Accidental Hedonist - Junk Food

Junk Food - Myth or Reality?

10/11/05 @ 09:00:00 am, by Kate Hopkins

1306 views • Categories: Food Politics

A week or so back there was an intriguing article from BBC news, talking about Junk Food and its affect upon kids lunches and school menus. Within the article, Vincent Marks stated that Junk food is an oxymoron, and that the term has been developed as a blanket statement for one to state their disapproval over a variety of food products.

Instead, Dr. Marks asserts, there are no junk foods, only junk diets. An extreme example of his claim could be stated as thus: one chocolate bar a week is okay, as long as you round it out with fruits, veggies and some exercise. But 21 chocolate bars a week is probably a bad idea, regardless of how you accompany them.

As much as I want to poo-poo his idea, I can't dismiss how accurate it is.

The problem as I see it, is that there is no one standard to define what junk food should be or should not be. Food is easy to define - an edible series or combinations of sugars, proteins and carbohydrates that provide some measure of nutrients to help sustain life. Frito Corn Chips, Big Macs, Coca-Cola all meet this basic definition, even if only barely in some instances.

In my walks around Seattle and my conversations with people, I have seen folks dismiss Twinkies while biting into a croissant, heard folks advocate for hormone-free milk while downing a glass of wine, and watched people put both organic apples and oreo cookies into their shopping carts.

There's a bit of dissonance, and some may say hypocrisy, between these activities. And yes, I throw these stones from my huge glass house.

Even as I think about various foodstuffs that I have railed upon, most notably Kraft products and the like, I have to admit that they do provide some measure of short term benefits to people, not excluding cost. This is generally why I try to focus on bad practices of companies, or unknown (or sometimes known) long term affects of products, rather than asserting which product is better than others.

But the question is - are there junk foods out there? If so, what defines it as such? I'm having a difficult time coming up with one clear answer. Do we define food that are unhealthy as Junk Food? If so, then frois gras, bacon and croissants need to be redefined as junk food.

Perhaps there's a measure of classism involved with the "junk food" definition. Why do Hershey Bars or Burger King French Fries feel as if they're junk food, but Belgian Chocolates and Pomme Frites don't?

I don't think there are any easy answers here. Dr. Marks may be right in that we may need to change our outlook on "junk food".

Permalink • 17 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Parke [Visitor] · http://www.usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com

Good points. Nutrition professionals almost unanimously hold the view that there are no good foods and bad foods, only good diets and bad diets. This is true and important, but it does not mean "anything goes."

For public policy, this point means it would be bad for the government to forbid certain foods. At a personal level, it means we can't judge people for the food choices we see (say, in the grocery checkout line) unless we know more about them.

On the other hand, I see this point misused all the time. I sometimes hear, "The government should never advise the public to eat more fruits and vegetables, or to eat less red meat, because 'there are no good foods or bad foods.'" That's nonsense.

If Americans wisely ate steak as an occasional luxury, but typically ate more fruits and vegetables and whole grains instead, then red meat consumption would fall on average. This is what's outrageous about federal sponsorship of advertising messages telling us to eat more beef and pork. There may not be "bad foods" on any given eating occasionas, but there certainly are "eat less" foods!

Permalink 10/11/05 @ 10:37

Comment from: jeff [Visitor]

To add to Parke's comments; it was Julia Child who said: "There are no good foods or bad foods - only inapropriate amounts".

There is nothing wrong with having a bar of chocolate every once in a while or maybe even just a little bit every day, but right - 21 in a week would be considered a bit excessive! Same goes for everything else - why do people need to go into a restaurant and have a 24 oz steak when 6 oz is plenty? An extra piece of pie? What, wasn't the first one enough?

I could go on but you get the point. I agree with everything you have written. Americans as a whole need to exercise portion control.

Permalink 10/11/05 @ 11:27

Comment from: Cindy [Visitor] · http://cindyskitchen.blogspot.com

I also agree on everything you have written. Food's like everything else, good but too much of it is bad.
I just love your blog, all the debates, it's great !

Permalink 10/11/05 @ 12:56

Comment from: Ellen [Visitor] · http://www.cheapcooking.com/blog

My personal definition of junk food is similar to my defintion of "cheap thrill novels." They're fun now and then (taste good!) but there's not much lasting value in them and I typically forget them as soon as I'm done. . When I eat what I characterize as junk food, it's good while I'm eating it, but later, I sort of wish I hadn't. Or I just get "in the moment" and enjoy it while I'm eating it, knowing there are no beneficial parts. I try to teach my kids that treats are treats because you don't eat them all the time. Although lately, apple pie has been a daily food group around here... and I'm sure that's junk food to someone. But they're MY apples from MY yard and somehow that's different!

Permalink 10/11/05 @ 22:09

Comment from: Mark [Visitor] · http://calorielab.com/news/

Of course anything can be subjected to the gray-area-boundary-case argument, but I think there is a pretty clear distinction between junk and non-junk, and it's pretty much what your common sense tells you -- before you go and start thinking about it and intellectualizing too much.

The fallacy in the BBC article is that junk food can be solely defined by looking at macronutrient, nutrient, and energy content per portion or 100 grams or whatever. But you need to look at availability, cost, and the traditions involved in eating it.

Fois gras, as mentioned in the article, is not junk food (even though it's at least as gross as any junk food around) because it doesn't lend itself to abuse (binging, overeating) among most of the population. The reasons are that it's expensive, not readily available, and, for some reason or another, not craved by most of the population.

A definition like this of course is culturally relative, and in Alaska among native people, perhaps agutuk is junk food. Also, over time foods may be reclassified, and perhaps croissants are getting close to the junk food line. If Costco starts stocking it in huge packages, maybe it's in danger of being enjunkerated.

I think in decades past, things we now think of as junk were not junk, because availability and customs did not encourage/allow overconsumption. For instance, ice cream that you only had once or twice a month after paying for it with elbow grease; or even McDonald's in the early days.

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 05:27

Comment from: Aaron [Visitor]

Pardon my ignorance, but what does a glass of wine have in common with milk produced with recombinant bovine growth hormone? I do know that hormone-free milk is a rather silly expression, since all milk contains hormones. Milk produced with rBGH does have elevated concentrations of Insulin-like Growth Factor but the hormone is present in milk from untreated cows. Are you raising a point about genetically-engineered grapes or are you saying that wine is just as questionably beneficial for you as milk or are you hinting at environmental impacts? From what I have gathered of the science, a glass of red wine is indisputably healthier than a glass of rBGH-produced milk. Of course, you won't get any calcium from wine and there's always the danger of drinking too much. Or maybe that's exactly what you were getting at?

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 06:34

Comment from: Kate Hopkins [Member]

· http://www.accidentalhedonist.com

It's a fair question Aaron. My point about the wine/milk is this:

Wine contains alcohol. Alcohol is a poison. A fairly ineffectual poison, but one nontheless (and note, I say this not as a tea-totaller, but as a person with several bottles of liquor in my cabinet).

My point in the wine/milk comparison is that some will dismiss milk with rBGH due to safety concerns, yet still drink alcohol. I could have easily written beer or vodka in wines place.

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 07:52

Comment from: Kate Hopkins [Member]

· http://www.accidentalhedonist.com

Mark - I'm still thinking a lot of this through and haven't come to any one conclusion. But I do have to say that I like the "junk diet" over "junk food" approach, for one specific reason.

I may be overthinking this, but when it comes to healthy eating, when you blame the diet, you blame the behavior of the individual. When you blame the food, the individuals culpability for eating the junk food is diminished if not outright glossed over. There's a huge difference between saying "Ice cream made me overweight" vs. "I'm overweight because I eat a pint of ice cream a day". I think that the "junk food" vs. "junk diet" helps address this.

Just a thought

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 08:09

Comment from: Aaron [Visitor]

Kate,
Ah.. but isn't it the dose that makes the poison? According to the Harvard School of Public Health', 'moderate drinking seems to be good for the heart and circulatory system, and probably protects against type 2 diabetes and gallstones. I suppose it could also be argued that rBGH-produced milk still contains plenty of nutrients. I'm just a little wary of the hormones, since their effects are notoriously dose independent.

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 11:09

Comment from: Aaron [Visitor]

Oops, my link got scrubbed. Here's the URL:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/alcohol.html

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 11:10

Comment from: Kate Hopkins [Member]

· http://www.accidentalhedonist.com

That's a great link Aaron. And with alcohol, there are no easy answers. Especially when people can play with definitions...what constitutes "moderation"? What size is a "drink". I'll write more to this in a future post.

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 13:16

Comment from: Mark [Visitor] · http://calorielab.com/news/

I guess my concern is when problems are redefined in terms that make them insoluble. If you take the simple path and stigmatize foods as junk, it's easy to "ban" them from schools, for instance. It's also easy for people to remember rules of thumb about what not to eat.

If you say a Twinkie isn't junk unless it's overconsumed, you have an unenforcable situation. In schools, how could you monitor how many Twinkies the kids get out of vending machines?

This is similar to the view that obesity is due to a lack of "personal responsibility," so we shouldn't pass point-of-purchase nutritional disclosure laws. Practically, concretely, how do we increase "personal responsibility"? Do we start a new federal bureaucracy in the Department of Education and hire counselors to go out and talk with every American? Do we put pamphlets in everybody's tax returns? There's really nothing realistic that can be done, so nothing gets done.

On the other hand, disclosure laws are easy. Drafting the legislation is easy, the enforcement mechanisms are easy to implement and can use existing bureacracies, the infrastructure of private companies to do testing exists, etc. It's something you can put on an action list and actually do by a deadline date. It might make things better. If not, go on to Plan B, which, hopefully, is also implementable and actionable. But at least you're moving and doing something proactive about the problem.

So although I have no problem with scholars pondering the existential issue of junk food in their dissertations, from a public policy standpoint I prefer the simple, lowbrow approach of just stigmatizing it as junk, and then taking it from there (bans, advertising limits, taxes, labeling requirements, etc.).

Permalink 10/12/05 @ 17:36

Comment from: Kate Hopkins [Member]

· http://www.accidentalhedonist.com

Mark, I believe that your point is a valid one, for reasons both you stated and that Parke stated in his comment above.

Full disclosure here: I don't have a child, so I feel as if I don't have a horse in this race when it comes to talking about foods in schools. But it would seem to me that it's just as simple to legislate diet as it is certain foods.

From the information I have, it seems that the food distribution model has changed from when I was in school. Where, back in the day, a student could only get their food from a singular distribution point (the lunch line), now it appears as if there are several distribution points, and not all of them monitored (vending machines). If school boards could change this back to the way it was, there could be better control over the diet.

Granted, this is a pie in the sky approach on my part, but my point is that one can legislate diet as easily as one can legislate individual products. Grocery stores do it all the time and on a much larger scale.

Permalink 10/13/05 @ 07:46

Comment from: Sgt. Belcher [Visitor] · http://www.waronjunk.com

No such thing as junk food? But what kind of message does that send to our nation's children?!?!

Let's have a WAR ON JUNK FOOD!!

www.WaronJunk.com

Permalink 10/25/05 @ 13:31

Comment from: angelina maya [Visitor]

I am concerned over the use of hydorgenated oils, high fructose corn syurp and other artificial ingriendents in foods. it is very frustrating to have to read lables. I eat mostly fresh produce and read lables for candy bars and cereals,breads and make my cookies myself. I compltley avoid canned soups and dried box foods.

Permalink 06/15/06 @ 12:36

Comment from: amanda [Visitor]

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Permalink 09/28/06 @ 12:01

Comment from: elaina [Visitor]

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Permalink 09/28/06 @ 12:02

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