Fast Food

Effects of Fast Food

What are the real effects of fast food intake? Can something that is so cheap, so plentiful and tastes so good, really be bad for you? Check out these fast food effects and decide for yourself.

Though they are everywhere and most of us eat them at least once in awhile, fast foods are getting an increasingly bad reputation. A simple definition of the effects of fast food intake is that it contributes to eating more quickly, eating a higher percentage of processed foods and eating a higher percentage of artificial foods. So how does that translate in terms of overall health effects? Though the list could be much longer, the primary effects of fast food intake are a higher risk of:

• heart disease
• digestive issues
• type II diabetes
• liver and gall bladders diseases (i.e. fatty liver)
• high blood pressure
• high cholesterol levels and, one of most obvious effects of fast food intake,
• obesity (especially visceral fat)

If you took a poll of customers in a fast food restaurant and asked them if they thought what they were eating was actually good for them, most would likely sheepishly grin and admit they could have made a better choice of where to spend their food dollar. But would they be right? Are the supposed negative effects of fast food intake real? Do fast foods really contribute to obesity? Let’s take a look.

Eating Quickly

If you take a look at the very name and nature of fast food, it is clear that one of the primary effects of fast food is that it generally leads to fast eating! One long-term diet tip that has recently earned some researched validity is to eat slowly and chew your food well. Simply slowing the rate at which you chow down produces some amazing health benefits:

• Helps reduce portion size-when you take the time to chew food well, it generally means you take better control over how much you eat
• Helps with food digestion-which leads to more complete breakdown and use of food components
• Helps with food enjoyment-chewing food more slowly can lead to increased awareness of and appreciation for the taste of food

Studies reported on Dr. Mercola’s Take Control of Your Health site show eating more slowly leads to:

• an increased release of hunger-regulating hormones
• an increased sense of satisfied fullness and
• a far reduced risk of becoming overweight.

The research lead one set of study authors to conclude:

“Eating until full and eating quickly are associated with being overweight in Japanese men and women, and these eating behaviors combined may have a substantial impact on being overweight.”

Eating Processed

Real food contains a multitude of nutrients, some we have yet to even discover. One of the primary effects of fast food is that you get less of the nutrients you need to maintain optimal health and wellness. Eating highly processed fast food means you are usually missing out on:

Fibre: refining strips fibre from foods such as grains, seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables. That means the food contains less of the elements thathelp to keep you regular, help to bind with toxins and carry those toxins from the body and, extremely important in weight management, less of the food element that contributes to a sense of fullness.

Essential fatty acids: among other tasks, essential fatty acids—found in foods like salmon, nuts and seeds—help balance hormones and moods, deal with pain and inflammation, produce healthy hair and skin and help us release stored fat. Essential fats, however, don’t do well with the heat, light, oxygen exposure and refining that are part of most processed foods’ history; fast foods, therefore, contain very little of these beneficial nutrients. 

Vitamins and minerals: though there is often an attempt to replace some of the vitamins and minerals that are lost in the processing that gives us fast foods, there is never complete replenishment of the ingredients found in whole foods. That means less of the nutrients needed for optimal wellness and an absence of the health synergy created with whole foods.

Eating Fake

Intake of artificial sweeteners such as Aspartame™ (i.e. NutraSweet®) or Splenda®, artificial fats such as Olestra (i.e. Olean) and the abundance of chemical flavours, colours and preservatives that make up most fast foods can be a quick meal or snack choice. It is, however, quite simply a bad health choice.

And while, like the photo of aspartame, real foods too can be broken down to chemical components, hopefully seeing aspartame in graphic detail will have you think twice before indulging in a diet food or diet drinkcontaining this substance. 

According to experts such as Dr. Russell Blaylock  (Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills), the problem seem to be excitotoxins—toxic chemicals that excite brain cells to death—like glutamate (found in MSG) and aspartate (found in Aspartame™). Foods containing MSG or highly processed milk and soy protein—processing breaks down those proteins, releasing high levels of glutamate and aspartate—can damage an unprotected part of the brain that is responsible for controlling hunger and satiety. That makes aspartame seem an unlikely food choice if one is trying to manage hunger and sense of fullness in a way that will produce a healthy weight. 
The downside of eating ingredients that do not have a long history of use and that studies show have a wide range of negative health effects (i.e. migraines, digestive issues, skin rashes, tremors, obesity) is simply not worth the supposed convenience.  Short and sweet, by eating anything more than the very occasional intake of fast food you are doing your body, your health and your ability to maintain an appropriate weight, a huge disservice.