What are junk foods? What makes junk foods “junk foods”?
There is no definition of what a junk food is. However, it is worth looking back 5 or 6 decades to see what junk foods were, and where the modern junk foods came from.
When I was growing up
I grew up in the 1960s through 1970s. Then, junk foods were things like candy bars, Ho Ho’s, licorice, Zingers, Little Debbie snacks, potato chips, and Moon Pies. Doughnuts were included in junk foods, whether they were shelf stable ones, or fresh from the doughnut shop. Cakes and pastries, as well, were junk foods, but had limited availability. These were all high energy foods with little to no nutritive value beyond the energy. Most junk foods had a high carbohydrate levels, mostly wheat or sugar (or both). Fats like coconut oil was added to maintain the flavor, texture and moistness.
And the girls of my family, my mom and her sister, my cousins, and their closer friends (I had 4 brothers, and my sister did not come along until I was in college), all reminded each other that these junk foods would “go straight to your hips”!
Moving ahead to today, what are junk foods now?
Well, it includes all of the aforementioned snacks. Soda pop was an occasional treat, and portion sizes of soda pop were much smaller. We were lucky to get sodas once a week! Today, soda is an oft consumed, high energy, no nutritive value, foodstuff. Yes, beverages are considered food, for that is how they react in our bodies.
I include, as well, those modified snacks, like most protein bars, rice crispy (and other cereal) treats, and other starch and sugar rich snacks. We also have added to the chips, corn chips, baggies of popcorn snacks, and all the other bagged snacks found in the potato chip aisle at the C-store.
Even peanut butter, once considered a regular food, has invaded the junk food aisle, found in candies like peanut butter cups and candy coated peanut butter.
What else are junk foods now?
I think that many foods now found in the freezer section of the grocer are junk foods. Back in my young days, Swanson T.V. dinners were all the rage for convenience and time savings in the home. Banquet had fried chicken as well. To me, they tasted more like cardboard than real food, but they did serve a purpose, and were more like a bridge between junk food and real food.
Microwave ovens did not exist when I was young. So, with them came more and more options. And, the U.S. government, in those days encouraged, almost demanded, that the companies making these foods limit fat. Protein came with fat, so protein portions became limited. And, in an effort to make the starchy foods more palatable in these meals, more and more additives were added. Then came the “heart healthy” logo, which meant that even less fat was included, which increased the additives even more.
Today, I include most of the microwavable frozen foods as junk food. Their high carbohydrate levels put them into this category for me. Should they, eventually, limit the carbohydrates sufficiently, and prioritize the meat proteins, I would probably reconsider. But I don’t see that happening in the next decade.
Even things like frozen pizzas, and the Uncrustables, Pizza Bites, taquitos, and so on, are all high carb foods. So, again, I place them in the junk food category.
What be the difference between junk food and desert?
What makes junk food a junk food and not a desert? As a youngster, we had cake and ice cream, apple pie, cherry pie, etc., for desert. This came AFTER the main meal, and was in limited, small portions, and once a day, if at all that day. We did not snack on them after school, or between meals. They were the afterthought of the meal.
Today, we have changed to eating these for mid morning snacks, mid afternoon snacks, on the way to and/or from work snacks, even sometimes for the meal itself. Again, high energy, high carbohydrate foods with little to no additional nutrition.
Perhaps it is easier to say what isn’t a junk food.
Growing up, meals were meat centric. When we asked mom what was for dinner, it was chicken, or roast beef. We never asked about the sides, for they were small amounts (compared to today), and were there to complement the main dish, the meat.
Often, today, I hear people reply, macaroni and cheese, sometimes with the added “with hot dogs”, etc. Or, perhaps, potatoes with ________ . Again, high carb load foods. While these are not junk foods in of themselves, the meal is junk food, for it does not supply the optimal nutrients we need in the optimal levels our body uses.
For my money, junk food is not:
- Meat. Meat is high in bioavailable complete or near complete protein. It can be fresh meat, eggs, bologna, hot dogs, pepperoni, salami, bratwurst, polish sausage, fish, shrimp, shellfish, etc. Whole fat meats are the real food. The fat removed foods are junk food. Fat is required for your entire body to function, and saturated fat does not become blood fat unless you have a rare genetic disorder. Meat, especially red meat, comes with a whole host of vitamins and minerals needed for proper health.
- Cheese and whole fat dairy. Whole fat milk, yoghurt, sour cream, light cream, heavy cream, cottage cheese, hard cheese, soft cheese, and so on. Whole fat is real food, for it is needed to absorb the fat soluble vitamins, and the protein enhances this absorption. Consuming these whole fat foods, like meats, does not change your blood fats.
- Leafy greens and non-starchy veggies. Whether you get these from the fresh produce section, or the canned or frozen food aisle, the nutrient value is very similar. These greens are not required for complete nutrition, but can enhance your diet with some added vitamins and minerals. Starchy veggies, like corn and peas, are less desirable due to the carb content, and, unless you are limiting carbs for your health, are still not junk.
- Fruits. I don’t know why we combine veggies and fruits as a group. They are very different in their nutrition profiles. Still, fruits are not junk food. They serve value in their nutritional vitamins and minerals. And, like veggies, I don’t differentiate between fresh, canned, or frozen. They are all real food.
- Beans, pasta and rice. I don’t relegate these to junk either. But, in my opinion, these should be more of a side dish to a meat centric meal, rather than the primary food of the meal. They are too high in carbs and the proteins in them are incomplete and have limited bioavailability.
What about bread and cereal? Are these junk foods?
Again, I will take you back to my childhood. Cereals were a convenience food, and did not take the place of meat and eggs for breakfast, save on occasion. Bread was served at dinner time, or as a sandwich for lunch or after school snack. These sandwiches, again, were meat centric or were peanut butter sandwiches. At dinner, bread was considered a “pusher” or “wiper”. You could use it instead of your fingers to get something onto your fork, or you wiped the remaining gravy off your plate with it so you didn’t miss any of that scrumptious flavor!
Breads, as well, were made with wheat flour, salt, water, and yeast. Take a look at today’s bread ingredients and tell me how complicated these foods have become. I put today’s bread into the junk food category.
Breads include white, whole grain, sourdough, bagels, english muffins, hot dog and hamburger buns, and so on.
Cereal, if you have not noticed, is enhanced with vitamins and minerals. They are simply starches with flavors added to make them palatable. They serve no nutritional value beyond the energy they provide, save for the vitamin/mineral spray that is added. Again, junk food in my book.
Is junk food bad for us?
Not in of itself. The issue is that we, as a nation, and the world, have changed what we eat over the last 50 years. High carbohydrate (starch and sugar foods) have replaced proteins and fats in the foods we eat. We need a minimum of around 50 grams of carbohydrates a day, we can use about 120 grams per day, and we eat about 350.
And, when we eat these high levels of junk foods, and we consume them often (because they don’t maintain our blood energy levels), like we do today, we keep our insulin levels high. Insulin is a hormone, and has over 100 effects in our body, not just controlling blood glucose levels.
With the high insulin level comes a phenomenon where our bodies are prevented from burning fat, and any excess sugars are turned into fat by our metabolism. So, over the last 50 years, as our government has guided us, we have gotten sick, tired and fat from eating these high carbohydrate levels. I don’t think this was intentional, but the blaming of the people, saying ‘eat less and exercise more’, and the dogma of not changing the guidelines when the evidence proved differently was intentional. I mean, how can the government come out and say “for the last 20 years, we were wrong”? It’s not gonna happen folks!
So, yes, junk food is bad for us. But only if we consume it in the quantities we have been for the last 5 decades. It’s like aspirin, 2 won’t hurt you, but take the whole bottle and go to the E.R.
“Eat less” should be the mantra for junk food and carbohydrate. Prioritize your protein, get it from complete protein sources. Don’t worry about the fat. If you limit your starches and sugars, like you should, you will burn fat, so what fat you eat will get burned up.
Mike