10 Foods This Registered Dietitian Would Never Eat

I pride myself in being a pretty open-minded dietitian. Yeah, beans and whole grains are important, but sometimes I just need something a little more indulgent. There aren’t too many foods I wouldn’t eat or at least try. There are some not-so-healthy foods I do enjoy for pure nostalgia, knowing this food is serving no health benefits, just joyous reminders of my childhood, or because they’re just delicious.

But there are some foods though, that I really do avoid. My decisions ultimately came down to food quality, degree of processing, sodium, sugar and fat content. Here are ten foods this registered dietitian would never eat.

And none of us are perfect. We all have our weaknesses. But when it comes to drawing the line, these are ten food types that essentially have no nutritional value. In fact, they are so detrimental that I would never eat them.

Here are ten foods this registered dietitian would never eat

1. Kids’ Cereals (And Some Adult Cereals too!)

I can just see the situation unfold when I see parents and kids stroll down the cereal aisle; the child sees a new cereal with their favorite character or mascot and proceeds to beg and plead with their mom or dad to get it. Food manufacturers and grocers are smart; they purposefully stock kids’ cereals on the lower shelves so that they are at direct eye-level for them.

Unfortunately, they pack these cereals with too many added sugars. Added sugars are purely extra, non-nutritive calories; they offer no health benefits, and are a health deterrent. Excess sugar/calorie intake can be linked to an increased risk of obesity, inflammation, heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and dental cavities. Making it an easy addition to a list of foods this registered dietitian would never eat.

Folks 2 years and older should limit their added sugar intake to no more than 10% of their total calories for the day. So if you consume ~1800 calories each day, aim to eat less than 45g of added sugar daily. As a reference, a 12oz can of cola is about 40g of added sugar.

As I mentioned before, this is not limited to kids’ cereals. Some adult cereals are just as guilty of excessive added sugar content. A good rule of thumb is to choose a few cereals to compare their added sugar and with the least amount of added sugars, or no more than 9g of added sugars.

2. Deep Fried Desserts

A carnival favorite. Deep fried desserts usually make an appearance at various beach boardwalks, festivals, fairs and theme parks.

I’m talking about those certain cookies and candies that have been battered and deep fried. Some folks experimented with deep frying ice cream and cheesecake too. (None of those would be foods this registered dietitian would eat.) Donuts and churros are in a different category as the frying process defines these desserts.

Desserts have a time and place. Believe me, I love dessert.

But I’m more of a purist. I like desserts in a much more natural form. I understand that candy, cheesecake and cookies are not offering anything beneficial. They are loaded with saturated fat and sugar. I can accept that.

Adding batter and deep frying is adding more unnecessary saturated fats and calories to an already unhealthy food item. The American Heart Association recommends limiting your saturated fat intake to 5-6% of your total calories. Excess saturated fat can increase heart disease risk by raising bad (LDL) cholesterol. For me, it’s enough to enjoy that piece of candy or slice of cake without having to go overboard. 

Also Read: These are 10 canned foods that are surprisingly good for you

3. Cheese from a Can 

I love cheese. There, I said it. I enjoy browsing the cheese section at stores and trying new kinds and flavors. And I appreciate the different flavors, textures, and creaminess of cheese. Especially when pairing it with grapes and crackers.

But don’t be fooled. I’m talking about real cheese here. The key is enjoying it on occasion. Canned cheese, on the other hand, is one of the most highly processed foods out there. I do not entertain the thought of adding it to my grocery cart. Honestly this is a food that probably no other registered dietitians would eat.

I was looking at the ingredient list of a popular aerosol cheese brand. (Which will remain nameless.) Where do you think cheese landed on that list? First? Nope. Second? Not even close. OK, I’ll tell you. Fourth!

The FDA lists ingredients in order of amount. So the first ingredient is what a product contains the most of. The second ingredient is the second most, and so on. For a canned “cheese” product the have cheese as the fourth ingredient tells you everything you need to know.

It contained multiple artificial ingredients and preservatives too. A serving of canned cheese provides over 400 mg of sodium, while a 1 oz slice of cheddar cheese has about 180 mg of sodium. If I want cheese, I’d rather indulge in the real thing rather than settle for a highly processed spray cheese.  

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4. (Most) TV Dinners 

I understand the convenience of TV or ready-to-eat frozen meals. They’re a fast option when you’re busy or maybe forgot to go to the grocery store. They are also an easy choice if you hate cooking or don’t feel confident in your abilities. Their sodium content, however, makes me salty. Food manufactures use sodium for flavor and to help preserve foods.

However, our Western diets are already sodium heavy, from the lunchmeat, condiments, cheese, bread and rolls we use for sandwiches to the crackers, chips, and pretzels we like to snack on. Most frozen meals have tons of sodium. (Even the “healthy” ones.) Some include almost half our daily recommended intake. That depends on the brand and dish, of course. But no matter what, that is just for one meal.

And excess sodium has been linked to an increased risk of hypertension — or high blood pressure. Uncontrolled hypertension overtime increases risk for heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease. It can cause vascular and organ damage too.

The American Heart Association recommends limiting sodium intake to no more than 2300mg/day, with an ultimate goal of no more than 1500mg/day. I like recommending low sodium or “no added salt” versions of foods, when able, to help control sodium intake. With frozen meals, try to choose meals with less than 600mg of sodium per serving.

Also Read: These are the 7 best canned fish brands on the market

5. Super Sized Anything

Overtime, portions of foods have increased in America. A study in the American Journal of Public Health found that portion sizes of pastas, sodas, baked goods, fast-food burgers and fries have dramatically increased since the 1970s.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “a direct, causal relationship between portion size and obesity has not been demonstrated, current research indicates that energy intake in children and adults is influenced by the size of the served portion, with larger served portions resulting in significant increases in energy intake.”

OK, this isn’t technically one of the foods this registered dietitian would never eat – but you get the point

Supersizing anything is going to increase our overall calorie intake, and can increase weight-gain risk if these supersized foods are energy dense such as baked goods, sodas, fast food, chips, etc.

Increased portions lead to overeating.

I’m a firm believer in the “everything in moderation” cliche. The problem is, we have totally skewed our sense of portions and moderation. Many food companies are promoting larger portions (think gas station sodas and value meals at fast food restaurants) as a better bang for your buck. Over time this can alter what we think of as a normal portion, and therefore we unknowingly increase our calorie intake.

It is best practice then, to be mindful of our portions and avoid excessively large portions. Choose a smaller-size drink, a kids meal option, and use a smaller plate. When dining out, take half your meal home with you, or split your dish with someone. Look at your bag of chips, if a serving is 13 chips, count them out to see how much of these foods you are eating. 

6. Processed Meats

And this was the hardest one for me to come to terms with. I grew up eating lunchmeat sandwiches, and even today my family has a huge tray of meat, cheese and crackers for every holiday.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer declared processed meats to be Group 1 carcinogens in October 2015, indicating that there is sufficient evidence in humans that eating them causes colorectal cancer. “Processed meat” includes salted, cured, fermented, or smoked products, everything from bacon, hot dogs, and deli meats to sausages and ham.

It’s that number: every 50 grams eaten daily (about two slices of deli ham) is associated with an 18 percent higher risk of colorectal cancer.

I want to be careful with that 18 percent, because it is the part that gets repeated badly. It is a relative increase, not an 18 percent chance of getting cancer. IARC’s Kurt Straif has pointed out that an individual’s risk of cancer from processed meat remains small, and increases with consumption. Finally, and most importantly, “Group 1” has nothing to do with the degree of danger. It simply classifies the level of certainty that a substance causes cancer in humans. Cigarettes, for example, are Group 1 carcinogens, but that doesn’t mean that a turkey sandwich is the same as a cigarette.

So this isn’t a food I worry about. It’s a food I no longer buy on a weekly basis.

7. The Seven Highest-Mercury Fish

I’m always telling people to eat more fish, and it is one of the few foods where I find myself talking patients into eating more of it. But there are seven I don’t mess with.

In a published chart, the FDA and EPA have broken fish down into Best Choices, Good Choices, and Choices to Avoid. On the avoid list, which they say includes the highest mercury levels, are king mackerel, marlin, orange roughy, shark, swordfish, tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico, and bigeye tuna. That guidance was most recently updated in October 2021.

There are two things to consider about this guidance. 1) Tilefish specifically refers to Gulf of Mexico tilefish. Atlantic tilefish is listed under Good Choices, so just knowing the fish type isn’t enough to know what you’ve got in your hands. 2) This information is intended for pregnant women, women who might become pregnant, nursing mothers, and those who serve fish to kids between the ages of 1-11.

But I’m not any of those things and I skip them anyway. It’s a decision for me, not a directive for anyone else. For the rest of you, however, that table says 2-3 weekly servings from the Best Choices list. That one we can all agree on.

8. Raw Milk

Raw milk is the one on this list where I have the least patience for the marketing, because the claims have increased but the safety data hasn’t changed at all.

In a 2017 paper in the CDC’s journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, researchers looked at outbreak data from 2009 to 2014 and found that unpasteurized dairy was associated with 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized dairy.

It’s the proportion that really gets me. About 3.2 percent of the population drink raw milk, and 1.6 percent eat raw milk cheese. Together, they make up 96 percent of the cases of disease from tainted dairy.

This 840 number compares people who drink raw milk versus people who drink pasteurized milk; it is not illnesses per gallon, and it only includes illnesses that were part of an outbreak. It does not include sporadic cases, so if anything it is the conservative version.

The calcium, the protein and the vitamin D are not significantly affected by pasteurization. I have never seen a nutritional argument for drinking raw milk that holds up under scrutiny of the data.

9. Energy Drinks

I drink coffee. I am not anti-caffeine. Energy drinks are a different product and I treat them that way.

In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a clinical report in the journal Pediatrics saying energy drinks are never appropriate for children or adolescents, and that the stimulants in them have no place in those diets. This report is now more than 10 years old, and I haven’t found evidence that the AAP has replaced it with a newer report, so I’m referencing it for what it is and not as current guidance.

The FDA states that for adults, roughly 400 milligrams of caffeine per day doesn’t seem to be related to adverse events in healthy individuals. Some single serving cans go over 500. The agency hasn’t established any limits for kids, though the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends that children between the ages of 12 and 18 consume less than 100 milligrams of caffeine each day.

What bothers me is not the caffeine itself. It’s that the caffeine comes with a huge serving of sugar, or substitutes for sugar, in a package that no one would ever regard as a serving.

10. Anything Sold to Me as the Diet Version

That’s the surprising one, because dietitians are supposed to love the diet version.

The World Health Organization issued a recommendation in May 2023 that advised against the use of non-sugar sweeteners as a means of controlling body weight or reducing the incidence of noncommunicable disease. The evidence review that underpinned the recommendation noted the absence of long-term benefits of non-sugar sweeteners for lowering body fat in adults or children, and the potential harmful consequences of their long-term consumption, such as increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mortality in adults.

So let’s make sure we are clear on this. The qualifiers are doing their job, and I’m not going to ignore them. WHO says this recommendation is conditional. It doesn’t cover those with existing diabetes. This is not an assessment of safety, so it doesn’t shift the acceptable daily intakes for any of the sweeteners in question, nor does it cover sugar alcohols. There was weight loss seen in short term trials against sugar. Long-term observational studies went the opposite way.

So I’m not saying you’re in danger from diet soda. I’m just saying that switching hasn’t been proven to work, and that’s all I need to know to stop buying it.

Foods this Registered Dietitian Would Never Eat – In Conclusion

It’s important to be mindful of our food choices. We stock our grocery stores with overly-processed, high fat, high salt, high sugar foods. Why? Because that’s what most Americans find palatable. Also, it’s cheap for manufacturers to produce too, which is cost-effective for consumers.

As I said before, there’s a time and place for most foods. But the over-processed, overly-indulgent foods like those listed above I avoid. For me, these foods have gone overboard.

They are so far from their original form, that their sodium, fat and sugar content are unappealing. They can increase risk for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, inflammation and kidney disease. We should fuel our body with good food and indulge in moderation.

Christine Morgan, RD, LDN

Christine Morgan is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian who currently practices in dialysis.