Healthy food is what you eat at home. Experts tell us why dining in restaurants is harmful

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Briefly

• When men ate an unhealthy diet, their muscles' ability to oxidize glucose was impaired in just five days.
• If you lose this key player in glucose metabolism, it can open the door to insulin resistance, diabetes and other health problems.

If you overindulge in pizza, macaroni and cheese, chips and ice cream, you may worry about what it will do to your thighs or midsection. But overeating junk food isn't just a matter of gaining weight. You can have much more serious consequences...

For example, people who ate a diet consisting of macaroni and cheese, processed meats, sausage biscuits, mayonnaise, and microwaveable meals with unhealthy fats experienced significant negative changes in their metabolism after just five days.

After eating an unhealthy diet, the muscles of the study participants (12 healthy college-age men) lost the ability to oxidize glucose after eating, which could lead to insulin resistance in the future. 1

What Happens to Your Metabolism After Five Days of Junk Eating

Although their caloric intake remained unchanged when the men ate an unhealthy diet, their muscles' ability to oxidize glucose was impaired in just five days. This is a significant change because muscles play an important role in removing glucose from the body after eating.

Under normal conditions, your muscles either break down glucose or store it for later use. Your muscles make up about 30 percent of your body weight, so if you lose this key player in glucose metabolism, it could open the door to diabetes and other health problems. 2 According to TIME: 3

“The normal response to food was either blunted or simply absent after five days of high-fat feeding,” says [Matthew] Hulver, [Ph.D., director of nutrition, nutrition and exercise science at Virginia Tech Hulver]. .

Before switching to a full-fat workweek diet, when the men ate regular meals, they noticed a significant increase in oxidation targets four hours after eating.

This reaction disappeared after five days of fat infusion. And under normal nutritional conditions, biopsied muscles used glucose as an energy source by oxidizing glucose. “It was pretty much destroyed later,” he says. "We were surprised how strong the effect was in just five days."

Differences between eating at home and in a restaurant

First of all, it is worth noting that the manner of behavior at home and in a restaurant is significantly different. Therefore, it is necessary to compare in more detail all the points that can speak for and against food in establishments of this type. You eat a lot more at a restaurant than at home. You order a first course, a second course, drinks, dessert, etc. At home, you can limit yourself to a small amount of food necessary to satisfy your hunger. Not every person is ready to prepare dishes in such huge quantities every day, since there simply is not enough time for this. When you come to a restaurant, everything happens much simpler: you order dishes that are prepared for you in a minimum amount of time. The second factor is that you eat a lot more junk food in restaurants. Think about how often you make French fries at home and how much pleasure you enjoy eating large portions at fast food establishments.

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Just one bad meal can ruin your health

Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me was one of the first to clearly demonstrate the consequences of trying to maintain oneself on a fast food diet. After just four weeks, Spurlock's health had deteriorated to the point that his doctor warned him that he would be putting his life in grave danger if he continued the experiment.

But as the research presented shows, it doesn't take a virtual month to feel the impact of poor nutrition on your health. In fact, changes occur after just one meal, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 4

When you eat foods high in unhealthy fats and sugar, the sugar causes a spike in blood sugar called "postprandial hyperglycemia." In the long term, this can lead to an increased risk of heart attack, but there are also short-term effects, such as:

• Your tissue becomes inflamed (as if infected)
• Your blood vessels narrow
• Harmful free radicals are produced
• Your blood pressure may rise above normal
• The rise and fall of insulin can make you feel hungry soon after eating.

The good news is that eating healthy helps your body return to its normal, optimal state even after the first meal. Study author James O'Keefe of the Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, told TIME:5

“Your health and vitality, at the most basic level, are as good as your last meal.”

Substantial harm

More than eighteen thousand people took part in the research of American scientists. It has been proven that for each meal in a restaurant, a person consumes two hundred more calories than if he ate at home. This is harmful to your figure and health. It has also been proven that excessive salt consumption leads to heart and kidney diseases because it disrupts the water-salt balance. It is also worth noting that excess cholesterol negatively affects blood vessels and blood circulation. And there is more than enough of it in restaurant dishes. Italian dishes turned out to be the most high-calorie (1755 kcal), American dishes are in second place (1494 kcal), Chinese dishes are in third place (1474 kcal), and Japanese dishes are in fourth place (1027 kcal). Vietnamese dishes came in last place in terms of calories, with a calorie content of 922 calories.

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Look into your stomach after a quick cook...

Dr. Braden Kuo of Massachusetts General Hospital used a pill-sized camera to see what happens inside your stomach and digestive tract after you eat ramen noodles, one of the common types of instant noodles. The results were amazing...

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In the video above you can see the ramen noodles inside the stomach. Even after two hours, they remain surprisingly intact, much better than the homemade ramen noodles used for comparison. This is concerning for a number of reasons.

First, it can put a strain on your digestive system, which has to work for hours to break down these highly processed foods (ironically, most processed foods are so devoid of fiber that they break down very quickly, interfering with your health. Sugar levels blood and insulin release).

When food stays in your digestive tract for such a long time, it also affects nutrient absorption, but in the case of processed ramen noodles, there aren't as many nutrients. Instead, there is a long list of additives, including the toxic preservative tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ).

This additive will likely remain in your stomach along with the seemingly invincible noodles, and no one knows what this extended exposure time might do to your health. Common sense dictates that nothing good will come of it...

Eating Processed Foods Linked to Chronic Disease

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that women who ate more instant noodles had a significantly greater risk of metabolic syndrome than those who ate less, regardless of their overall diet or exercise. 6

A past study also analyzed overall nutrient intake between instant noodle consumers and non-consumers and found, as you might expect, that eating instant noodles doesn't make much of a difference to a healthy diet.

Instant noodle consumers consumed significantly less important nutrients such as protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, vitamin A, niacin, and vitamin C compared to non-consumers. 7 Those who ate instant noodles also had excessive intakes of calories, unhealthy fats, and sodium (just one package can contain 2,700 milligrams of sodium). 8

Not to mention, refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods are quickly broken down into sugar in your body. This increases insulin and leptin levels and contributes to the development of insulin resistance, which is a major underlying factor in almost every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.

Not only that, but remember... when you eat junk food, you're not just feeding yourself... you're also feeding your microbiome and thereby changing its structure for better or worse. Your body's diverse army of microbes is responsible for many important biological processes, from immunity to memory to mental health, so feeding it wisely with fresh, unprocessed and naturally fermented foods is critical to your overall health and well-being.

☢️ How to fight temptation

If you constantly crave junk food, then it’s time to end this addiction. Many people eat street fast food and instant foods only because they lack time to cook. But you can find several simple and fairly quick to prepare dishes. The same chips can be easily cooked in the oven, and so can hamburgers.

It is advisable to learn one rule: junk food has bright colors. Refusal of foods with dyes and replacing them with cereals, fruits and vegetables will have a positive effect on your appearance and well-being.

It is harmful to heat semi-finished products in the microwave. As a result of consuming such products, the composition of the blood changes, the level of hemoglobin drops, and the number of lymphocytes decreases. Therefore, it is better to replace frozen foods with freshly prepared dishes.

Is fast food as dangerous as cigarettes?

In Russia, between a quarter and one third of adults fall into the category of obese. A staggering two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and poor diet is largely to blame. Last year, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, said that “obesity is a greater global health threat than tobacco use” and that it is not taken as seriously as it should be.

His remarks were made at the opening of the 2014 World Health Organization annual summit. De Schutter ultimately wants countries to join forces and set stricter regulations on junk food: 9

“Just as the world has come together to manage the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate nutrition must now be agreed upon,” he said.

“The Special Rapporteur has previously advocated for stronger government action on junk food, including taxing junk food, regulating fats and sugars, cracking down on junk food advertising and rethinking farm subsidies that make junk food cheaper,” notes Time magazine.

“Governments have focused on increasing the availability of calories,” he said, “but they have often been indifferent to what calories are offered, at what price, to whom they are available and how they are marketed.”

The idea that excess weight could be more harmful than smoking is likely to be objectionable to many, given how "normal" it has become to carry around extra pounds, but in terms of overall health impact and subsequent healthcare costs, it is. probably true. For example, data collected from more than 60,000 Canadians shows that obesity leads to more doctor visits than smoking. 10

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Additionally, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report, the global cost of obesity is now $2 trillion per year, which is almost as much as the global cost of smoking ($2.1 trillion) and gun violence (including wars and terrorism, which also have a global value of $2.1 trillion). eleven

By comparison, alcoholism costs $1.4 trillion a year, traffic accidents cost $700 billion, and unsafe sex costs $300 billion. Moreover, if current trends continue, a McKinsey report estimates that nearly half of the world's adults will be overweight or obese by 2030.

Ingredients to watch out for

We need to understand why scientists around the world are so wary of people's habits of eating out. Because restaurants do everything they can to get you to come back, they use products that are harmful to your body. Or even healthy, but they need to be consumed in limited quantities. Chefs are not very concerned about the health of the guests of their restaurants, they need to earn money (and this is logical, since the establishment is their business and brings them profit). Therefore, you yourself should pay attention to what exactly you need to be wary of. In this case, you will know what dishes to order and what to demand from the wait staff.

Junk food is incredibly addictive

Your body is designed to naturally regulate how much you eat and how much energy you burn. But food manufacturers have figured out how to bypass these internal regulators by creating processed foods that are designed to be “super-rewarding.”

According to the "food reward hypothesis of obesity", processed foods trigger such a strong reward response in our brain that it becomes very easy to overeat. One of the food industry's guiding principles is known as "sensory satiety."

Investigative reporter Michael Moss describes it as "the tendency for large, distinct aromas to overwhelm your brain." 12 Most success, whether in drinks or food, owes its "passion" to complex formulas that excite your taste buds just enough without overwhelming them, thereby suppressing your brain's tendency to say "enough."

Overall, potato chips are one of the most addictive junk foods on the market because they contain all three “bliss-inducing” ingredients: sugar (from potatoes), salt and fat. Next, as TIME reports: 13

“Research shows that fatty, sugary foods help release the stress hormone cortisol, which seems to further stimulate the appetite for high-calorie foods. And large spikes in blood sugar after meals are more likely in people who don't exercise or who carry heavy bellies.

Because of all this, it is difficult for people to stop eating unhealthy food once they are in the habit. “The more you eat it, the more you want it. It becomes a vicious cycle, says O'Keefe."

And while food companies hate the word "addiction" to describe their products, scientists have discovered that sugar, in particular, is just that. In fact, sugar is more addictive than cocaine. A study published in 2007 found that of 94 percent of rats that were allowed to choose between sugar water and cocaine, the majority chose sugar. 14

Even rats addicted to cocaine quickly switched their preference to sugar once it was offered as a choice. The rats were also more willing to work for sugar than for cocaine.

Researchers suggest that sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on the tongue), which evolved in ancient times when there was very little sugar in the diet, have not adapted to modern sugar consumption. Therefore, abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by a sugar-rich diet generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which can override normal self-control mechanisms and thus lead to addiction.

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Are you affected by unhealthy foods? How to break free

Replacing processed foods with homemade meals made from scratch using whole ingredients is an ideal and important way to ensure optimal nutrition. This will automatically eliminate the vast majority of refined sugar, processed fructose, preservatives, dyes, other harmful chemicals, and many addictive ingredients from your diet. This will allow your body to rely less on sugar and more on fat as its primary fuel—as long as you're eating enough healthy fats.

As a result, you will no longer crave sugar to keep working. Key elements of a healthy diet that can help reduce cravings for unhealthy foods include:

• Avoid refined sugar, processed fructose, grains and processed foods
• Eat a healthy diet of whole foods, ideally organic, and replacing the carbohydrates you eliminate: As many quality healthy fats as you want (saturated and monounsaturated). Many people would benefit from getting up to 50 to 85 percent of their daily calories from healthy fats. While this may sound like a lot, consider that, in terms of volume, the largest portion of your plate will be vegetables, since they contain so few calories.

Positive sides

Can there be any benefits to unhealthy food? There is only one, very dubious, but worth mentioning. At least so that you can compare the list of pros and cons of this food.

The main positive side of fast food is the speed of its preparation and accessibility. Fast food chains exist in almost all cities; you can always run in and have a bite to eat without spending a lot of time. The pricing policy is low.

Or, to avoid cooking at home, you can buy instant meals. Heat in the microwave or pour boiling water over it and wait five minutes. That's it, the food is ready, you can eat.

Meal planning is the key to success

Eliminating processed foods requires you to plan your meals ahead of time, but if you take it step by step, it is entirely possible and doable to painlessly remove processed foods from your diet. You can try looking for seasonal produce at local farmers' markets that are on sale and plan your meals accordingly, but you can also use the same to sell at supermarkets.

Typically, you can meal plan for a week at a time, making sure you have all the ingredients you need on hand, and then do any prep work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you're short on time (and you can use the leftovers for lunch the next day).

Finally, if you are an emotional eater, I highly recommend using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is simple and effective and can quickly help you overcome food cravings naturally.

Material benefit

You probably realized that restaurant meals are not healthy. Besides, they are not that cheap. If you are a frugal person and care about not wasting money, avoid frequenting fast food establishments. If you don't go to a restaurant several times a day and eat everything they offer you, your wallet will remain full. In addition, there are many marketing ploys that force you to leave a large amount of money there. A set lunch is not always the right decision or a good deal. First of all, you don't need such a large portion. And secondly, very often dishes for the complex are prepared from low-quality ingredients.

Sources

• Obesity April 2015
• TIME April 14, 2015

• 1 Obesity April 2015
• 2 Yahoo Health April 15, 2015
• 3 TIME April 14, 2015
• 4 Journal of the American College of Cardiology January 22, 2008; 51:249-255
• 5, 13 TIME January 15, 2008
• 6 Journal of Nutrition August 2014
• 7 Nutr Res Pract. 2011 Oct;5(5):443-9.
• 8 PreventDisease.com August 21, 2014
• 9 Reuters May 19, 2014
• 10 Medical News Today July 18, 2012
• 11 McKinsey.com November 2014
• 12 New York Times February 20, 2013
• 14 PloS One 2(8): e698

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