I love Dr. Oz… well, for the most part. I love that he is educating people to be their own health advocates. I love that he has started a very public dialogue about health and wellness. I love that he is charming and charismatic. I love that he has a passion for what he does.

However… he has been making some not so great recommendations these days. I know he's super busy–between his practice, his family, his TV show–but, maybe he needs his team to be a little more analytical.

For instance, I was just on his website, perusing his “shopping list” section. I came across: 99 Diet Foods Dr. Oz Wants In Your Shopping Cart.

The foods on this list are not foods. They are packaged, processed foodstuffs. They are loaded with sugar, preservatives and processed soy protein. Ick.

This food is far from healthy and unfortunately will ultimately make you gain weight–not lose it.

Let's look at three items he has on this healthy diet list:

1.Better Oats: Oat Revolution Apple&Cinnamon Instant Oatmeal

This instant oatmeal, although it contains fairly wholesome food ingredients, it has 12 grams of sugar per packet as sugar is the second ingredient and it contains a slew of synthetic vitamins that your body can't absorb.

My recommendation: Arrowhead Mill's Organic Instant Oatmeal. It requires the same cooking time, has zero added sugar and the only, I said only, ingredient is organic instant oatmeal. This would be a much better suggestion from Oz. And, he could encourage his readers to add their own fruit or nuts to this oatmeal for an even healthier breakfast.

And, if cost is your concern, the Better Oats is $3.20 a box for 5 pouches of instant oatmeal. The organic Arrowhead mills brand is only $4.15 for a box of 10 pouches. Deal.

2. Kashi Chicken Florentine. Ok, right off the bat–it's a frozen dinner. What happened to wholesome, fresh, dare I say, home-cooked meals?

Truthfully the ingredient list isn't terrible but it's not what I would call healthy either. Besides it being a frozen entree that has been sitting in the freezer section for a week or more, the chicken isn't organic, there is evaporated cane juice, fattening and high cholesterol inducing vegetable oil (both sunflower and canola) and soy flour. C'mon, this stuff isn't food.

Why not encourage your readers to buy their own chicken, pasta and spinach and cook themselves? Better yet, skip the pasta.

My recommendation: Grill up 3 organic chicken breasts on a Sunday and make a big batch of roasted vegetables (you can cook both of these at the same time, in the same oven–prep time would be a max of 15 minutes). Voila–you'd have three meals for less than one or two of those frozen entrees and a ton more nutrients.

3. Lucy's Gluten Free Ginger Snaps.. Now, I have to admit, I tasted these once and, they are yummy. However, when you look through the ingredient list… eh, not so much.

I actually don't think they should be allowed to call themselves gluten free because they contain oats (for all you gluten free people out there, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). So, besides that–they contain soy, palm oi, canola oil and a few other highly processed flavoring ingredients.

My recommendation: if you're going to have a cookie, have a cookie. Make it homemade or buy it from a place that makes it fresh with the basic ingredients like butter, flour, salt and sugar (obviously, if you have food restrictions you have to be cautious–ask lots of questions). But, really if we eat everything in moderation– a cookie here and there is just fine in my book. Of course, I prefer it made with all organic ingredients and that it be full fat.

All in all Dr. Oz's list isn't absolutely the worst, but I don't agree with this means of encouraging people to eat healthy by eating “healthy” and “all natural” foods that are still way processed and unfortunately quite far from healthy. Read your labels (and even better if the food has no label), use your knowledge, be your own advocate and eat foods as close to their natural state as possible. And remember, eat fat to lose fat.

Off to make kale chips for my Oscar's party tonight! Happy Sunday!