By Dayne Hudson
For a long time, people have turned their noses up at processed foods and junk foods, holding onto the belief that there's no place for them in the quest for their health and fitness goals.
But the truth is, they really aren't a bad as you might think.
I've told you before how you can lose weight by factoring in some of your favourite junk foods - but this goes in a different direction; why you don't need to believe that "junk foods" or processed foods are all doom and gloom.
As you'll notice from the theme of many articles on this page and information contained within the TV show - what you're always told about health/fitness isn't always true!
THE RESEARCH
Processed foods are simply those that undergo some chemical or mechanical change in an effort to preserve or alter them.
This can be anything from mixing, heating, freezing, fermenting, frying, packaging, etc (1).
A recent review (2) lists the positive and negatives of processing foods, with the positives including: food safety (inactivating natural toxins and enzymes) increasing shelf life, an improved nutritional value (improved digestibility, bioavailability of nutrients), sensory quality (taste, texture, and flavor) convenience, and cost.
The negatives attached to food processing are: the losses of certain nutrients due to chemical reactions, the formation of undesired compounds, eg acrylamide, that has been found to increase cancer in rats (3-5), there's also the formation of compounds that have a bad effect on flavour perception.
The truth is that BOTH organic foods and processed ones are important for our health and wellbeing.
To quote from another review (6) into processed foods:
"Processed food contributes to both food security (ensuring that sufficient food is available) and nutrition security (ensuring that food quality meets human nutrient needs)."
YOUR PROTEIN POWDER IS PROCESSED
Yep!
Protein powder - one of the best supplements on the market, is indeed processed.
And isn't that for the better!
It's super convenient and even packs a higher biological value than all protein sources found in animal products!
I've heard gym goers occasionally talk down on those eating fast food or other processed foods, only a few hours before or after slurping down on a whey protein shake.
Not all processed foods are unhealthy.
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS - WHAT ABOUT THEM?
Many are skeptical about genetically engineered crops and whether or not they are safe.
Whilst many people have their opinion on this, at this stage the science tells us that there's no outstanding issues.
A large-scale systematic review (7) of research into this subject in March 2014 didn't discover any cause for panic.
The quote from the review:
"We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety during the last 10 years, built a classified and manageable list of scientific papers, and analyzed the distribution and composition of the published literature...the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops; however, the debate is still intense."
WHEN A FAST-FOOD CHAIN HAMBURGER IS OK
Most people think that if you have a hamburger, or a huge slice of cake, your diet is GONE, and your results quickly dissapear out the window.
The other argument (and one I've had with a few on social media) is that hormone levels can differ between meals.
Science at this stage begs to differ.
One study (8) set itself the task of seeing if the metabolic response to a "unhealthy" fast-food style meal would be any different to 2 other "healthy" type varieties, which had a similiar amount of calories and macronutrients (protein, fat carbohydrates.)
So the study gave three different lunches to 6 overweight men at noon, after feeding them the same breakfasts at 8:00am.
The study subjects either received a Big Mac with french fries and a high fructose corn syrup sweetened root beer.......an organic beef rangefed hamburger with unbleached all purpose naturally white flour, along with a root beer made with cane sugar together with organic potato french fries.......or a roasted free-range turkey breast sandwich on 60% whole wheat bread with some organic orange juice, alongside a granola made with whole natural almonds, organic multigrain oatbrain flakes, wholesome sweeteners evaporated cane juice, pressed canola oil, clover honey, organic raisins and dried apples.
Here's the stats on each of these meals:
BIG MAC: CALORIES: 1044 PROTEIN: 28.2 CARBOHYDRATES: 151 FAT: 53
ORGANIC BEEF: CALORIES: 1154 PROTEIN: 28 CARBOHYDRATES: 163 FAT: 60.2
ORGANIC TURKEY: CALORIES: 1260 PROTEIN: 34 CARBOHYDRATES: 170 FAT: 49
A number of things were measured such as blood glucose, insulin, leptin (which regulates the amount of fat stored in your body), ghrelin (when your tummy is empty, ghrelin is pumped out) and free fatty acids.
WHAT THEY FOUND
When it came to insulin response and blood glucose, even when the ratio of insulin/glucose was examined - there was no difference between ANY of the meals.
In terms of fatty acids, they dropped quickly but returned to baseline by 5 hours in the Big Mac and organic beef meals, but 6 hours in the turkey meal.
But the interesting part is the hormones spoken about above - leptin and ghrelin.
The changes in leptin were NOT significant between groups, and ghrelin was supressed in an identical fashion after all meal options.
LOW-DENSTY LIPO-PROTEIN CHOLESTEROL - THE BAD CHOLESTEROL
The one problem with the McDonalds meal is that low-density lipo-protein cholesterol (LDL) was found to decrease more after the turkey and beef meals.
But that's no surprise given the fatty acid content of a the McDonalds meal when compared to the others.
However, I will point out that HDL, the GOOD cholesterol, showed no change after any of the meal options - which is pretty good news.
Now yes, it was a small number of people studied, and it only looked at a measly lunch, and didn't follow subjects over a long period of time.
CONCLUSION
Processed foods certainly have their place - and aren't as bad as a lot of people think.
It's not a black and white situation here at all.
But most interestingly, if you feel like a fast food hamburger, as opposed to some super funky "healthy" option that will most likely cost you a whole lot more - then GO FOR IT!
When calories are matched, the above study tells us that our hormonal responses to a group of macronutrients is essentially the same.
Whether the food is "clean" or not doesn't have the effect that people might tell you.
Now let me get this straight.
I'm not (and most other people) aren't saying you can eat fast food hamburgers religiously. The point is you can enjoy them without worrying about what it might do to your diet and waistline.
People obsess over eating "healthy" and "clean" for way too long - which as I've told you before - can lead to you packing the weight right back on again.
They fight inner demons constantly in order to deprive themselves of the food they like, thinking it's doing them the world of good, just because they look better.
But this just isn't necessary as the above information reveals.
So if the "experts" come at you with why hormone levels are better after "clean and healthy" meals, kindly inform them of some scientific proof that puts a deadly dent in their argument.
Maybe even bet a Big Mac on it.
"Stay Fit, Stay Flexed!"
MORE FITNESS "GOSPEL" DEBUNKED - THE MYTH OF GI AND HOW YOU'VE BEEN FOOLED
REFERENCES
(1) Floros et al. Feeding the world today and tomorrow: the importance of food science and technology. IFT scientific review. 2010
(2) van Boekel M, Fogliano V, Pellegrini N, Stanton C, Scholz G, Lalljie S, Somoza V, Knorr D, Jasti PR, Eisenbrand G. A review on the beneficial aspects of food processing. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2010 Sep;54(9):1215-47.
(3) Dearfield KL, Abernathy CO, Ottley MS, Brantner JH, Hayes PF. Acrylamide: Its metabolism, developmental and reproductive effects, genotoxicity, and carcinogenicity. Mutation Research1988; 195(1):45–77.
(4) Dearfield KL, Douglas GR, Ehling UH, et al. Acrylamide: A review of its genotoxicity and an assessment of heritable genetic risk. Mutation Research 1995; 330(1–2):71–99.
(5) Friedman M. Chemistry, biochemistry, and safety of acrylamide. A review. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2003; 51(16):4504–4526.
(6) Weaver CM, et al. Processed foods: contributions to nutrition. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014 Apr 23;99(6):1525-1542.
(7) Nicolia A, et al. An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety research. Crit Rev Biotechnol. 2014 Mar;34(1):77-88.
(8) Bray GA et. al. Hormonal Responses to a Fast-Food Meal Compared with Nutritionally Comparable Meals of Different Composition. Ann Nutr Metab. 2007 May 29;51(2):163-171.
