Artificial flavorings offer absolutely no nutritional value and are the markers of processed food, says registered dietitian and author Dawn Jackson Blatner. They show up in almost everything today, including bread, cereals, flavored yogurt, soups mixes, and cocktail mixers, so they can be hard to avoid.
Your best bet is to go for the real thing whenever possible. "For example, if you want to have whipped cream, have a little bit of real whipped cream, not whipped topping, which is also full of hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup, or instead of spray butter, cook with a little bit of real butter or olive oil," Jackson Blatner says.
