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What Kind of Food Makes You Fat?

If you are trying to lose weight or maintain your current weight, it is essential to be aware of foods that can make you fat. Reading food packaging labels may help separate healthy foods from unhealthy foods. Sometimes the unhealthy ingredients are not mentioned on the packaging and if they are, they may be referred to by a different name.

  1. Sugary Processed Foods

    • Sugary, processed foods are foods that have been altered from their original state. Man-made ingredients have been included in the manufacturing process of these foods to improve their taste, appearance or shelf-life. Sugary processed foods include cookies, cakes, doughnuts, pastries and pies. They are frequently found in the middle aisles of grocery stores and come ready-to-eat from the box. These processed foods are high in calories and high in fat and will sabotage your diet when consumed in excess.

    Fried Foods

    • Fried Foods contain a lot of fat, and if they are breaded they can also contain refined white flour. Foods fried in trans fat are especially unhealthy because this type of fat raises your bad cholesterol levels and lowers your good cholesterol levels. When reading food packaging you may not find the words "trans fat" on the labels, but you may find the word "hydrogenated," which means the same thing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows foods with less than half a gram of trans fat per serving to print "trans fat free" on the packaging. When eating products that claim they are trans fat free, don't overeat, because they still may contain some trans fat.

    Snack Foods

    • Sack foods such as potato chips and nacho chips are high in bad fats and refined white flower. They are often high in salt and sugar and contain artificial colors and flavor. Snack foods can make you fat when eaten in excess, which is real easy to do because these types of food generally make you want to eat more and more of them. The more salt you eat, the more salt you crave. A diet that is high in salt is unhealthy and linked to heart problems.

    Fast Foods

    • Fast foods, whether it is hamburgers or Chinese food, can make you fat if you eat it too often. Restaurants are prone to using trans fat to prepare foods because it is cheap. Another additive that is used in certain fast foods is mono sodium glutamate, also known as MSG. Restaurants use MSG because it adds flavor to the foods. What they don't tell you is that it spikes your insulin levels and may cause migraines, headaches and weight gain.

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