What exactly is \”junk food\”?

In recent years, there have been a lot of reports about the mention of junk food. The junk foods we often talk about include: fried foods, pickled foods, processed meat foods (dried meat, meat floss, sausages, ham, etc.), biscuit foods (including all processed biscuits), soda and cola drinks, convenience foods Foods (mainly instant noodles and puffed foods), canned foods (including fish, meat and fruits), plum preserves and preserved fruits, frozen desserts (ice cream, popsicles, ice cream, etc.), barbecue foods. So what exactly is junk food? Is this accurate?

We generally believe that junk food refers to food that only provides some calories and no other nutrients, or food that provides more than the human body needs and becomes redundant ingredients.

But in nutrition, there are many indicators for the nutritional evaluation of food. One of them is the nutritional quality index (INQ) of food, which is defined as the density of certain nutrients in food and the energy of food. Density ratio. In layman\’s terms, it means comparing the various nutrients it contains with its calories.

INQ equal to 1 means that the food\’s ability to provide nutrients is equivalent to its ability to provide energy, and the two meet the needs of the human body to an equal extent, and it is a \”food with qualified nutritional quality\”.

INQ less than 1 means that the food\’s ability to provide nutrients is less than its ability to provide energy. If this food is used for a long time, there will be a risk of insufficient nutrients or excess energy, and it is a \”food of substandard nutritional quality.\”

INQ greater than 1 means that the food\’s ability to provide nutrients is greater than its ability to provide energy. It is also a \”food with qualified nutritional quality\” and is especially suitable for overweight and obese people.

From a nutritional point of view, the so-called \”junk food\” usually refers to food with a very small INQ value, but this is only relative. For extremely poor areas, where the daily energy intake is insufficient, For people, they are a good source of energy, which means they are not \”junk food.\”

It is reported that in some foreign supermarkets, nutrition labels ranging from one star to five stars have been affixed according to the nutritional quality index of the food, making it easier for customers to choose food.