I’ll be truthful. I make every effort to stay away from canned products. It seems like purchasing healthy canned foods is more of a hassle than a convenience, what with reading labels to make sure metal tins are free of hormone-disrupting BPA, checking nutrition labels to make sure they don’t boast absurdly high sodium contents, and skimming ingredient lists for unsavory additives and preservatives.
Even while the canning industry is diversifying and offering more diet-friendly items than ever before, the canned goods aisle still contains some of the worst diet-busters. If any of these waistline-damaging items are taking up valuable shelf space in your cupboard, check it out and replace them with our Eat This!-recommended substitute.
1. Campbell’s Homestyle Light New England Clam Chowder
Don’t believe the label’s blatant use of the phrases “Light” and “100 Calories Per Serving” to convince you that this soup is healthy. Under the veneer of natural foods, titanium dioxide is a terrible chemical.
According to a recent assessment, this bleaching chemical has several detrimental effects on human health, including impairing the function of digestive cells and lowering the absorption of minerals like iron and zinc. There is no reason TD should be in your soup because it serves no nutritional purpose other than to make manufactured foods white.
2. Old El Paso Traditional Refried Beans
Beans, beans, beans are heart-healthy! Till you add hydrogenated lard to them, that is. Old El Paso refried beans are high in saturated fats and may include artery-clogging trans fats, so you should avoid buying them. Change them out with Amy’s vegetarian options, which are also healthier for your heart because they contain 250 less milligrams of salt.
3. Del Monte Sliced Peaches
Do you have any memories of eating them as a child? You probably had no idea that the peaches in these melt-in-your-mouth treats were actually soaking in high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, sugar, and water.
Just a half cup of these peaches marinated in this sweet mixture yielded 21 grams of sugar. (The same half cup of natural peach wedges only has 7 grams of sugar, per the USDA Nutrient Database.) That is equal to 28% of the daily added sugar allowance that is advised. Choose the “Lite” can instead to reduce your intake of sugar because it has been manufactured with less sugar overall.
4. Hunt’s Manwich Bold Sloppy Joe Sauce
In less than 15 minutes, lunch? Hire a Sloppy Joe now! Grab a bottle of Hunt’s Bold Sloppy Joe Sauce instead. This can mostly contains high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup, except from tomato puree.
The problem with high fructose corn syrup is that it contains a lot of fructose, a particular kind of sugar. High intakes of this sugar have been related to a variety of health problems, including high blood pressure, belly fat, heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and insulin resistance. This is because your liver is the only organ that can digest fructose.
Hunt’s Original Manwich Sauce contains high fructose corn syrup as well, however there are 5 less grams of it, 180 fewer milligrams of salt, and half the sugar.
5. Chef Boyardee JUMBO Spaghetti & Meatballs
Who knew meatballs and spaghetti could include 8 grams of sugar? Chef Boyardee’s use of high fructose corn syrup to their sauce is to blame for this. We have other problems with these canned foods as well.
It obtains a sizeable amount of protein from soy protein concentrate rather than the actual meat used to make the meatballs. Protein concentrate, as opposed to protein isolate, includes more of the nutrients contained in soy, which may increase the likelihood that it contains residues of the pesticides used to produce genetically modified soy.
The meatballs’ 13 grams of fat are mostly derived from soybean oil, and they are caramel-colored to make matters worse.
6. Armour Hearty Homestyle Corned Beef Hash
Armour’s Hearty Homestyle Corned Beef Hash doesn’t include any unsavory ingredients, but the amount of fat it contains—40% of your daily value (DV), 50% of your DV for saturated fat, and the presence of trans fat—in only one cup is cause for worry.
Studies demonstrate that natural trans fats may also have a deleterious impact on cholesterol levels, even though the trans fat is not derived from artificial sources. Additionally, the nearly 1,000 milligrams of sodium in a serving makes our blood boil.
7. Del Monte Fruit Cocktail No Sugar Added
The phrase “no sugar added” normally means that we still sweeten the product, but we do it by substituting artificial sweeteners for cane sugar. And with this Del Monte can of fruit cocktail, it is exactly the situation.
It is sweetened with Acesulfame Potassium and Sucralose, two artificial sweeteners that have been linked to a number of adverse health effects, including an imbalance in the flora of your gut and the resetting of your sweetness receptors.
We advise choosing Del Monte’s “Lite” version, which is described below, if you want to reduce the amount of sugar (21 grams in the ordinary can).
8. Bush’s Best Brown Sugar Hickory Baked Beans
Nearly four Oreo cookies’ worth of sugar are in one dish of beans! To make matters worse, Bush’s also uses caramel color, a food additive known to include the potentially cancer-causing compound 4-methylimidazole, to artificially color its beans.
You’d be better off avoiding any items containing this ingredient because it has no nutritional advantages, even though it hasn’t been shown in human research. Instead, Amy’s bakes beans that are delightfully sweet and without any unsavory additions for a quarter of the salt and sugar content.
9. Wolf Brand Chili With Beans Authentic Texas Recipes
The chili from Wolf Brand doesn’t belong in your cupboard since it packs over 1,000 mg of salt into a meager 1-cup serving and is one of the few soups available with any artery-clogging trans fat. By choosing a comparable Campbell’s chili product, you may reduce your intake of calories, 12 grams of fat, and 4 grams of saturated fat.
10. SPAM with CHEESE
The chili from Wolf Brand doesn’t belong in your cupboard since it packs over 1,000 mg of salt into a meager 1-cup serving and is one of the few soups available with any artery-clogging trans fat. Pick up a similar product to reduce the number of calories, 12 grams of fat, and 4 grams of saturated fat.
Although SPAM may be quite disgusting, it is manufactured with respectable materials, including pork, salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite. While it has more sodium than we’d like, it it makes a respectable substitute for SPAM with Cheese. This fake cuisine is heavily fortified with sodium phosphates and tinted with synthetic colors.
