Health educator Dr. Julie Gatza explains step-by-step what happens
to your body, after you eat a typical fast-food meal, and offers advice for
beating ”fast-food blowback”
Americans love fast food. Millions of us eat it daily.
But how many of us really know what happens to our bodies right after we scarf down our favorite fast-food meal accompanied by ginormous Coke and fries.
Dr. Julie Gatza from the Florida Wellness Institute walks us through the sequence of negative health events that we trigger after swallowing our first bite of fast food – and she also offers suggestions on how to minimize the nasty side-effects and blowback fast food can trigger. Here are the body reactions she says that typically occur within the first hour of eating fast food:
- 5 minutes – Sugar rush: Your blood sugar begins to rise and you feel a surge of energy.
- 15 minutes – Dehydration: Fast food is loaded with sodium. The more you eat, the thirstier you’ll become – (and you’ll want more Coke)
- 20 minutes – Heartburn: Fried fatty foods are slow to digest and spend longer in your stomach, triggering the production of more acid – which can leak up into your esophagus and give you heartburn
- 30 minutes – Bloating: Food not broken down sits in the gut, fermenting, producing gas, making you feel bloated
- 45 minutes – Sugar drop: After a rapid spike in blood sugar, those eating fast foods typically get an insulin surge, then a blood sugar crash.
- 50 minutes – Bad mood: Shortly after blood sugar falls, glucose leaves the brain, and feelings of depression and anxiety can appear
- 55 minutes – Poor concentration – When bad fats, such as those found in junk food reach the brain, they can trigger brain fog.
- 60 minutes – Inflammation – Immune response is triggered as the body fights against indigestible fast-food molecules.
5 TIPS FOR BEATING FAST FOOD BLOWBACK
You don’t have to live in fear of fast food. You can safely indulge yourself on special occasions using a few commonsense precautions to minimize fast-food “side effects”
1. Give your fast food a background check:
Do McDonald’s fries have more grams of fat than Burger King fries? Check online resources, like www.fastfoodnutrition.org, and get the nutrition stats for the meals you’re contemplating feasting on.
2. Avoid sweetened carbonated beverages
They impair food absorption and contain hundreds of calories empty calories
3. Don’t eat the whole thing at once
Some of the mega burgers contain enough calories for the whole day. Split your meal with a friend, or if available, order a smaller version from the child’s menu.
4. Preload your gastrointestinal tract with enzymes
Most adults can’t manufacture enough enzymes to completely digest a fast- food meal. Before eating, supplement your system with the digestive enzyme protease, (which breaks down the protein), amylase (which breaks down the carbs), and lipase, which breaks down the fat, or use a multi-enzyme formulation.
5. Eat slowly, on an empty stomach, and only if you’re hungry.
For best digestion and absorption, chew your food 15-20 times.
