What’s Junk Food?

Officially, it’s food with “minimum nutritional value,” says the U.S. Drug Administration.

A 100-calorie portion of junk food contains less than five percent of the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) of any one of the 8 basic nutrients.

Hidden Sugars. Watch for them. Sugar is added to almost all foods, including salt, ketchup, canned fruit, etc. Sugar actually weakens muscles and can reduce your energy. Too much sugar also causes pancreas to secrete excessive insulin, leading to diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and hastens the aging process.

Junk Food – Low-Calorie. Even when you include a limited amount of junk food in your low-calorie diet, you can end up gaining weight, according to Dr. Richard Passwater, a noted health researcher.

“A 1,000-calorie-a-day diet is no guarantee that you’ll lose weight, especially when you choose the wrong kinds of calories,” Dr. Passwater said. “Certain junk foods, like doughnuts, sweet rolls and pies, are turned into fat by the body without being used up in the digestive process the way high-protein foods are. Junk foods like candy, popcorn and potato chips can add weight by triggering the highly allergic reaction, which causes the body to retain water and thus pack on unneeded pounds,” he explained.

“When you skip breakfast and lunch and consume most of your 1,000 calories in the evening meal, your body may not be able to burn off all those calories and the excess will be stored as body fat," he added.

It’s commonly recognized that consistent use of nutritional food supplements and foods for specific or special dietary needs “helps to keep the doctor away.”

The modest price increases in vitamins, minerals and health foods in general compared to drugs, hospitalization and other health care services is encouraging to those who take responsibility for their own health and shun drugs or hospitalization except in emergencies.

Counting fewer lost days of work time, and keeping healthy, is a bargain in more ways than one.

Tidbits: Drinking large quantities of alcohol on a regular basis can lead to sterility and impotence in men, according to David Van Thiel of the University of Philadelphia.

Alcohol directly affects the testes themselves and certain parts of the brain, including glands that control the function of the testes. Men who consume about a pint of liquor a day for five years or so are risking permanent, irreversible impotence and sterility, warned Dr. Van Thiel.