I've made myself junk intolerant?

I agree that your example sounds more psychological.

But I think it depends on what "junk" we're talking about. There's homemade stuff that isn't necessarily healthy, has a lot of sugar, etc. but it's still natural ingredients and more indulgent than unhealthy. And then there's trashy fast food that you grab on the go and that's really not actually food. If you eat a lot of fast food, your body's probably used to all the fats and sodium and "bad" stuff they put on it. So I could imagine that if you cut that out and not have it for a long time, the next time you'll go get a burger or something, it could probably make you sick.

You do get to the point where "junk" doesn't taste as good, seems extremely filling, or doesn't digest as well, depending on the type of junk. Back in the '80's, Sylvester Stallone was one of the first actors to become known for his physique and workouts. He said he ate a hot dog or some junk once a week so his system could still tolerate it. Said he did that in case he got caught someplace where there was nothing but junk to eat. IMO, that's most of America, haha.

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

Madwife2009 wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I assumed pancake too, but likely OP is in the UK. (I can't really picture what this UK flapjack is enough to decide if I would like it or not.)

English flapjacks:



Usually made with oats, butter and golden syrup/sugar. Some people add stuff to them - fruit, chocolate chips; some coat them in chocolate. They're really yummy (but have way too many calories in). Really easy to make as well, you just melt the butter and syrup/sugar, add the oats, stuff into a baking tray and cook for a few minutes.

Oh YUM.

They are lovely!

My pre race food of choice as you have the sugar/syrup for fast release and the oats and butter for slower energy.

We need the UK/American English thread to come back -- this is reminding me of it, and it was fun. Thanks for the various UK flapjack explanations!

iamunicoon wrote: »

I agree that your example sounds more psychological.

But I think it depends on what "junk" we're talking about. There's homemade stuff that isn't necessarily healthy, has a lot of sugar, etc. but it's still natural ingredients and more indulgent than unhealthy. And then there's trashy fast food that you grab on the go and that's really not actually food. If you eat a lot of fast food, your body's probably used to all the fats and sodium and "bad" stuff they put on it. So I could imagine that if you cut that out and not have it for a long time, the next time you'll go get a burger or something, it could probably make you sick.

Yeah no.

IMHO, it doesn't sound psychological at all. And 'can you become intolerant to junk food.' Not exactly, but if the question was: can I be having a reaction now to all this food when I didn't notice a reaction before?

Then yes, absolutely yes, you can.

Because what it sounds like is pretty much every story I've heard from friends and acquaintances (and experienced myself) who have a physical problem with food that is low level. Eating the food regularly, you would be having low level reactions all the time - it's your normal. then you go off the food and you may feel a bit better, or don't really notice a slow improvement. But then when you eat the food again, having been off of it, suddenly you feel like crap on ingesting it, because the transition from 'good' to 'crap' is more noticeable. (and for some folks, once the body goes off of the 'bad' food, it will react more strongly when it is reintroduced - docs don't really understand why, yet, though).

I've seen this with people who have a chemical sensitivity, with people who have a low level food allergies (these may not cause hives but can cause gut issues, bowel issues, make you feel like you have congestion and/or brain fog or wooziness, or like some wacko sudden-onset cold or flu that goes away too quickly to be that, and more), people who have food intolerances, or even celiacs who don't have strong outward symptoms when they react.

Sometimes the problem is the ingredient you've pinpointed (like cocoa, say). Sometimes the problem is an ingredient that is in the 'junk' food that you've been off of that you might not be thinking of- like if you went gluten free or very low gluten and you happened to be a celiac, for example, and your junk food contains gluten. And sometimes it's something else that you are getting WITH the ingredient.

I always see folks talking about how you can't react to sugar, because it's chemically the same. But what's not often understood is that different sugars have gone through quite different processing to get you the final product, and sometimes that process has introduced contamination that you may have a reaction to. This is actually an issue I ran into myself.

I was having huge problems with eating things with lots of processed sugar. Like, ate 'junk' food and felt horrible. I remember having similar thoughts as you've expressed yourself. Later, I was diagnosed with a sulfite sensitivity/allergy. It's a chemical that has a lot of uses in the food industry but one of them? To bleach certain sugars white. So while I didn't react to more sugar itself, I reacted to a chemical that still contaminated the sugar, so I always reacted WHEN I ate more sugar, you know?

I have seen this a LOT with a lot of folks. I know someone who kept reacting to apples, then tried one from the tree and was fine - turned out to be a reaction to a wax coating put on apples by farmers. Someone reacting to bleaching agents on pistachio shells, or reacting to thickeners added to salsa, or reacting to a dye added to juice, or reacting to a starch coating put on the INSIDE of a plastic packaging for cheese that doesn't have to be on the label because it's considered 'packaging' and not part of the food itself.

My point is that these days, NONE of our food is typically 'just' the food. There's a lot of food processing going on before we get our foods, and it adds things to your food, and sometimes those things don't agree with your body.

If you are really wondering what is going on, since you are baking it yourself it's going to be a little easier. If the reactions are not life threatening, one recommended way is to literally try the ingredients from what you bake, one at a time. Like, get the same amount of sugar you would get in whatever amount of brownie you usually eat, mix it in a glass of water, and drink that. If there is a reaction, you know the sugar was an issue. If there isn't, you can try the next ingredient the next day. (as an aside - for sugar, usually you just need to find a different type of sugar that had different processing, and it's fine)

I am a person with a LOT of allergies, and many of them on the 'you're not going to die but you sure feel terrible' scale - have a disorder that causes me to have a lot of them. The above method was recommended to me by my allergist as a way to try new foods, since I never knew if I might have a reaction - to the food or something contaminating it. Admittedly, I had to do it much slower, trying tinier amounts and waiting a day in between until I got to larger amounts, since some of my reactions can be really bad. But it was a pretty effective way to figure out what was a problem.

Because to be completely honest, the idea that we have all these psychological physical reactions has grown to pretty ridiculous proportions. I mean, we DO have physiological reactions due to psychological factors, don't get me wrong. But not in any way close to the amount people seem to think. There's a good quote from a doctor that talks about what the recent trend is, and it said, essentially: in the past, if we couldn't figure out a reason for a symptom, it was witchcraft. Today, if we can't figure out a reason for a symptom, it's psychological.

And 'that symptom makes no sense to me' is just as invalid a reason for the diagnosis now as it was then. And unfortunately, non-medical folks level this accusation even more frequently than medical personnel. And it screws up those folks who have actual problems, and tends to make them doubt themselves when they are experiencing perfectly physical symptoms. Just as an example, nearly half of people with auto-immune disorders have their doctors tell them it's all in their heads or psychological, early on in the diagnosis process.


Just...if you really feel like crap when you are eating these things? From someone who has been there, and who has a LOT of friends who have been there, where we were all reacting 'weirdly' and ignored it because it didn't seem like it could be a real thing? It's worth it to take a little time and see if you can figure out exactly what's going on. Because if you can, odds are that you are going to feel better afterward, you know? And you can avoid potentially years of feeling like crap all the time.

Good luck.

Note: actually, I feel like I need to add- you also might want to check out diabetes, if this is a feeling you have when you eat lots of carbs or sugars of any kind, or if you have problems when you haven't eaten in too long, as well. And do it before any trying of straight sugar, as that can be an issue.

shaumom wrote: »

IMHO, it doesn't sound psychological at all. And 'can you become intolerant to junk food.' Not exactly, but if the question was: can I be having a reaction now to all this food when I didn't notice a reaction before?

Then yes, absolutely yes, you can.

Because what it sounds like is pretty much every story I've heard from friends and acquaintances (and experienced myself) who have a physical problem with food that is low level. Eating the food regularly, you would be having low level reactions all the time - it's your normal. then you go off the food and you may feel a bit better, or don't really notice a slow improvement. But then when you eat the food again, having been off of it, suddenly you feel like crap on ingesting it...

Yeah, this is possible, others mentioned it, but then it would not be a reaction to "junk" food. That's way too general.

I ate really greasy food for the first time in a long long loooong time the other day and woah! my body did.not.like! I actually had to cancel plans because I was afraid to be more than a few meters from a bathroom...for reasons im sure you can imagine, definitely not the fun filled saturday night I had planned.

I don't think it's entirely possible to become "intolerant" but it is possible re-introducing something your body has quite happily gone without can in some cases have some pretty undesirable effects!