These are 12 foods that are sold in Indian market under the umbrella of healthy food/ drinks:
1. On top of the list comes the Real juices, B natural, Tropicana, Minute Maid, and other juice brands. They all are packed with sugar and salt making it unhealthy for a person who is physically inactive.
In the picture above [1], please note sugar and salt in its ingredients. Sugar and salt is not “real fruit” and it is the sugar and salt that makes it delightful to our taste buds but very unhealthy for our body.
(Quick Tip: Consume the fruit, or make juice in your home)
2. Instant noodles (Patanjali, Maggi, Horlicks, Yipee, Knorr)
Maggi comes with a tagline “Health bhi, taste bhi” (Health as well as taste). Patanjali thinks that they are synonymous with health. It is just that Patanjali noodles is lesser of the evils.
If you see closely [2], Patanjali has not mentioned sodium in the nutritional information. It uses refined wheat flour, which is not as healthy as Patanjali sounds. There are other ingredients such as E627, E631, E415, and E330 that have raised concerns.
(Quick Tip: Even Atta Noodles are unhealthy. Stay away from noodles)
3. Sauces and Ketchups ( especially Patanjali, Kissan, Maggi)
Do not go with the name of Patanjali. Patanjali ketchups are as unhealthy as their counterparts. They also use high amount of salt, high amount of sugar, and Sodium Benzoate IN 211 [3]. In the label, you can see that only 35 percent is the tomato paste.
(Quick Tip: Go with Heinz tomato ketchup. They are comparatively less unhealthy)
4. Instant Masala Oats (especially Saffola, Kellogg’s, Quaker)
Oats are great to control weight and are good source of carbohydrates, and dietary fibre but Masala oats are packed with salt, sugar and flavour enhancers that are not good for your health if you are consuming it on daily basis. It is not a smarter way to stay fit. Rather you will be living in a fool’s paradise.
(Quick tip: Buy natural oats. Check ingredients before purchasing oats)
5. Soup (Knorr, Bambino)
They are not healthy at all as they portray in their advertisements.
It has hydrolysed vegetable protein (basically for enhancing flavours), edible vegetable oil, salt, sugar, which are not healthy at all.
(Quick Tip: Make soup at home)
6. Subway
It is your choice of bread and sauce that make it unhealthy. Comparatively, it is better than eating at McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominos, KFC etc.
(Quick Tip: Go for honey mustard, mustard sauces and multi grain bread)
Edit 1:
7. Bournvita, Boost, Horlicks, Complan
Although they say to enhance the milk nutrients, but in reality, they actually have sugar and sodium in it. Bournvita writes that they have whey protein in it and it indeed has but it a low quality protein: soy protein [4]. It also has sugar and sodium in it. So, here is my preference: Bournvita=Boost<Horlicks<Complan<<Protein X<<<Whey Protein Concentrate
8. Brown Bread (especially Indian made)
Whole wheat bread and brown bread are not made up of 100 percent whole wheat. They are made up of 40 to 50 percent of refined wheat flour, which is again not good for you if you are not working out.
9. Britannia NutriChoice Digestive Biscuits (and other similar biscuits)
Although they are better than other biscuits out there in the market, they don’t deserve to cost as much as they do. It is so because if you see the ingredients 43% is the refined wheat flour (maida), which is a white carb/ bad carb. Other than this, it has edible vegetable oil in its ingredients list.
10. Lassi (especially meethi Lassi) :
No matter how much Punjabis brag about the health benefits of Lassi especially in summer, packaged Lassi is unhealthy because it contains high amount of sugar. Moreover, you are getting milk fat, which is not healthy fat. It increases bad cholesterol.
(Quick Tip: Please see in Prabhjot Singh [ https://www.quora.com/profile/Prabhjot-Singh-48 ]’s comment below why traditional Punjabi lassi is different. He says, “Lassi has very different taste and color from these packaged ones. Lassi is never sweet at all. First of all milk is heated for all day in kaarhni (pot like made from clay) at too low flame. At the end of day milk is now red in color. It is now when small amount of curd is added to it and left for whole night. In the morning we are wi...