Of all the food labels out there, "low-fat" is one of the most deceptive. On the surface, low-fat foods feel like a good thing to buy: We've been taught that fatty foods are unhealthy, and so if something's low-fat that can only be a good thing, right? Cue filling our baskets with low-fat yogurts, cheeses, and smoothies, safe in the knowledge that it'll be good for us. Except it might not be.
There's a false belief that "low-fat" also means "healthy" and that's simply not the case. While some low-fat foods can be healthy, others can be full of added sugar, copious amounts of salt, or a range of additives that bulk it out and make them more palatable — but may not be that good for you. Ingredients like sugar and salt may lack fat, but they can also contribute to unhealthy outcomes in other ways.
These nutrients are often added to improve the taste of low-fat products, which often lose flavor when fat is removed. In this article, we decided to look at the biggest culprits out there. We primarily identified foods that had additional or alternative ingredients that bolstered their flavor — and in doing so, made them unhealthier by raising their sugar or sodium levels, adding in unnecessary extra stabilizers or fillers, or using unhealthy ingredients that could have negative health effects.
1. Low-fat yogurt There are a lot of unhealthy yogurt brands out there . While low-fat yogurt may seem like a good idea, it's often anything but.
Low-fat and nonfat fruit yogurts can often .
