Belly fat is dangerous and (unfortunately) this is partly what causes it
You won’t hear us saying very often that you should give up something delicious, and certainly not because you should want to be thin or anything. Of course not! But it is important to know that body fat in one place is more dangerous than in another. So if eating too much KitKat cake only gives you slightly rounder cheeks, or makes you gain weight around your hips, you’re lucky, because fat just beneath the skin is less harmful to you than deeper-lying visceral belly fat. And these are some of the things that can cause that belly fat, meaning you really shouldn’t eat them regularly:
Belly fat is a major risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and several studies conducted by, among others, Harvard Medical School and Leiden University Medical Center investigated whether belly fat might be even more dangerous for women than for men. What is clear is this: we could all do better to leave the salted breadsticks and these other things alone…
Foods that cause belly fat
The fact that plain potato chips are still the healthiest of all potato chips does not mean they are ‘good for you’. Unfortunately. Even worse news is that the humble potato, simply boiled or deliciously baked, isn’t all that good for you either—unless you’re a slim person who gets a lot of exercise or does heavy physical work. According to Harvard research, potatoes also cause blood sugar and insulin levels to spike dramatically, and they belong not on the list of healthy foods but among those you should eat only occasionally. And don’t even get us started on fries!
Salted breadsticks and pretzels
Unfair, right? Salted breadsticks don’t even seem that bad for you compared with chips, not even those plain chips that are less unhealthy than most varieties with their endlessly long lists of chemical ingredients. But a salted breadstick does absolutely nothing for you except transport little chunks of salt into your body on a stick of white flour. That salt sets a kind of numbed pattern of passive overeating in motion, so before you know it you’ve polished off the entire bag of breadsticks. And that’s a few more grams of belly fat waiting to happen…
Rib-eye
Maybe you’re thinking, ‘Huh?’ A small steak is supposed to count as lean meat, right? Take Anna Wintour, the Anna Wintour of American Vogue, for example, who eats a steak every day (probably just that) and doesn’t have a trace of belly fat to be seen? Unfortunately, one cut of meat is not the same as another. There are certainly lean cuts of red meat, such as a simple steak or a beef cut, and even an entrecôte is a lean piece of meat from which you can trim the fat. But a beautiful rib-eye is characterized by its marbling—and guess what that consists of? Fat, indeed. That delicious fat, running so beautifully in thin streaks throughout the meat, adds and carries a great deal of flavor, but as a source of saturated fat it also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. By the way, do you want to eat an amazing dry-aged rib-eye? Then go to Midtown Grill in Amsterdam; they serve genuinely excellent and incredibly delicious meat.
Fruit juice
Yes, orange juice does contain vitamin C, but it is also absolutely packed with (naturally occurring) sugars. The Netherlands Nutrition Centre reports that drinking sugary beverages such as orange juice increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. Fructose (fruit sugar) is unfortunately also one of the things considered a cause of belly fat, so perhaps next time you should opt for a glass of water with a slice of fruit in it? (As long as nobody serves water with lemon alongside the meal, former colleague Emma asks.)
Yogurt with a layer of fruit at the bottom
That layer of ‘fruit’ at the bottom is usually just a good disguise for some kind of compote or jam—in other words: packed with sugar. The yogurt itself, eaten plain, wouldn’t be bad for you at all, but as soon as a factory wants to add a flavor, you can almost always count on it not being the healthiest option. Those sugars added to the fruit lead to—yes, belly fat, so you’re better off having an apple of your own to cut up into your (deliciously thick Greek) yogurt.
Also read:
- Dear buttermilk drinkers: stop this
- Dentists warn: you’d better not eat or drink these things right now
- Meat 2.0: a steak from the printer
