What Are Nutritionally Void Foods?

After WLS we must concentrate on eating nutrient rich food. Nutritionally void foods cannot be part of the regular diet after surgery because they can cause dumping, vomiting and/or weight gain. In addition, the body is taxed by the bypassed system and to put foods into it which are difficult to process and digest only taxes the body further keeping us from feeling optimum health.

In traditional dieting we learn to avoid “unhealthy” foods – those that tend to least resemble their original natural ingredients and have the most added refined and artificial additives. After gastric bypass we MUST avoid these foods, it’s not a suggestion – it is a way of life.

Top of the list of foods that must be avoided are “white foods” – white sugar, white flour and white fat. There are many foods that include all three items as primary ingredients including soft drinks, most breads, crackers, pasta, pastries and pastry fillings, cakes, frostings, margarine and bread spreads, jellies, sweets and candies, frozen dinners, hamburger and hotdog buns, snacks, doughnuts, pizzas, pies, candy bars, and cookies—all of which are common snacks and convenience foods. Indeed, many of these combine all three whites together—white sugar, flour, and fat! Furthermore, these foods frequently contain artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, texturizing and processing agents, and other additives that further detract from their nutritional stature and your health.

“White sugar” includes refined sugar cane or sugar beets having virtually all B vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other essential nutrients removed. Corn syrup is also a “white sugar,” made from processed cornstarch and essentially devoid of other nutrients.

“White flour,” analogously, is whole wheat flour minus its nutrient-packed wheat germ and fibrous bran. Nutritionally speaking, white flour a ghost-like shadow of its original whole grain.

“White fat” can include rendered animal lard, vegetable oils “hydrogenated” to make them hard at room temperature, and refined tropical fats such as cottonseed oil. Hydrogenation is a chemical process that transforms natural fats into more saturated “trans”-fatty acids that do not occur naturally and are strongly associated with cardiovascular disease.