Soy milk can raise the risk of breast cancer. Fat-free foods are healthier than high-fat foods. Vegans and vegetarians are deficient in protein. Some false ideas about nutrition seem to linger in American culture like a terrible song stuck in your head.
So to set the record straight, we asked 10 of the top nutrition experts in the United States a simple question: What is one nutrition myth you wish would go away — and why? Here’s what they said.
Myth No. 1: Fresh fruits and vegetables are always healthier than canned, frozen or dried varieties.
Despite the enduring belief that “fresh is best,” research has found that frozen, canned and dried fruits and vegetables can be just as nutritious as their fresh counterparts.
“They can also be a money saver and an easy way to make sure there are always fruits and vegetables available at home,” said Sara Bleich, a professor of public health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. One caveat: Some canned, frozen and dried varieties contain sneaky ingredients like added sugars, saturated fats and sodium, Dr. Bleich said, so be sure to read nutrition labels and opt for products that keep those ingredients to a minimum.
Myth No. 2: All fat is bad.
When studies published in the late 1940s found correlations between high-fat diets and high levels of cholesterol, experts reasoned that if you reduced the amount of total fats in your diet, your risk for heart disease would go down. By the 1980s, doctors, federal health experts, the food industry and the news media were reporting that a low-fat diet could benefit everyone, even though there was no solid evidence that doing so would prevent issues like heart disease or becoming overweight or obese.
Dr. Vijaya Surampudi, an associate professor of medicine at the U.C.L.A. Center for Human Nutrition, said that as a result, the vilification of fats led many people — and food manufacturers — to replace calories from fat with calories from refined carbohydrates like white flour and added sugar. (Remember SnackWell’s?) “Instead of helping the country stay slim, the rates of overweight and obesity went up significantly,” she said.
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