Calories in clean food vs junk food?

Preservatives aren't ALL they add ... there are chemicals added to junk food and processed fast food to make you want more. Intentionally! MSG is in EVERYTHING you eat in restaurants and frozen dinners and cans and bags (unless it says otherwise). It comes under many different names and (autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed protein, etc.) and you can learn all about it at MSGTruth.org (I was just having a similar conversation on another thread, so going to share this here too). The calorie may be a calorie but the added chemicals can really mess with your metabolism and your hunger. MSG is among the worst. Why do they add it to foods? From MSGTRuth.org:

Why do food companies add MSG to foods?


IThere are several reasons:

MSG tricks your tongue into making you think a certain food is high in protein and thus nutritious. It is not a "meat tenderizer". It is not a "preservative". The food industry is trying to confuse the issue by focusing on the "fifth" taste sense they call umami. Free glutamic acid is detected by the taste buds as a simple way to signal the presence of protein in a food, just as there are fat receptors to detect fats and receptors that sense carbohydrate or sweet flavors. The purpose is to help us discern real food from inedible matter. It changes your perception of not simply taste but the nutritious qualities of what you put into your mouth. However, and here is the main problem with free glutamic acid - It is the very same neurotransmitter that your brain and many organs including your ears, eyes, nervous system and pancreas in your body use to initiate certain processes in your body.

MSG stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. So many diets these days are concerned about the Glycemic Index of foods and yet none of them address the fact that MSG and free glutamic acid stimulate the pancreas to release insulin when there doesn't even have to be carbohydrates in the food for that insulin to act on. The food industry has found their own "anti-appetite suppressant". It's a convenient way to keep consumers coming back for more. The blood sugar drops because of the insulin flood. And you are hungry an hour later. Sound familiar?

The body changes excess glutamate to GABA. GABA may be addictive. It is calming and affects the same receptors in the brain as valium.

Cost. The illusion created by adding MSG to a food product enables the food processor to add LESS real food. The illusion of more protein in a food allows the food producer to put LESS protein in it. The consumer perceives the product - say chicken soup - to have more chicken in it than is actually there. Example: A well-known brand of dehydrated chicken noodle soup. Is that chicken in there, or a piece of confetti?

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So while a calorie is a calorie as a unit of energy, not all calories are created equally. Some nourish, some really mess you up and make your road a lot tougher than it has to be.

MSGTruth.org

EDIT: Think about this: Rats aren't fat naturally.Scientists inject them with MSG to make them fat so that they can do obesity related research on them. What do you think that means for those who eat MSG several times a day? Just something to think about.

Thank you for posting this. I still eat MSG, as I am sure most of us do, but since becoming more aware of it I can avoid it easier. I used to crave McDonalds every day. After breaking myself of eating it, my cravings left and it has been months since I have had food from there.

agree knowledge is power , my buddy and I are doing our own research on leptin production and its importance in monitoring hunger signals and thus our weight gain.

This board relies to much on "BRO Science" and hostile attacks with no real science based evidence to support the attackers poistion other than their POV.

Yeah yeah, you and your body have a trainer and a doctor and a nutristiont and you throw out perfectly good food because you lack the fundamental human trait called willpower, and insist on making anything that doesn't make your personal approved list seem like the debil.

We get it. We know. You and Buddy are super smart and clearly doing a way better job than the rest of us.

I just had 2 Chocolate chip cookie dough Pop Tarts. You mad???

Don't forget to stop eating tomatoes as well. If correlation = causation, then tomatoes are extremely dangerous, even fatal.

"Ninety-two point four per cent of juvenile delinquents have eaten to-
matoes.
Eighty-seven point one per cent of the adult criminals in penitentiaries
throughout the United States have eaten tomatoes.
Informers reliably inform that of all known American Communists
ninety-two point three per cent have eaten tomatoes.
Eighty-four per cent of all people killed in automobile accidents during
the year 1984 had eaten tomatoes.
Those who object to singling out specific groups for statistical proofs
require measurements within in the total. Of those people born before the year
1850, regardless of race, color, creed or caste, and known to have eaten
tomatoes, there has been one hundred per cent mortality!
In spite of their dread addiction, a few tomato eaters born between 1850
and 1900 still manage to survive, but the clinical picture is poor-their
bones are brittle, their movements feeble, their skin seamed and wrinkled,
their eyesight failing, hair falling, and frequently they have lost all their
teeth.
Those born between 1900 and 1950 number somewhat more survivors,
but the overt signs of the addiction's dread effects differ not in kind but only
in degree of deterioration. Prognostication is not hopeful.
Exhaustive experiment shows that when tomatoes are withheld from an
addict, invariably his cravings will cause him to turn to substitutes-such
as oranges, or steak and potatoes. If both tomatoes and all substitutes are
persistently withheld-death invariably results within a short time!
The skeptic of apocryphal statistics, or the stubborn nonconformist who
will not accept the clearly proved conclusions of others may conduct his
own experiment.
Obtain two dozen tomatoes-they may actually be purchased within a
block of some high schools, or discovered growing in a respected neigh-
bor's back yard!-crush them to a pulp in exactly the state they would have
if introduced into the stomach, pour the vile juice into a bowl, and
place a goldfish therein. Within minutes the goldfish will be dead!
Those who argue that what affects a goldfish might not apply to a human
being may, at their own choice, wish to conduct a direct experiment by fully
immersing a live human head* into the mixture for a full five minutes."

This helped me decide on what to eat to fulfill my calories. Also, junk food usually doesn't have the essential nutrients that your body needs.

That is fantastic, it visually shows the difference, not only that Real Food takes ever so much longer to digest so it doesn't leave you hungry and wanting to eat more. Processed food does just that, burns off real fast and then we want to eat more and more.

Hi

If I were to eat 1200 calories in junk food vs eat 1200 clean what difference would it make?

I know that eating clean is the best way to go just interested in the difference??


Thanks so much (:

This helped me decide on what to eat to fulfill my calories. Also, junk food usually doesn't have the essential nutrients that your body needs.

If I were to eat 1200 calories in junk food vs eat 1200 clean what difference would it make?