Foods To Avoid For Health Reasons

Eating food is an essential and pleasurable human experience. Although food is life sustaining, certain foods can endanger your health if you have a medical condition affected by your dietary intake. The list of foods to avoid for health reasons varies, depending on the medical conditions you are working to manage.

Candy

Candy is a calorie-dense, nutrient-poor food, meaning it has a substantial number of calories in a small quantity of food and little nutritional value. Because of its high sugar content, avoiding candy is particularly important if you have diabetes mellitus or prediabetes. With these conditions, your body fails to distribute and store sugar normally, leading to elevated blood glucose levels. Large amounts of dietary sugar from candy can make controlling your blood sugar level more difficult. Chronically elevated blood sugar levels can lead to a variety of serious health problems, including chronic kidney disease, heart disease, nerve disorders, skin ulcers and infections, glaucoma, and blindness.

Condensed Soup

Many brands of condensed soup contain high levels of sodium, which can endanger your health if you have heart, liver or kidney disease. High sodium intake also works against reducing your blood pressure if you have hypertension. A cup of canned chicken noodle soup, for example, contains more than 1,100 mg of sodium, more than 70 percent of the recommended daily sodium allowance for people with high blood pressure and the elderly. Making your own soup from fresh foods without added salt is a good option if you are on a sodium-restricted diet for health reasons.

Raw or Undercooked Eggs

The bacterium Salmonella Enteritidis contaminates a small percentage of eggs sold in the United States. This bacterium causes salmonellosis, a form of food poisoning. A Salmonella infection can be life-threatening if you have a weakened immune system caused by HIV/AIDS, cancer treatment, organ transplant medications or other immunosuppressant medications taken for a chronic inflammatory or autoimmune disease. Avoiding raw or undercooked eggs reduces your risk of contracting salmonellosis. Be aware that some homemade foods, such as salad dressings, sauces, ice cream and eggnog, may contain raw eggs and should be avoided.

Cold Cuts

Commercial cold cuts, such as bologna and salami, contain high concentrations of saturated fats, cholesterol and sodium, three substances that should be limited in your diet if you have coronary heart disease. With this condition, solid deposits containing cholesterol and other substances progressively clog the blood vessels that supply oxygen to your heart. High levels of saturated fats and cholesterol in your diet can accelerate the progression of coronary heart disease, potentially leading to a heart attack. Excess sodium in your diet can raise your blood pressure, which increases the workload on your heart and may contribute to heart disease progression.