfast smoothieto the grocery store around the corner now seems to have almond butter, but the stuff is incredibly pricey. We askedBellattiwhether there's any reason to use almond butter instead of plain old peanut butter, which is about four times less expensive.

"It can just be peanut butter!" Bellatti said. "If the only ingredients are peanuts and salt, that totally works. It's still going to have your protein, healthy fats, and vitamin E."

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Multivitamins

Nearly half of American adults take vitamins every day. Yet decades' worth of research hasn't found any justification for this pill-popping habit.

We do need small amounts of vitamins to survive, of course — without vitamins such as A, C, and E, for example, we'd have a hard time turning food into energy, and could develop conditions like rickets or scurvy. But research shows we get more than enough of these substances from what we eat, so there's no need for a pill.

Gluten-free bread

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Almond milk

Dairy alternatives have beensurging in popularityin the past few years, especially almond and soy milk. Yet almond milk ispractically devoid of nutrients.

By themselves, almonds are protein powerhouses. But by volume, a typical glass of almond milk is only about 2% almonds and contains almost no protein. And all the vitamins in it are added. So if you're looking for a truly healthy alternative, opt for soy, skim, or low-fat milk.

Bottled water

Bottled water is not cleaner or healthier than most tap water in the US. Yet we spend more than $100 billion on the bottled good every year globally.

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Elizabeth Royte writes in "Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought it" that 92% of the America's 53,000 local water systems meet or exceed federal safety standards and are at least as clean and often cleaner than bottled water. (Residents of areas withlead contamination in their water, however, should opt for the bottled stuff.)

Detoxes

No one needs to detox. Unless you've been poisoned, you already have a super-efficient system for filtering out most of the harmful substances you eat. That means you don't need to buy any "cleansing" juices or "detox" teas.

"There's nothing about these products that's detoxifying, nor is there any food that’s detoxifying," says Bellatti.

Your built-in cleaning system is made of two toxin-bashing organs: the liver and kidneys. While ourkidneysfilter our blood and remove waste from our diet, ourlivers process medications and detoxify any chemicals we ingest. Paired together, these organs make our bodies natural cleansing powerhouses.

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Himalayan salt

The distinctive pink hue ofHimalayan salt can be traced to the tiny amount of iron oxide, or rust, in the pebbles. The salt also contains small amounts of calcium, potassium, iron, and magnesium, and fractionally lower amounts of sodium than regular table salt. But is it worth the price?

"Yes, the pink hue comes from minerals but the content is close to nil," says Bellatti. "Nobody should be looking for minerals in things like sugar or salt! Just because it's Himalayan crystal salt, you can't just use more of it or think it wouldn't have the same effects as other salts would. Understand that it's still salt."

Coconut water

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Sports drinks

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