Are hotpockets considered bad for you?

Whats something delicious like that without all the fat, sodium, and all that other bad stuff?

Whats something delicious like that without all the fat, sodium, and all that other bad stuff?

ot Pockets - Ham N' Cheese
Servings:
Calories 290 Sodium 640 mg
Total Fat 12 g Potassium 0 mg
Saturated 5 g Total Carbs 36 g
Polyunsaturated 1 g Dietary Fiber 1 g
Monounsaturated 0 g Sugars 4 g
Trans 0 g Protein 10 g
Cholesterol 30 mg
Vitamin A 2% Calcium 15%
Vitamin C 0% Iron 10%

Suggested daily fat intake is tied to calorie needs. The two fats to limit are:

Saturated fat found in meats, butter, cream, or ice cream, and other foods with animal fat.
Trans fat, a man-made fat found in some margarines or packaged baked.
Here are some examples of healthy daily fat allowances.

1,800 Calories a Day

40 to 70 grams of total fat
14 grams or less of saturated fat
2 grams or less of trans fat

2,200 Calories a Day

49 to 86 grams of total fat
17 grams or less of saturated fat
3 grams or less of trans fat

2,500 Calories a Day

56 to 97 grams of total fat
20 grams or less of saturated fat
3 grams or less of trans fat.

Many people know that high sodium intake may lead to hypertension. Approximately 10 percent of people with high blood pressure are sensitive to dietary salt (or sodium). A reduction in sodium helps lower blood pressure in all people with hypertension.

The latest study into dairy, however, is somewhat of a kicker though. For so long the health industry has been touting the benefits of a low-fat diet not only for weight loss but also to keep our arteries from being clogged. That fact is undisputed. But a recent study done by Swedish researchers has thrown a wrench into our thoughts on dairy. Their nine-year study of 19,000 women between the ages of 40 and 55 found that whole (full-fat) milk was linked to lower weight. The women who drank or ate at least one serving of whole milk or cheese gained less weight than their counterparts who drank skim milk and consumed less dairy

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,247323,00.html#ixzz1IRMVc7El

People should take these studies with a grain of salt (but not too much salt, of course.) According to the study’s lead author Dr. Magdalena Rosell, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, this correlation between weight gain and dairy intake might not accurately assess the role dairy foods play in weight loss.

Several factors play a role in studies such as these and should be considered when forming conclusions based on these studies. For instance, the women surveyed who drank whole-milk might have led lifestyles which helped them to better control their weight, and the women who drank fat-free milk may have been already gaining weight and then decided to switch from drinking whole-milk.

Skim or whole?
It depends on your taste. While you've probably always been told to drink reduced-fat milk, the majority of scientific studies show that drinking whole milk actually improves cholesterol levels, just not as much as drinking skim does. One recent exception: Danish researchers found that men who consumed a diet rich in whole milk experienced a slight increase in LDL cholesterol (six points). However, it's worth noting that these men drank six 8-ounce glasses a day, an unusually high amount. Even so, their triglycerides — another marker of heart-disease risk — decreased by 22 percent

1 The current UK health recommendation is to get no more than 35% of your total calorie intake from fat. No more than 11% of that total should be saturated fat derived from animals.

2 The recommended upper limit for women is a daily total of 70g of fat (20g of which can be saturated) and for men 95g (30g of which can be saturated).

Glenys Jones, a nutritionist at the Medical Research Council’s human nutrition research department in Cambridge, says that saturated fat does have an undeservedly poor reputation. “There are different forms of saturated fat, and the fat in red meat, for example, is a form called stearic acid, which isn’t linked to heart disease,” she says. “Other forms, such as the fat in butter, have a much stronger association, and, of course, too much of any fat will result in obesity, which is itself a risk factor for heart disease.” Such confusion, McLagan says, means that “nobody has ever been able to prove the supposed link between a diet high in animal fat and cardiovascular disease, and that’s why we have people such as the Inuit, who eat a lot of animal fat and who do not have high rates of heart disease”.

Over the past 30 years, McLagan says, the move away from saturated fat has had no effect on lowering the incidence of cardiovascular disease. What happened instead, she says, is that people switched to margarine and spreads made from trans fats, which have since been found to be more harmful than saturated fats in causing diabetes and obesity. Our preference for vegetable oils has brought additional health issues. While fish oils are rich in heart-healthy omega-3 essential fatty acids, most vegetable oils, including sunflower and corn oil, are high in the much less beneficial omega-6, of which we already consume too much — the average UK diet has an omega-3 to omega-6 ratio of 1:10, whereas the recommended ratio is 1:3. “An excess of omega-6 has been linked to a range of killer diseases,” says McLagan. “Too much of it also inhibits our uptake of omega-3 from food.” And, after fish oils, what, according to McLagan, is one of the best food sources of omega-3? You guessed it: animal fat.