Go on, put your conscience aside and tuck into 'junk'

14 December 2016 - 10:44 By Andrea Burgener
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Andrea Burgener
Andrea Burgener
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Spot the difference: Junk food. What defines it?

Wikipedia (in a definition which actually says very little) opines that the term refers to food containing high levels of calories from fat or sugar, with little fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals.

For most of us I imagine the offerings of the US behemoths - McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut and so on - float before us when we hear the term. But why pick on these? The food we're now eating in many restaurants is essentially no different to what these chains offer. The taste might (sometimes) be better, the plating more elegant, there might be additional frills, but actually the difference in key ingredients is negligible.

Much is made of the Frankenfowl aspect of KFC, but I assure you that unless a restaurant lets you know in writing that their chicken is free range (and even then there are varying degrees of this), the chicken that many restaurants use comes from the same producer as that supplying KFC. And if not the same then one in which the farming practice is not different at all.

Beef? Ditto. Unless a restaurant stipulates otherwise (and believe me, they will, because they need to charge you for it), the beef is all high carbon emissions, grain-fed, feedlot beef. Eggs? Once again, if nobody tells you it ain't so, then safely assume battery eggs every time.

The McDonald's Sausage McMuffin might seem a trashy breakfast choice but, in every way that counts, what you're putting into your body is no different to what you might shovel in at a hip all-day cafe. Potato chips fare no better. It seems that slicing one's own potatoes is now an art as challenging as cutting a diamond, as burdensome as building a pyramid. I've been into many more restaurant kitchens in my city than I can count on my fingers and toes twice over, and frozen pre-cut chips reign supreme in most.

I have absolutely zero issue with the principle of restaurants buying stuff in, I'm just saying don't imagine you're putting something different into your tummy.

Dressings and mayonnaise? Again, it's the minority of places that make their own. The mucilaginous mass coating most salads about town should tell us this, but context plays tricks on the palate. We categorise things in weird ways: pizza is considered junk food, but a bowl of pasta isn't. Why? Both (bar the handful of places using a stoneground sourdough base) are almost entirely made from a heap of refined, bleached wheat flour and even the toppings (a trivial gesture in the face of the base matter) are often similar - tomato, cheese, ham (battery pork of course).

Supporting small business versus huge chains might be a more compelling reason to avoid big name junk food. But health? Food production ethics? Forget it.

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