5. Microwave Popcorn
What could be easier than tossing a bag in the microwave, pressing a button and then voila: delicious popcorn?! Popcorn is a healthy snack offering potassium, iron and fiber. But microwave popcorn comes with some risks, cancer being one. A chemical that lines the microwavable bag decomposes and forms a compound that has been linked to liver and pancreatic cancer. A separate chemical used to flavor the popcorn can cause the lung condition called bronchiolitis obliterans. One way to decrease your chances of developing this is to let the bag of heated popcorn cool before opening it. One way to avoid all the ailments is to use a hot air popper or the stove top to pop your kernels. Remember to go easy on the butter!
6. Dirty Fruit
Can we offer you a bowl of delicious pesticides? How about poison in a peel? Actually, the peel is good because it shields the edible fruit from the plethora of pesticides that shower the crops. 165 pesticides to be exact. Some of them have been linked to cancer. In the effort to make fruit unappealing to insects, we make the fruit unhealthy for humans. The bugs might pass because of the pesticides, but then the poisoned fruit winds up in your market and then on your table. Uh-oh. In the Environmental Working Group’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, apples, peaches, grapes and strawberries made it to the list of the “Dirty Dozen” fruits that contained the highest concentrations of pesticides. Healthy? We think not. Best to spend a little extra on organic. Otherwise, you might pay for it later.