Spring Clean Your Diet By Ditching These 5 Foods

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It’s springtime, and you may be ready to do a total overhaul of your home, scrubbing every corner and washing everything in sight. Why not do the same for your diet? A spring cleaning diet is perfect for anyone who wants to start fresh or turn over a new leaf. Whatever gets you in the mood to renew yourself.

Here are some foods to cut from your routine, like, yesterday:

1. Foods And Drinks With Added Sugar

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You would be surprised to find how much added sugar is hiding in your seemingly healthy packaged foods (think salad dressings and packaged oatmeals, for example). Consuming too much sugar without knowing it could put you at risk for heart disease.

2. “Zero-Calorie” Foods And Drinks

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Say goodbye to artificially sugar-free or reduced calories foods and drinks. Zero-calorie sweeteners can keep you hooked on your sugar addiction, while adding unnecessary chemicals to your body. In turn, your gut could be compromised and your taste buds could get too used to the products’ overly sweet taste that natural sugars just won’t satisfy you.

3. The “Dirty Dozen”

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You may have already heard this term, which refers to the 12 foods you should always buy organic, specifically because they are the most contaminated with harmful pesticides. Avoid the dirty dozen below and make sure to go the organic route with these foods:

• Apples
• Sweet Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Pears
• Grapes (Imported)
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Potatoes
• Peaches

Many people don’t realize how many chemicals they’re ingesting when they don’t go organic with “dirty dozen” foods. The extra dollar or two is worth it. Shell out for the good stuff.

4. High-Sodium Frozen Meals

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Yes, that Lean Cuisine is 240 calories, but take a look at the label and you’ll notice it’s probably sky high in sodium. Plenty of frozen foods use salt as a preservative and flavor booster. It’s not even worth saving the calories because the excess sodium can seriously mess up your body. Make sure to avoid foods that contain more than 20 percent of your daily recommended value per serving.

5. Processed Meats

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This shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise, but processed meats like sliced ham or turkey lunch meat and bacon have been smoked, cured, salted and preserved, which keeps them high in carcinogens. Carcinogens can cause colon cancer in particular, which should be enough of a reason to toss these foods for good.