First of all: there are no forbidden foods. There are foods that bring us greater or lesser benefits, just as they can be more or less harmful.

In most cases, we know very well which foods have less benefits or can even be harmful for us, but many times we pretend to not know or simple hope that it isn’t so bad. We feel the satisfaction which they were made for and let this overrule the losses that they will cause us in the medium and long term. We prefer to chose immediate pleasure over a healthier, longer life.

What doesn’t help to make a better choice is that those foods were created to be highly tempting and addictive, we can buy them everywhere and for little money. Daily we are bombarded with propaganda to consume them and this made it socially accepted to eat them.

Many of the available ones are developed and marketed so that they appear to be a healthy and excellent option but, in reality, they are only bad choices.

Here are some foods that we should reduce in our diet. If we want to eliminate them, even better:

• Refined sugarcane, brown sugar and synthetic sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin;
• Soft drinks/soda;
• Highly processed foods. They usually contain trans fats to maintain the taste and texture for a long time, as well as many additives. Of “natural” these foods have almost nothing;
• Reduce all food based on refined white flour (mainly wheat, maize and soybeans because they are usually genetically modified organisms (GMOs));
• Avoid coffee. It is treated with chemicals that are harmful to us as well as some teas;
• Alcohol should be ingested very sparingly, and distilled beverages should be avoided.
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We can continue with the list, but if we make these changes in our diet, it will be a huge step towards improving health and quality of life.

This list includes many foods and we know that it is not easy to change from one day to the next, but if we can’t, let’s break it down. First, we remove the foods that are included in one of the points. When this new habit has already been acquired (one or two months) we take the food from another point and so on. To do those changes now is an effort, but if you keep this mindset, it will get easier with time and you will be grateful later for your decision to tackle it.