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The Hidden Costs of "Free" Food

The Hidden Costs of "Free" Food (1:03)

Beware of free food, whether it's a money-saving BOGO offer or a "calorie-saving" fat-free label. Both can add to your waistline and derail your weight-loss efforts, says Robin Miller, MD, in this Health Smarts video.

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You know the saying, there's no such thing as a free lunch? That's true when it comes to your health. Consider these two marketing ploys, buy one get one free. The cost, extra calories, because it's easy to eat too much of food that you don't pay for, and what you save in your wallet can end up costing your waistline, arteries, kidneys and nearly every other organ.

If you wouldn't pay for it, don't eat when it's free. Here's another one, fat free. The cost, more fat than you think. Fat free label laws allow things to contain 0.5 grams of fat per serving to be labelled 0 grams of fat. Half a gram doesn't seem like a lot until you start adding up how often you eat more than a serving of fat free food.

Plus, other researchers found that when you think of food as low in fat, you're likely to eat more of it, and most of that fat-free stuff has a lot of sugar.