Junk Food or Not Junk Food

Everyone is aware of junk foods and healthy foods. If someone were to ask us a question of what is junk food and what is healthy food, the first few things that we may come up about junk food are candies, chips, pastries, and fast food. For healthy foods, we may say fruits, vegetables, protein, dairy and grain.  Both food groups have its positives and negatives.   Too much of anything is not good. For instance, too much of that favourite breakfast cereal, candies or chips is simply too much sugar or salt. Eating too many carrots will also lead to an unwanted side effect of turning carrot colour.  Too much iron may cause iron toxicity.  And so forth. 

 

Why is healthy food so important? 

 

If we don’t eat healthy foods, then there is a problem of “not enough”.  Not enough of nutritional value in our diet and forget about silky smooth hair, nice looking nails, strong bones for an exercise, healthy muscle structure and clear and smooth skin complexion we all long for. 

 

What happens with junk food?   

If we eat too much of it, we receive too many chemicals and yes sugar and salt can be chemicals too when it comes to moderation.  At the same time, we don’t get the nutritional value from junk food.  We can all agree that we do need foods with nutritional value with which we can properly function.  Healthy foods are of necessity.  

Why do we like sugary and salty foods so much?  

Number one, sugar is also brain food, so when we work on a complicated task, have that chocolate bar and you would feel an immediate boost.  Unfortunately, it only gives a short lived boost, which may result in eating more of that junk food.  Healthy food on the other hand provides a long term solution and leaves us satiated.  For example, eat a bowl of salad, mush potatoes and meat/fish/tofu with our favourite juice and you are not hungry.  Thinking of eating one more salad leaf or more of that mush potato is out of the questions.  And yet again presented with a box of chocolates, here we may take just one chocolate instead of eating all the chocolates in that box.  

Number two, we like salty foods because salt maintains electrolyte levels as well as water constituency of one’s body. [1] Natural salt also has mineral traces and sometimes we may seek these minerals in table salt which has no presence of these minerals, resulting in more craving for salt.[2]  

Number three, junk food is simply available everywhere, but then if you think of it, so is the healthy food.  Yes, but we may still choose junk food over healthy food, if we are extremely hungry or we really like that particular food.  Also most of the time, junk food comes prepared or precooked, and thus, requiring less effort to cook it. 

What is the best solution for us?   

Should we eliminate junk food completely and how can we incorporate healthy foods in our diet? Eliminating junk food is surprisingly not necessary, unless there are health issues.  Junk food can be a few percent of our diet, because 80%-90% of nutrients don’t come from junk food, they come from healthy foods. For instance we may always eat a piece of a tasty cake at a birthday party or go out and order at a fast food restaurant, eat a microwave made dinner one time, or snack on chips.   The rest of the time it should be the healthy food’s turn.