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Maintaining a healthy diet is constant work. You have to remain mindful of yourself and what you are eating, being sure to always balance out any unhealthy snacks with healthy snacks. While it can be a fun challenge to build up a roster of healthy meals you can make at home, keeping a routine of home cooking can become a hefty task over time.
There are many prepared foods that many people buy to keep in their pantry as a healthy snack or easy meal when they’re running low on time, but you’d be surprised to know that one of these pantry staples can actually cause weight gain.
Fruit is almost always a good choice as a healthy snack when you’re dieting or trying to maintain weight. It doesn’t contain added sugars and most fruits even have beneficial vitamins and nutrients that can help you stay healthy. But canned fruit is not as good for you as fresh fruit. In fact, you should never keep canned fruit in your pantry when trying to stay in shape.
Canned fruit usually contains added ingredients that cause weight gain. This is surprising to most people, but if you look at what goes into canned fruit to help preserve it and maintain its flavor over time, this makes sense.
There is typically a heavy syrup coating fruit when it is canned, which adds a LOT of sugar to the fruit. A can of pears can have an extra seven grams of sugar, in addition to the natural sugars already found in the fruit. These high levels of sugar can negate most of the healthy benefits of fruit.
For a better easy snack option, try eating fresh fruit or nuts. If you still want to have canned fruit, try looking for an option without added sugars next time you’re shopping.
