Food Facts and Fallacies
Take the following true/false quiz to test your food knowledge:
1. Most people suffer from food allergies.
2. You shouldn’t eat after 7 p.m.
3. Drinking ice-cold water burns calories.
4. Celery is a negative-calorie food.
5. Pork is the other white meat.
6. Cravings are your body’s way of telling you it needs something.
7. Heart disease in America is caused by eating saturated fat from animal products.
8. Vegetarianism is the healthiest way to eat.
9. Children should eat a low-fat diet to keep them from becoming obese.
10. Margarine is better than butter.
1. FALSE. Nearly one-third of all adults believe they have food allergies, but true food allergies affect less than two percent of the population. What most people think of as allergies are actually intolerances.
2. FALSE. It’s not when you eat, but what you eat that counts. No matter when they’re eaten, calories have the same effect on the body. Staying up late can lead to extra snacking, which will increase your total caloric intake.
3. FALSE. The myth that’s spread is that the body has to work extra hard to warm the water up to body temperature, burning more calories. It just ain’t so.
4. FALSE. While it’s true that you burn calories digesting your food, the amount is just a small percentage of the calories you’ve eaten, so it won’t affect your weight.
5. FALSE. Pork is actually more similar to the red meat of beef than the white of chicken. There are plenty of lower-fat pork cuts, however.
6. FALSE. “What you’re probably craving is the relaxation and pleasure you feel when you eat certain foods, like steak or fries,” says Adam Drewnowski, Ph.D., of the University of Washington.
7. FALSE. According to the USDA, during the period of rapid increase in heart disease (1920-1960), American consumption of animal fats declined but consumption of hydrogenated and industrially processed vegetable fats increased dramatically.
8. FALSE. The annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian men is slightly more than that of non-vegetarian men (.93% vs .89%); the annual death rate of vegetarian women is significantly more than that of non-vegetarian women (.86% vs .54%)
9. FALSE. Children on low-fat diets suffer from growth problems, failure to thrive & learning disabilities.
10. FALSE. Margarine eaters have twice the rate of heart disease as butter eaters.