CONSUMER CONCERNS...THE DANGERS OF JUNK FOOD

CONSUMER CONCERNS…THE DANGERS OF JUNK FOOD

Aug 09, 2015 News

PAT DIAL
For many years Consumers International has been alerting consumers and the public worldwide of the dangers to health and well-being of manufactured snack foods and fast foods, generally known today as “Junk Food”.
Junk Food was an American invention and from there it spread all over the world. In Guyana, we began using it from the 1950’s and since it was a quick way of making money, many fast food shops quickly grew up in Georgetown and even in the countryside. These fast food establishments gradually drove the many local restaurants and cooked-food sellers out of business or sometimes forced them into the Junk Food business.
These Junk Foods consist of the manufactured snacks which proliferate in the supermarkets and include things like cheese puffs, chips, tortillas and various types of candybars. The other type of Junk Food is sold in fast food shops and even some establishments calling themselves “restaurants”. Such Junk Food would include fried potato chips, hamburgers, hot-dogs and various types of fried chicken. Pizzas are sometimes classified as Junk Food but many defenders of Pizzas claim that if they are produced in traditional Italian style with Italian recipes, they are quite wholesome. All Junk Food are sold with an almost obligatory choice of aerated sweet drinks like the popular colas.
These Junk Foods all contain an excessive amount of salt, processed sugar and are made with cheap saturated fats and oils. They always use chemicals like monosodium glutamate to stimulate taste buds and create the illusion that Junk Food is naturally tasty. Chemical food colouring is also used to give Junk Food an attractive appearance. Oftentimes, such colouring is used in hamburgers to deceive the user into thinking that he is eating good quality meat.
These Junk Foods have little nutritional value. They contain comparatively little protein and vitamins and minerals and excessive carbohydrates. Also, the cola drinks which go with them have little nutritional value. They are low in satiation value, that is, one could eat a great deal of such food without feeling satisfied. And this feeling of not being full causes one to over eat. Another danger of Junk Food is that it is addictive, that is, one begins to feel that one must eat it all the time. They thus prevent Junk Food users from eating proper and healthier food.
Children today never take home-cooked lunches to school. Instead, they manipulate their parents into giving them money to buy lunch and always buy snack food or Junk Food. They become addicted to such food and the addiction grows with them into adulthood. Junk Food does not provide them with the nutrition necessary for growing children and negatively affects their academic performance.
Junk Food is dangerous to health. With their excess of saturated fats and oils, salt and sugar they increase the risk of several kinds of ailments including diabetes and cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure and other diseases of the heart. They also cause abdominal fat. In addition to those dangers, they have little nutritional value and a regular user of them may eventually find that his body has become imperceptibly weakened. And it damages children by making them addictive and overweight and not receiving adequate nutrition. Children’s academic performance is negatively affected.
In the United States where the Junk Food danger has grown to enormous proportions, consumer bodies and health organizations and even governments have begun to move against it. But like the tobacco companies, Junk Food companies are carrying serious and sometimes successful counter attacks.
In Guyana, fortunately, the situation has not become as serious as in America and this could allow the problem to be contained. It could be done by alerting the public of the dangers of Junk Food by full use of the information media and getting the Ministries of Health and Education on board. The schools must be alerted regarding protecting the children against the danger. This must go hand-in-hand with the dissemination of information on the nutritional value of fresh local foods and simple recipes. The Ministries of Health and Education already have a number of suitable brochures, posters and booklets on local foods and recipes which need to be more widely and consistently circulated.

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CONSUMER CONCERNS…THE DANGERS OF JUNK FOOD

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