It’s never easy trying to keep healthy, especially with all the food trends that keep constantly popping up.

But it seems that a scientist Rodney Bilton, professor of biochemistry at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, has now revealed some surprising new food rules when it comes to having a healthy diet.

Eat unripe bananas
They might not look as nice, but unripe bananas have been proven to be healthier in the long run. Green bananas stimulate the release of a hormone, glucagon, which boosts the rate at which our bodies burn fat.

Don’t mash the potatoes
This can be hard because we do love our mash, but ignoring the butter and milk that’s present in our favourite mash potatoes, there is also a lot of sugar there too. So heating, mashing and pureeing any potato releases the sugar faster out of the vegetables. So when it comes to having the spuds, it’s better to have them boiled rather than mashed.

Stay away from Tofu
A meat substitute for vegetarians but unfortunately quite high in fats too. Rodney said that any processed foods labelled as containing vegetable oil will invariably contain partially hydrogenated fats – and traces of trans fats – which will increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Stay away from smoothies
You may think you have a safe bet with smoothies but they are loaded with sugar – fructose to be precise. Our body can only handle a limited amount when it comes to sugar and some smoothie companies even manage to sneak some fruit syrup in there. So if you need to make smoothies limit to once and a while and make your own.