Getting older comes with many benefits. More knowledge and more time to yourself are a couple of them. But for women, there may be some foods you’ll want to remove from your diet as you age.
Eat This, Not That has a list of drinks and foods that aren’t the best for women over 50.
“In youth, it’s all about growth and maintaining a body that can procreate,” nutrition and fitness expert Dr. Pamela Peeke, author “The Hunger Fix,” told Next Avenue. “After the age of 50, the goal is to prevent disease by maintaining an optimally healthy and active mind and body.”
Here are some beverages and snacks you might consider ditching after 50.
Coffee
Although coffee and tea can rev you up in the morning, they often contain added sugar.
A study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign showed that most coffee and tea drinkers don’t consume the beverages plain. Results found that coffee drinkers drink an estimated 70 calories more than non-coffee drinkers daily, Spoon University reported. The majority of calories come from sugar and fat. Tea drinkers averaged 43 calories more than non-tea drinkers. Too much sugar can contribute to diabetes, weight gain and heart disease, WebMD reported.
Veggie chips
These chips may seem like a healthy alternative to traditional potato chips. Veggie chips, however, aren’t any healthier than regular ones, according to Cooking Light.
“Veggie chips aren’t a substitute for fresh veggies (they lose most of their nutrition awesomeness when they’re whittled down to vegetable powders),” Brierley Horton, registered dietitian and nutritionist, told the magazine. “Instead, they’re more like an alternative to potato chips — some vegetable chip varieties are, at best, marginally more nutritious than potato chips while others are nutritionally equivalent to potato chips.”
The chips definitely don’t offer the nutritional value of spinach, beets or zucchini, which are typical veggie chip flavors.
Processed meats
According to the MD Anderson Cancer Center website, evidence has grown that consuming processed meat can cause cancer.
“Research shows that eating processed meats like bacon and cold cuts can increase your chances for stomach and colorectal cancer,” Lindsey Wohlford, employee wellness dietitian at MD Anderson Cancer Center, said on the website.
Processed meats include ham, beef jerky, hot dogs, deli meat such as roast beef and turkey and pepperoni.
Alcohol
Like processed meats, alcohol has also been linked to cancer.
Guidelines from the American Cancer Society say that said it’s “best not to drink alcohol. But if you do, women should have no more than 1 drink per day ... A drink is 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.”
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