Jank-food. (Junk food) - "weed" food, empty calories, fast food

With the term "fast food" everyone has long been familiar and used to it. Less people recognize junk food, although it was then, and when the first concept. However, many people use products that doctors treat this category without even knowing it. An interesting paradox: people frightened by nutritionists begin to carefully avoid the McDonald's side, not reflecting on the fact that they periodically do themselves harm almost more than the dishes offered in it.

Origin of the term

"Junk food" from English translates as "weed food", "food from the garbage can." Initially, it was not supposed to give such a characteristic to the quality of food. I meant rubbish, which in huge quantities remained around the food points where it was sold. All the junk food was packed in disposable utensils, sachets and cups so that it could be eaten on the go. The people did not carry packing far away and threw right next to the place of purchase (or use, if bought was intended to be eaten in a movie theater or in a stadium). Over time, the meaning invested in the term was transformed. Now the term is understood as "garbage" food, which clogs up the body and does not bring any benefit to it.

Differences between "junk" and "fast"

"Fast food" - this is, rather, not a set of certain products, but a way out of use. It may include a full-fledged complex dinner, but it should be quickly cooked (therefore it is usually made from semi-finished products) and as quickly, for ten minutes, eaten. The most famous fast food is hamburgers, French fries and sandwiches, but it can also include Chinese noodles. In any case, fast food is prepared, even if at least warmed up, in the microwave. For all the harm that it does to the consumer, fast food often tries to disguise itself under the right food: all sorts of tomato slices and salad leaves hint that vitamins in the hamburger are still present.

Another thing is junk food. Its main sign is that there is no need for any culinary processing. I opened the sachet and eat. Its second sign is a harmful and unbalanced composition. That is the mass of salt (or sugar, depending on the variety), fats and a variety of chemical additives.

However, from the point of view of nutritionists and gastroenterologists, everything that is harmful from food is "weedy" food. Fast food is just a kind of it.

What concerns junk food

In the list you can include almost the entire range of our kiosks. First of all it is:

1. All sweet fizzy drinks (they also enter the list of fast food);
2. chips;
3. crackers;
4. Nuts. With them, by the way, a separate story. By themselves, all nuts are a valuable nutritious product. They spoil their processing and storage. All additives, flavors, stabilizers and other additives actually negate the useful properties of nuts. And storage in bags quickly leads to molding both peanuts and pistachios. The taste of mold is clogged with artificial additives, and as a result, "garbage" food poisons the body with carcinogens;
5. All the chocolate bars. If you want a sweet, it's better to buy a natural chocolate bar;
6. Corn sticks and flakes;
7. "Coffee" drinks (3 in 1, etc.);
8. Children's favorite popcorn;
9. Snacks, salted crackers, dried fish "for beer", squid rings in sachets;
10. Broth cubes and soluble soups (also from the category of fast food).

In a word, everything that can be chewed on the move, which is harmful from food, and that each of us sometimes, albeit seldom, buys here.

How does the organism react to "weed" food?

Doctors warn: first of all the whole digestive system suffers . In addition to imbalance and excessive fat content, all junk food is eaten dry, which irritates the mucous membranes and causes their inflammation. At the same time, in order to digest the wrong food, the body has to spend more energy, to allocate more bile and enzymes. Percent of 70 modern people suffering from stomach ailments, earned gastritis, ulcers and pancreatitis on junk food. Even worse, if such food is eaten by children. They often have acetonemic syndrome, accompanied by vomiting of unclear etiology, diarrhea and continuous nausea.

The next problem with empty calories (another name for "weedy" food) is obesity. And it overtakes the fan of such products even faster than a fan of fast food. Than unnecessary, overlimit kilograms are threatened, everyone knows for a long time: cardiac ischemia, diabetes (most often insulin-dependent), hypertension, atherosclerosis, strokes.

Junk food is very dangerous for developing organisms. Most of these products include soy. And in these beans contains a huge amount of estrogens of plant origin. As a result, the risk of breast cancer increases sharply in girls, and boys often have very early problems with the prostate gland. Moreover, some doctors believe that absorbed female hormones may well provoke the formation of unconventional sexual orientation.

Junk food - a drug?

The latest research of physicians and scientists has given at all astounding and frightening results. It turned out that the regular use of such food causes addiction in the body akin to the narcotic. Rats, on which experiments were put, who were accustomed to eat junk food, refused to eat anything else. They preferred to starve, but to wait for the usual food. At the same time they observed some signs of drug withdrawal: they became restless and more aggressive, rushed to the cells, barely smelled the smell of "weedy" food. And similar studies were conducted in different parts of the world - Australia and the United States - and gave absolutely identical results. Doctors believe that the harm caused by junk food, comparable in intensity with chronic alcoholism and constant smoking, combined.

Worse and worse

In addition to the already identified harm, the composition of products from which food is made "out of the garbage" deteriorates every year. If in the beginning of the 21st century the same chips were prepared in the vast majority from natural potatoes, now the producers save on vegetables. It is common practice to use potato flour in them. And this is at best: many packages indicate the content of potatoes, and often it is less than half. So every year, junk food is farther away from natural food and all is more dangerous for the health of people who use it.