THE JUNKIFICATION OF OUR FOOD
Intuitive eating is a way to recognize all those influences and learn ways to counter that in terms of hunger and satisfaction. . . . But our bodies don’t want junk food all day long;
they want a tremendous variety of food. ~Steven Hawks
DIFFERENT FOLKS, DIFFERENT STROKES
Chow.com twittered the thought-provoking question, What is Junk Food? and I got to thinking well beyond 140 characters. It’s one of those things, like pornography, that people tend to know it when they see it, so absolute definitions probably won’t work.  Certainly a highly subjective subject about which few will agree, here are my thoughts. They’re worth what you pay for them.
For starters, as I’ve said before, the term ‘junk food’ is oxymoronic. The ‘junk’ is the undoing of the real. How about we be direct and just call it ‘junk’? Second, everything is relative and quantities count. So eating a handful of Pringles is probably better for your system than a 16 oz steak. A gin and tonic or two is not bad, but a gin and tonic or two every hour every evening is not good. Moderation and balance figure prominently. We ebb and flow, our bodies absorbing only so much, cooporating for the most part until we find ourselves in a food fix of our own making.
Michael Pollan – best-selling food author, journalist, professor and food activist — suggests avoiding processed food products containing more than five ingredients or anything that a five-year-old cannot pronounce. I suggest that this is the litmus test for junk, a good rule of thumb when deciding what to eat. That said, let me clarify my position as to what differentiates junk from food by offering some examples:
- Canned tuna fish is a whole food. Adding 400 mg of salt to a 5-oz can of tuna is just one way that Big Food turns perfectly good food into junk.
- A Snickers bar is junk. A 70% dark chocolate bar containing chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter & vanilla bean is a whole food.
- Peanuts are a whole food. Canned peanuts — with 115 grams of added salt per one-ounce serving — are junk although preferable to brands with preservatives, other chemicals and even more salt. One ounce of peanuts equals 1/8th cup equals about 16 peanuts. Eating peanuts from the shell rather than a can is not only better, it’s fun!
- Popcorn is real food. It’s the artificial butter flavoring that pushes it towards the junk aisle. Fortunately, I’ve devised a preparation for a spicy popcorn that you may find hits the spot. Real. Spicy. Good.
- Rice cakes that contain rice and a little salt are food. Rice cakes with sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, assorted non-food chemicals and artificial flavorings are junk.
- Shredded Wheat and Grape-Nuts are foods. Frosted Mini Wheat and Cocoa Puffs, and any food product with sugar listed as the first or second ingredient is junk.
- Oatmeal is a whole food. A package of instant oatmeal, with its unpronounceable substances and synthetic nutrients, while not the worst food you can eat, is another instance of Big Food mucking things up and transforming real food into junk. Oatmeal can be eaten instantly with dried fruit, nuts, coconut and milk. If you like it hot, swirl oats in the coffee grinder for a few seconds to cut them up, and steep for five minutes in hot water.  Add a little milk or bit of cream, jam, dried fruit, honey, maple syrup or molasses.
- Plain yogurt is a wonderfully pure food. Yogurt with added fruit (jam, really) would be okay if not for the added gelatin, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup and sugar which plops it firmly in the junk column. Even Activia plain yogurt, with 17 grams of sugar and a barrage of added preservatives is junk.  Without any preservatives at all, yogurt will last three weeks. Do we really need our yogurt to last longer than that? Fresh is good. Preservatives are bad. For human bodies, anyway.
- A pina colada, made with rum, coconut cream & pineapple, while having the possibility of getting you drunk, is not junk. A pina colada flavored powdered mix, whether it is added to alcohol or yogurt, is junk.
- A loaf of whole grain bread from your local bakery is not junk. A loaf of so-called ‘enriched’ bread made from refined flour and enhanced with engineered ‘nutrients’ is junk.
Read labels. If you cannot read the fine print, go online and look up specific brands. If they do not list the ingredients in their products, that isn’t a good sign. Call them up and ask them why. Very often, generic foods have less sugar, salt, chemicals and assorted mukhwa, and you can choose wisely by simply comparing ingredients. Pay attention to serving size, different on every package and rarely a single serving, not even a canned beverage. And the nutritional labeling? The percentages aren’t worth much, but look for the amount of sugar, salt and fat. Choose less salt, opting for sodium-free options. You can always add salt to food but cannot take it out. A teaspoon of table sugar is equal to five grams, so that serving with 12 grams of sugar is about 2 1/2 teaspoons. A tablespoon of ketchup with 4 grams of sugar? Almost one-third of that is sugar.
