Nutritional mythbusters

Posted by vicki l.

Don?t eat at night or you?ll get fat. Avoid shrimp if you?ve got high cholesterol. Eat grapefruit to help burn fat. We?ve all heard things like that. But what's real and what's myth. Christine Gutelius, a nutrition resource educator at Cornell University's Cooperative Extension in Cayuga County, N.Y., sets us straight: 1. Calories eaten at night are more fattening - Nope. You can only gain weight at night if you're taking in more calories than you burn. Nighttime snacks, however, tend to be calorie-heavy (think ice cream, so you want to watch it. 2. Skip breakfast to lose weight - Nope. That only makes you hungrier later on, when you?ll be tempted to either snack or eat more. Plus studies show breakfast-eaters tend to lose weight and keep it off. 3. Avoid shrimp if you're watching your cholesterol - Nope. Shrimp is high in dietary cholesterol but low in saturated fat, and that's what's bad for your blood cholesterol level. 4. Burn fat by eating grapefruit, cabbage soup and celery - Nope. You can only burn fat by being active. There are no ?fat-burning? foods. 5. Fresh veggies are always nutritious than frozen - Not necessarily, especially if those fresh vegetables have traveled a long way, losing much of their nutritional oomph along the way. Flash-freezing vegetables right after picking locks in their vitamins. Keep them by steaming them.