I Thought Junk Food Was Bad For You - Now I'm Confused!

[PhoenixFlex]

Please help me solve this if you can – any suggestions are welcome!

Sorry this is a bit of a long post. I’ve bolded all the important stuff, so if you want you can skim it and see if you can come up with a solution at the end.
*****

On Thursday and Friday I rewarded myself for having a diet with virtually no junk food 98% of the time. As a ‘compensation’ for holding out so long, I ate a LARGE amount of chocolate, and piled on the ‘evil’ refined sugars.

I had more mental energy in those 48 hours and felt better than I had done in weeks or even months!

What’s more, after 3 and a half hours of hard exercise, I felt like I could jump a horse – literally!


Bit of a paradox, huh? I thought chocolate and junk food was supposed to make you slow and drained of energy!

I still can’t forget all the other things they can do to you though, so I know I can’t use this as a solution for my energy dilemma. But yesterday, the first day back on the ‘super-clean’ diet, my brain energy was back in the pits .

There must be an alternative – what can I do to simulate the effect that the junk had on my energy levels?
Without actually eating them to an unhealthy degree?

What is it in them that made me alert and awake, and what else is there out there that I can eat or do for the same effect?


When I have energy, I am happy. On Thursday and Friday I was on Cloud Nine.

******
If you have anything to say that you thing might help me figure out the answer, please don’t hesitate to leave a post!


All the best,
Felix

[Fraggle Rocker]

Chocolate is loaded with caffeine, which is both a mental and physical stimulant, as well as theobroma, which is a mood elevator. There's no mystery here, you were drugged. Most people would not have stayed high on it so long, but I'm like you. My body is very sensitive to caffeine and it wears off very slowly. Two ounces of Dr. Pepper in a measuring cup on Saturday morning will keep me bouncing off the ceiling all weekend.

My wife is a chocolatiere, so you can't get away with calling chocolate "junk" in our house. It's got lots of healthy organic compounds in it, and if you don't buy the cheap American brands, it's not bad for you. Read the ingredients. They should be cocoa solids, cocoa butter and sugar, with maybe a tiny bit of lecithin as an emulsifier. If you prefer milk chocolate (Philistine!) it will contain milk. Real chocolate does not contain flavorings, chemicals, and other kinds of fat to substitute for the cocoa butter. True European-style white chocolate has cocoa butter but no cocoa solids, and there's no caffeine in it. Of course candy can have something inside the chocolate coating, and things like truffles will have liqueur or ground nuts mixed in with the chocolate.

When people use the term "junk food" they're usually referring to the packaged crap from the convenience store that tastes and feels like plastic in your mouth. It's full of hydrogenated fats, which will statistically reduce your life expectancy by increasing your "bad" cholesterol. And chemical preservatives whose names have lots of hyphens and numerals. You don't want to eat something that has a shelf life of twenty years; if the bugs can't digest it it's probably no good for you either. This stuff has virtually no nutritional value except calories. Calories in themselves aren't bad for you so long as you don't eat more than you can burn, and there's nothing at all wrong with sugar except that it tastes so good and is pure calories, so you might eat too much. That bullshit about sugar making children hyperactive has been debunked eleventy times. But it will sure make 'em fat, and children should not take any drugs including caffeine.

[LadyMidnight]

Chocolate doesn't have THAT much caffeine. I think what made you so hyped was the huge amount of simple sugars you ate at one time. It's easier for your body to convert sugary candies into glucose, which is the brain's preferred source of fuel. You basically had a huge surge of glucose flowing into your brain.

What's bad is that you crash off of a sugar high because your insulin levels drastically spike afterwards. If you want an occasional sugar high, eat a bunch of fruit. At least you'll be getting some nutrients. Some say that fruit doesn't give you such an extreme sugar rush because fiber slows its digestion.

[Rick]

try red bull; it is effective in what it does. I heard apple works better than coffee as a stimulant.


Rick

[Fraggle Rocker]

Chocolate doesn't have THAT much caffeine.

Take the word of a chocolatiere's assistant. Genuine dark chocolate that comes with a percentage on the wrapper has quite a bit. Four ounces of it has about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, and a chocolate lover can eat four ounces without blinking.

Add the impact of the theobroma and you're dancing on the ceiling.

It's interesting to note that chocolate as we know it is strictly a product of the Industrial Era. The extraction of the cocoa solids and cocoa butter from the tissue of the cocoa bean was impossible before the invention of industrial processes. The xocolatl drunk by the Aztecs was a pale harbinger of modern chocolate--basically what we would call "fermented cocoa bean tea." Still it was so enjoyable that it took Europe by storm and they settled for it happily for more than two hundred years before modern chocolate was invented.

On "Farscape," John Crichton found himself on the wrong end of a wormhole, plopped down in a galactic civilization with space travel, thousands of intelligent species each with its own rich culture, science and engineering that made him salivate, and a cosmic battle raging between good and evil. When his new friends asked him, with all of this, why he was so determined to find a way back to Earth, his answer was:

"You guys don't have chocolate."

[river-wind]

The overarching point to take from this is:
You felt good because there were stimulants in your system. Likely, you felt worse afterwards, maybe even thinking 'wow, I wish I felt like I did yesterday after that junk food'.

The stimulant effect feels good, but it can do damage to your body over the long term; occasional chocolate or occasional sugar isn't bad for you - it's the constant intake of those short-term "feel-good" foods that can degrade your health.

While the degree of effect nor the speed of addiction, nor the amount of damage done compare directly, this discussion is barely different from talking about stimulants like cocaine, speed, etc. They make you feel good in the short-term at the cost of your health in the long term.

[LadyMidnight]

Take the word of a chocolatiere's assistant. Genuine dark chocolate that comes with a percentage on the wrapper has quite a bit. Four ounces of it has about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, and a chocolate lover can eat four ounces without blinking.

Add the impact of the theobroma and you're dancing on the ceiling.

True, high quality chocolate with a good percentage of cocoa is higher in caffeine. It's also pretty good for you. I read somewhere that pure cocoa has more antioxidants than anything else. Who knows how true that is, but we can hope.

But the chocolate people eat most often (like Hershey's) is mainly comprised of milk and sugar, right? So it only has a few milligrams of caffeine and a ton of sugar.

[Rick]

pure cocoa is very bitter, you get Hershey's cocoa powder .. that's bitter; I heard that dark bitter chocolate is more healthier than the other ones. Caffeine I heard is good for liver, because it allows all toxins to be transported to liver so that they can be flushed out. This gives a chance for body to be detoxed, Is that right? I don't honestly know for sure.

Rick

[stellaf]

Hi,

I agree with you that junk food is not good for our health and we should avoid it. I can understand that it's difficult to avoid junk food, but for a good health we need to control ourselves. Thanks for sharing.

Stella

[thinking]

Please help me solve this if you can – any suggestions are welcome!

Sorry this is a bit of a long post. I’ve bolded all the important stuff, so if you want you can skim it and see if you can come up with a solution at the end.
*****

On Thursday and Friday I rewarded myself for having a diet with virtually no junk food 98% of the time. As a ‘compensation’ for holding out so long, I ate a LARGE amount of chocolate, and piled on the ‘evil’ refined sugars.

I had more mental energy in those 48 hours and felt better than I had done in weeks or even months!

What’s more, after 3 and a half hours of hard exercise, I felt like I could jump a horse – literally!


Bit of a paradox, huh? I thought chocolate and junk food was supposed to make you slow and drained of energy!

I still can’t forget all the other things they can do to you though, so I know I can’t use this as a solution for my energy dilemma. But yesterday, the first day back on the ‘super-clean’ diet, my brain energy was back in the pits .

There must be an alternative – what can I do to simulate the effect that the junk had on my energy levels?
Without actually eating them to an unhealthy degree?

What is it in them that made me alert and awake, and what else is there out there that I can eat or do for the same effect?


When I have energy, I am happy. On Thursday and Friday I was on Cloud Nine.

******
If you have anything to say that you thing might help me figure out the answer, please don’t hesitate to leave a post!


All the best,
Felix

look into your " essential oils " and the ratio of 3-6-9

[thinking]

if you have not taken your essential oils before , you have to catch-up persay ( you have to take several table spoons at the start , don't over do it or you can become sick , been there done that )

once done though , your skin becomes less dry

my way to test this is to scratch your skin with a finger nail , I do this above the the wrist

if the scratch leaves a white mark , and doesn't disappear quickly then your not quite there

if though the scratch disappears quickly then your there , and after that perhaps only one to three table spoons are needed daily

depends on the enviroment your in , is cold or hot ?

probably less in the summer more in the winter

[BlueMoose]

What was/is your normal diet when not eating junk food ? Seems to me the problem lays there, because I´m having the opposite effects, I did cut out all the junk food, energy drinks and sweeties and never been better, first effects that I noticed is that I dont have headaches, no more stomach aches and my skin looks lot healthier.
I didnt give up chocolate, few pieces a day with coffee, I cut out coffee to one cup per day, but I drink tea quite a lot, with sugar, lots more fruits than previously, also I did cut out dark meats to half, more sea food and lighter meats.
And thats lot cheaper too.

[thinking]

What was/is your normal diet when not eating junk food ? Seems to me the problem lays there, because I´m having the opposite effects, I did cut out all the junk food, energy drinks and sweeties and never been better, first effects that I noticed is that I dont have headaches, no more stomach aches and my skin looks lot healthier.
I didnt give up chocolate, few pieces a day with coffee, I cut out coffee to one cup per day, but I drink tea quite a lot, with sugar, lots more fruits than previously, also I did cut out dark meats to half, more sea food and lighter meats.
And thats lot cheaper too.

the thing is though , is that essential oils , generally give you the same affects as coffee ( caffine ) , fruits ( sugar ) and essential oils are needed by the body , for the body to be Healthy

look into essential oils

[BlueMoose]

the thing is though , is that essential oils , generally give you the same affects as coffee ( caffine ) , fruits ( sugar ) and essential oils are needed by the body , for the body to be Healthy

look into essential oils

-Thanks, have to look little closer on that

-Its really hard to find natural raw sugar on local shops, close to impossible,
although trying to use honey on tea, old habits die hard, but I´m halfway there.
-With salt is my biggest problem, I like food quite salty, but I´ve been using natural salts a while.
-Been modifying my eating habits with little steps, else it would be quite overwhelming to do, I´m somewhere in the middle now

[visceral_instinct]

Take the word of a chocolatiere's assistant. Genuine dark chocolate that comes with a percentage on the wrapper has quite a bit. Four ounces of it has about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, and a chocolate lover can eat four ounces without blinking.

Add the impact of the theobroma and you're dancing on the ceiling.

I don't dance on the ceiling after dark chocolate. It doesn't make me noticeably hyper or anything.

(Then again...I'm naturally hyper as it is )

[stateofmind]

the thing is though , is that essential oils , generally give you the same affects as coffee ( caffine ) , fruits ( sugar ) and essential oils are needed by the body , for the body to be Healthy

look into essential oils

You can eat essential oils? If so what ones?

[Naturelles]

Saccharides?

[Captain Kremmen]

I had more mental energy in those 48 hours and felt better than I had done in weeks or even months!

I think I can help you with this.
I don't think that the boost in mood had to do with either calories or sugars, but with fats.


If you restrict yourself to a very low fat diet, it can cause depression, and other problems with thinking.
The brain needs essential fats from the diet to function properly.

If you don't exercise enough to expend a reasonable amount of calories, enough to take in sufficient vitamins minerals and essential fats, then dieting to achieve or maintain low weight will result in malnutrition.

I'm not speaking to you as one-who-knows.
As a fairly sedentary person with a good appetite, I have problems with weight gain myself.

[cluelusshusbund]

I dont eat junk foods... i prepare all the food i eat... i avoid caffeen other than whats in coco which i eat mos ever day... i dont eat sugar... i make hole wheet bread twice a week... i make yogert 4 quarts at a time... i eat all sorts of beans... an peas an lentils an barley an nuts an seeds an i dont eat meat/fish/birds but i do eat dary products an various other fruits an vegatibles... an i only use olive an canola oil... an i always eat a big servin of oatmeal for breakfast an i use about 2000 mg of salt per day... an thats perty much it.!!!

Edit:::

An i dont drank or smoke.!!!

[The Breaker]

The mental clarity you felt was almost certainly caused by the large amount of sugar in the chocolate. Studies have shown that rats fed a high amount of glucose/sucrose had a short term increase in memory recall and reasoning. The effect doesn't last long though. The body builds a tolerance as large amounts of sugar are continually consumed.