Living Simple - Living Healthy - Nutrition: What makes food junk? (Online Article)

Living Simple - Living Healthy - Nutrition: What makes food junk? (Online Article) http://tracker.dailyburn.com/groups/1667/subjects/2606 When I was much younger, I wondered why such foods as pizza and hamburgers were considered junk foods. Hamburgers usually consist of beef, bread, lettuce, tomato, and cheese if you’d like. Pizza is made up of bread, tomato sauce, cheese and possibly sausage or pepperoni. After all, it’s known that bread is the staff of life, tomatoes are a highly nutritious vegetable, and cheese is a source of calcium and bone building nutrients. The added veggies like onion, tomato and lettuce are a bonus to health. Now the light bulb has gone on. Delving and analyzing of the ingredients commonly used in so-called junk foods uncovers the prevalent anti-nutrient theme throughout – processing. The processing of foods isn’t something new, but it has become more and more invasive and pervasive into our diet sources, and half the time it’s not realized how much of these processed foods we are eating. Desserts, packaged snacks and fast foods are readily seen as the culprits, but there are tons of foods included in our daily diet that contribute to major diseases, and it all starts with the refined ingredients. Everyday choices in supermarkets are full of junk made by processing; foods with negative nutritional effect are included daily in our diets either with or without us knowing it, and they are making us just as ill as are the so-called junk or fast foods. Here’s a small list to begin pondering of commonly used and trusted foods that are mostly highly processed or may contain processed sugars or hydrogenated oils, depending on types and brands: Cooking oils Breakfast cereals Artificial sweeteners Agave syrup Canned fruits and vegetables Fruit juices Bagels, breads, rolls, pasta, muffins Deli/lunch meats Milk, yogurt, dairy products White rice Cocoa, chocolate Pancake mix Peanut butter Tomato products, ketchup Salad dressings Mayonnaise One of the first foods to be processed by man was sugar. The first stage of drawing out the juice from the sugarcane and evaporating it into crystals began early around 600 A.D. But over the centuries the refinement developed more and more into the white sugar we use today. A popular sweetener currently, agave, is also highly processed and contains at least 70% fructose. Most doctors, including Dr. Nicholas Perricone, anti-aging expert and author, agree that fructose without the fiber will increase triglycerides and contribute to hardening of the arteries. The fruit juices we have with breakfast every morning fall into this category. It’s interesting to note that the fresh juice from the raw sugarcane is one of the most nutritious things a person can consume. The 1800s brought refined flour and the invention of canning foods. It was Napoleon who spurred the inception of canning by seeking a better way to feed his troups, but natural enzymes are lost, and refined additives such as salt are added. The process of refining flours came about to make the shelf life longer as well as improving the texture and taste. The taste was incredibly delicious, but the increased price of making refined grains made the white bread products a luxury only the rich could afford. Isn’t it ironic that now it’s just the opposite - refined bread can now be purchased for less than a dollar a loaf, especially in the day-old bakery outlets, and 100% whole grain is at the luxury price. The hydrogenation of oil – the altering of fat molecules - began in the early 1900s, designed to increase the shelf life of packaged products. Even though an oil can be identified as not hydrogenated or trans fat, the instant the oil has been subjected to a certain high temperature, it becomes a trans fat and causes havoc in the body. The processing of a food eliminates fiber, alters its natural molecular structure, eradicates nutrients, increases inflammation within arteries, and changes the pH from alkaline to acid. The lack of fiber contributes to gastrointestinal problems such as colon blockage and constipation, as well as elevating triglyceride and blood sugar levels, leading to diabetes. The more acid the body takes in, the more prone it is to disease. These effects on the body are the major concern with processed foods, whether deemed junk or considered a simple everyday staple such as bread. No matter what is done to a food, the more processing steps taken, the more detrimental to the nutritional integrity of that food. Simply changing a whole grain to a powder contributes to high blood sugar and inflammation, as in breakfast cereals; adding chemicals like sulfuric and/or hydrofluoric acid to aid in the breakdown of certain molecules as in agave and artificial sweeteners introduces free radicals. The American Heart Association suggests that reduction in the daily consumption of refined sugar is necessary to prevent cardiovascular disease in our society. A research report from the University of Vermont states that daily consumption of sweetened soft drinks rose 70 percent between 1970 and 2000. The general public has come to not only be conditioned to eat a certain diet in this society, but they are also somehow fooled into thinking they are eating correctly when they really aren’t. Diabetes organizations continue to promote recipes and diets that include artificial, chemically processed sweeteners, sugar filled yogurts, and white flour and breads. The weight loss companies show how well a person can eat while on a diet, but certainly when those meals are analyzed it reveals that the foods still contain the processed bread and sugar ingredients; their idea is to eat less, not healthier. Just the simple act of peeling fruits and vegetables is a process that alters the nutritional value of these foods. Of course we don’t want to eat banana peels and pineapple rind, but it’s easy and nutritious to eat the skins of yams, potatoes (even mashed), zucchinis, peaches, etc. In fact, there are more nutrients in the rind of a watermelon than in the flesh inside. We have epidemics in so many areas related to diet, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and the variety of drugs for the treatment of these illnesses just grows and grows along with them. It’s easy for doctors to prescribe the pills, but not easy for them to explain that it’s all about diet, and even more difficult to get a person to change what they eat. The first step is to identify what foods are processed, and stay away from them as much as possible. Reading the label’s ingredients is the number one step in making changes. Now when I look at a pizza, this is what I see: white bread that has most of the natural nutrients depleted, with added refined sugar and possibly hydrogenated oil; tomato sauce that has added sugar; and cheese that has been through pasteurization and homogenization processes disrupting the good bacteria and enzymes as well as the altered milkfat molecules which contribute to inflammation. But don’t fret…a pizza can be made to be nutritious. With a crust of 100% whole grains, fresh tomatoes or a tomato sauce without added sugar, raw cheese, extra virgin olive oil and veggies, it can be a deliciously healthy meal without guilt. en-us