What do you do when your sweet tooth kicks in, but you’re trying to watch your weight? You could completely ignore your craving for sweets (good luck with that!), or you could try to satisfy it with something that is sweet but is also supposed to be healthy for you.
Nutella is one of those go-to foods for so many people. A mixture of hazelnuts, cocoa and a number of other ingredients that are supposed to be ‘good for you’ is definitely why a large population of people love Nutella.
It’s healthy and it tastes great, right? Well, as it turns out, this tasty treat (yes, it’s still tasty), could actually be far worse for you than it is good.
The Bad Side of Nutella
You probably don’t even know it, but there are some sneaky little ingredients hidden in the chocolaty goodness of Nutella that could be wrecking havoc on your waistline and various other parts of your body.
What are these bad ingredients? – Palm seed oil, lecithin and monosodium glutamate.
Better known as ‘MSG,’ Monosodium Glutamate is a salt that comes out of the amino acid Glutamic Acid, or glutamate. In layman’s terms, this means that a single (mono) sodium atom is added to glutamate. Nutella adds this ingredient to one of the primary flavors of its food, vanilla. Why?
Well, for the same reason that so many other people add it to their foods; because MSG helps to enhance flavor. So, Nutella adds it to their product in order to make it more flavorful. That would be great and all, ifMSG didn’t cause a number of side effects.
Though it is deemed safe by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), MSG has been linked to a number of side effects that negatively impact health. These effects include:
- Intense headaches
- Flushing of the cheeks
- Profuse sweating
- The feeling of pressure and tightness in the face
- A rapid or a fluttering heartbeat
- Numbness and tingling of the face or neck
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Chest pain
Palm oil, another one of the secret bad-for-you ingredients in Nutella, is derived from the seeds of the palm seed. Why is it so bad? Well, because it is extremely high in fat, which is bad for your waistline and for your heart; but there is another reason why palm oil is bad – for theenvironment. You see, palm oil is taking from the seed of palm oil trees.
These trees are native to Africa, Indonesia and parts of Brazil and in order to obtain it, manufacturers are knocking down trees in these parts of the world. The production of palm oil is greatly contributing to deforestation, which in turn has lead a number of animals onto the brink of extinction; the Sumatran orangutan, for one.
Soy lecithin, the GMO that is found in Nutella, is the waste product of soy oil. Once the soil oil is degummed, soybean lecithin is left over, a sludge that contains solvents and pesticides.
So, now that you know what’s actually hiding inside of your beloved jar of Nutella, do you think that you are going to continue eating it?
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