I caught-up with a good friend of mine the other day – a guy who is super busy and just does not have the time to work out what he should and shouldn’t eat. He asked me what he should avoid – I think Michael Roizen’s list of the ‘Five Food Felons’ (below) is a very good starting point:

  1. and 2. Simple sugars and syrups. This includes brown sugar, dextrose, corn sweetener, fructose (as in high-fructose corn syrup), glucose, corn syrup, honey, invert sugar, maltose, lactose, malt syrup, molasses, evaporated cane sugar, raw sugar, and sucrose.

  2. Saturated fat. This includes most four-legged animal fat, milk fat, butter or lard, and tropical oils, such as palm and coconut.

  3. Trans Fat. This includes partially hydrogenated fats, vegetable oil blends that are hydrogenated, and many margarines and cooking blends.

  4. Enriched flours and all flours other than 100 percent whole grain or 100 percent whole wheat. This includes enriched white or non-100 percent whole flours, semolina, durum wheat, and any of the acronyms for flour that is not 100 percent whole wheat — they should not be in your kitchen, your mouth or your body.’

via Michael Roizen, M.D.: Why Health Coaching Will Create American Jobs.