Perhaps one of your New Years resolutions is to cut down on fast food consumption? Well, here are some horrifying facts which will definitely help put you off junk food for life!

1) Unhealthy ingredients

Processed foods are usually loaded with:        

fats
sugar
salt
artificial additives - a quick look at any junk food label will show you a long, long list of ingredients, most of which are food additives. Many of these food additives can have serious effects on long term health.

2) Missing nutrients

It's not just what's in fast foods that's damaging to your health; what fast foods leave out is equally as bad. These are some of the nutrients we need to keep our body functioning, but which you will rarely find in junk food:

Fibre

Fibre is essential to keep the gut working properly, and you'll find it in original fresh ingredients like grain or vegetables, ingredients which are rarely used in processed foods. It helps glucose from food to be slowly released into the blood stream, wheareas low fibre foods cause this to happen too quickly, thereby causing blood sugar levels to shoot down. In response, the brain triggers the release of stress hormones to release the body's energy reserves. This explains why people with a low fibre intake are more prone to stress, as well as health problems such as constipation, breast and bowel cancer and heart disease.

Vitamins and minerals

Subjecting foods to processing and refining, often at high temperatures, destroys their nutritional value.

3) Damaging to your health

Diets which rely too much on junk foods can have seriously harmful effects on your health, such as:

• Lethal diseases – cancer, coronary heart disease, diabetes
• Obesity
• The lack of certain essential nutrients can cause behavioural problems in children and affect their ability to learn.
• Constipation and digestive problems,
• Headaches
• Poor concentration
• Rotten teeth and bad breath
• Dry or spotty skin
• Depression and tiredness
• Anaemia –

And the list goes on...

Now for the disgusting facts about some of the foods on your plate...

Chicken nuggets

Low cost nuggets often contain as little as 16% pulped chicken, bulked out with water, chicken skin, proteins removed from bone, hide, or poultry feathers, mechanically retrieved meat, plus sugar, additives and salt. They also contain bulking agents used to soak up the water that’s injected into chicken to increase the weight.

Minced meat can hide a multitude of revolting ‘extras’ : carcinogenic antibiotics, recycled cat food, and poultry mixed with beef proteins have all been found in chicken destined for the production line.

This is what a chicken (mc or king) nugget looks like                                                     before it's put into pure gluten and deep fried in trans fat.

Chips

Fat-packed and low in nutrients. Usually coated with additives and salt. 

Milkshakes

A simple-sounding ingredient, like ‘artificial blueberry flavour’ can in itself contain around 50 chemicals. And not one single blueberry…

Chocolate muffins

Ridiculously high in sugar, and made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil which has zero nutritional value and damages heart and arteries.

Fruit yoghurts, ready-made sauces, fruit juices

Modified starches, along with colourings and flavourings, mimic the texture of fresh fruit and veg, so that manufacturers can use less of the real thing.

Fizzy drinks

Primarily water mixed with additives, sugar or sweetener, and caffeine. A can of cola contains around 10 teaspoons of sugar.

                                                                             The effects of fizzy drinks on your teeth...