DANGEROUS FAST FOODS

The term fast food is used to describe food prepared and served quickly. These processed, convenient and readily-available foods are promoted by powerful advertising campaigns that have made then a major part of many people's daily diet. Not only do some have very low nutritional value, but they may also contain toxic substances. Here are some fast foods you need to be wary of:

Sodas/soft drinks

An average can of soda contains about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories, up to 55 mg of caffeine, and is loaded with artificial food colours, carbon dioxide and phosphoric acid.

I can't think of any good reason to ever have it. High fructose corn syrup, commonly used to sweeten sodas, is known to promote diabetes, hypertension and obesity. If instead you prefer diet sodas containing harmful artificial sweeteners like aspartame, you face many other serious health problems.

Studies have linked drinking sodas to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay and heart disease, yet the average American adult drinks an estimated 56 gallons of soft drinks each year. Jamaicans are not far behind and our popular 'box drinks' and 'bag juices' are almost as bad. Drinking all that high-calorie sugar water will also suppress your appetite for healthy foods, and pave the way for more nutritional deficiencies.

Soft drink consumption among children has almost doubled over the last decade, which is not surprising considering the millions of dollars spent by the manufacturers in advertising and marketing, especially to kids. If you routinely drink sodas, eliminating them from your diet is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to improve your health.

Doughnuts and pastry

Doughnuts are fried food, high in fat, sugar and white flour. Most varieties contain a particularly harmful type of fat called trans-fat. Commercial doughnuts contain as much as 40 per cent trans-fats. An average doughnut will give you about 200 to 300 empty calories, mostly from sugar and unhealthy fat with very few good nutrients.

Many people have other pastries like 'Danish' as a snack or at coffee breaks in the office. Nutritionally, this is one of the worst kinds of snacks. It is full of sugar, white flour and bad fats, will cause blood-sugar imbalances and will make you hungry again real soon.

French fries and most commercial fried foods

Irish potatoes used to make 'French fries' when consumed in excess can create problems, as this starch is rapidly converted to glucose (blood sugar) that raises the level of the hormone insulin in the blood with damaging effects on your health. But when potatoes are fried at high temperatures, all sorts of other unhealthy things happen.

Anything fried, even vegetables, has the problem of containing unhealthy trans-fats and a potent cancer-causing substance called acrylamide. Fried or barbecued beef, chicken and pork will contain additional cancer-promoting substances like nitrosamines. Foods that are deep-fried in vegetable oils like canola, soybean, cottonseed, sunflower or corn are particularly problematic. These oils are very susceptible to damage from heat and overheated healthy oil can become something that's very unhealthy.

It is theoretically possible to create a healthier 'French fry' if you cook it in virgin olive oil or virgin coconut oil. Both these oils are healthy and extremely stable and are not damaged by the high temperatures of cooking.

Chips

Most commercial chips, and this includes corn chips, potato chips, banana and plantain chips, you name it, are high in trans-fats. Fortunately, some companies have responded to the warnings about trans-fats and have started to produce chips free of these trans-fats.

However, the high temperatures used to cook them will potentially still cause the formation of carcinogenic substances like acrylamide, and this risk remains even if the trans-fats are removed.

Fried seafood

Not all seafood is healthy. Deep-fried shrimp, clams, oysters, lobsters, and so on have all the issues of the trans-fats and acrylamide mentioned above, plus an added risk of contamination with mercury.

These creatures feed on the bottom of the sea and are considered scavenger animals because they take in chemicals and germs that may be harmful. Seafood today is often contaminated with toxic mercury, and shellfish like shrimp and lobsters can also contain parasites and bacteria that may not be killed with cooking.

Eating these foods without due caution can, therefore, expose you to four types of toxic substances - trans-fats, acrylamide, mercury and possibly parasites or bacteria. If you have a taste for seafood, have it steamed, baked or broiled and make sure shellfish is properly cleaned and cooked.

You may email Dr Tony Vendryes at tonyvendryes@ mac.com or listen to An Ounce of Prevention on Power 106 FM on Fridays at 8 p.m. His new book An Ounce of Prevention — Especially for Women is available locally and on the Internet.