Wrappers Suck

Wrappers are terrible things.  Not because the plastic and foil and foam clog landfills and sewers, but due to what’s inside of them.  One of the simplest choices that you can make with your nutrition is to limit your intake of food that comes in wrappers.  There are a few basic reasons for this, and I’ll lay them out for you.

Food in wrappers usually isn’t food, it is instead food like substances. Think about this one for a second.  If you imagine something wrapped in a foil or plastic wrapper in your head, what does it look like?  Odds are it’s some variation on a snack ‘food’.  It may be a variation of a cookie, or a chip, or maybe your favorite granola bar.  It shouldn’t be news to anybody that these aren’t healthy foods.  Oh, wait, you think your Chewy bars are healthy?  Read the label, and you’ll see you’re eating mostly simple sugars coming from high fructose corn syrup and other man-made, processed substances.

I should clarify this tip for you.  Food that is manufactured straight into a wrapper, and can be stored at room temperature, is what to avoid.  This simple tip can help you eliminate many of the ‘empty calories’ that have become synonymous with snack food, and by relation obesity.  Those 100-calorie packs?  They’re making you fat.

By simply eliminating foods that come in wrappers from your diet, you’ll find that a good majority of the junk food is gone.  There are obvious exclusions here, like the aforementioned cookies and chips.  However, we also find the processed bar in wrappers, which are generally assumed to be healthy.  Fault for this goes on the food industry, because they market these little squares of diabetes as healthy!  Many people eat Chewy bars, or Lara bars, or Clif Bars, or MetRX bars, or whatever kind of bar you can imagine.  For the most part, these bars can sit on your shelf for a few seasons before anything starts to degrade inside of that wrapper.  These aren’t foods, they’re foot like substances.  (A while back I discussed the YouBar which allows for custom, all natural bars…I’d certainly go with those over the other varieties.)

Eliminating food that sits in wrappers at room temperature is usually a fantastic strategy for those who are working to make better nutrition choices.  If you rely on these foods in your daily life, you may find that it’s a simple change that can lead to weight loss, as you’re cutting out empty calories.  However, if your goal is NOT to lose weight, and just to clean up your nutrition, you need to replace those calories with some other foods.  If you’ve begun to limit the foods that you eat that come in wrappers, you can replace them with the following list of foods that naturally come in wrappers!

Hard Boiled Eggs – Eggs are one of the best things that you can eat; hard boiled ones won’t break in your pocket, and you can peel and eat them anywhere.

Fruits – Apples, Bananas, Pears, Peaches – They can all be stowed in a bag or backpack and pulled out when needed.  The skin on these nutritious fruits are natural wrappers, except in this case these wrappers are GOOD for you!

Nuts – Specifically, Peanuts.  While cracking peanuts out of the shell may be a messy and time consuming, the insides are worth it.  You find tons of healthy fat and protein inside of peanuts, and you’ll find that you can eat a lot less before you feel full.

Those are just a few suggestions of healthy, nutritious foods that you can take with you anywhere in place of processed junk that comes in a shiny wrapper.  Making simple changes in food selection can make a huge difference when it comes to your diet. By avoiding processed foods and eating natural ones, you can eliminate empty calories and maximize the nutrient density of what you’re eating.  Avoiding wrapped food, and instead eating fresh (or refridgerated) natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, eggs, and healthy meats, can go a long way when it comes to your diet, your health, and your performance.

To end, I leave you with the one rapper that you want in your life as much as possible.  Get up and dance, then eat a banana and a hard boiled egg.