In a few words: If you are able to go back to your hometown for a reunion, how can you eat junk food in a healthy way?

Niu Niu: How are you planning to celebrate the Spring Festival?

Binghai: Of course I responded to the call and celebrated the New Year where I am. Although my parents didn’t cook a good meal for me, I have accumulated a lot of movies, so I can take this opportunity to catch up. As long as I have spiritual food, it’s fine.

Niu Niu: Eating those junk foods again?

Binghai: Where does junk food come from? You have a misunderstanding about food.

Niu Niu: I see that you often eat instant noodles, hamburgers, and self-heating hot pot. Aren’t those junk food?

Binghai: How do you define junk food? Do you think it has no nutrition?

Niu Niu: Isn’t it?

Binghai: Don't make a mistake. Let's look at the ingredient list. Instant noodles contain protein, fat, minerals and vitamins. How can you say they are not nutritious? Let's talk about hamburgers. They have bread, meat and vegetables. How come these things are healthy food when eaten separately, but become junk food when combined into a hamburger?

Niu Niu: Then why do so many people say they are junk food? Is this a rumor?

Binghai: That’s not the case. I think garbage means that it is useful, but becomes garbage when you ingest too much.

Niu Niu: So what exactly are we ingesting in excess when we eat these things?

Binghai: First of all, salt. The Chinese Dietary Guidelines recommend that adults consume less than 6 grams of salt per day, and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends further reducing it to 5 grams. If you eat a bag of instant noodles with the soup, almost all the salt for the day is in it.

Niu Niu: Don’t we always eat salted meat during the Chinese New Year? Is there any harm in eating too much salt?

Binghai: A high-salt diet can increase blood pressure and damage blood vessels, making them hard, thereby increasing the risk of stroke, heart attack and heart failure. So you should eat less bacon or something like that, otherwise you will really know when you are old.

Niu Niu: So, bacon is also junk food and can’t be eaten?

Binghai: It depends on how much you eat. It’s okay to eat more occasionally during the Chinese New Year, but you can’t eat it all the time. In fact, there is no junk food in the world. The so-called junk is just resources placed in the wrong place.

Niu Niu: That makes sense. Too much of anything is not good.

Binghai: Yes, the average salt intake per person in my country is about 10 grams per day, which is almost twice the standard. In addition to salt, there is also sugar - it is recommended that the daily intake should not exceed 50 grams, and it is best to control it below 25 grams, and the trans fat intake should not exceed 2 grams. Oh, it's too much.

Niu Niu: I have to complain about this. According to what you said, if you drink a bottle of Coke every day, the sugar content will exceed the limit; if you eat a piece of fried pork chop every day, the fat content will exceed the limit; if you eat a bag of instant noodles every day, the salt content will also exceed the limit. How can people eat then?

Binghai: There is a misunderstanding here. Of course, if you eat it every day, you will exceed the limit, but if you eat it occasionally, it’s not a big problem.

Niu Niu: But it would also be less fun. There is a saying that what the body wants to eat means what it lacks, so you should eat more. Is there any truth to this?

Binghai: There is some truth in this, but it is easy to cause misunderstanding. Have you noticed that these foods are what people like to eat on a daily basis?

Niu Niu: Yes, it seems that the milk tea I love to drink, the cakes I love to eat, and the fried chicken and skewers that I can't put down are either high in sugar, high in salt, or high in fat. There are so many things to pay attention to. Who can stare at the content tables of those foods every day? Eating like this is too tiring.

Binghai: If you want a simple and crude method, then my recommendation is to eat less of everything you love to eat. Dietary preferences are in the genes. In ancient times, our ancestors did not have easy access to sugar, salt, and fat, but these are nutrients. So once they had food, their genes would tell them to eat more. But in modern times, it is easy for us to get these nutrients, so we exceed the standard all of a sudden.

Niu Niu: So what you mean is that the reason why the food we like to eat is often unhealthy is because our genes have not had time to catch up with the abundance of material conditions?

Binghai: Yes, in fact, people generally have enough food and can eat whatever they want. This has only been achieved in the last three or four hundred years since the birth of science. In the past, people could not eat much delicious food throughout the year, so it is completely understandable that people eat too much during the Chinese New Year. But in modern times, there is no food that can only be eaten during the Chinese New Year. If you have eaten and drank well on weekdays, then don't overeat during the Chinese New Year.

Niu Niu: But you still haven’t solved the problem of eating instant noodles and hamburgers.

Binghai: Haha, this is an easy problem to solve. Knowing that the main problem with instant noodles is salt, you will understand that you can’t put all the sauce in the packet and you can’t drink all the soup. Although hamburgers have vegetables, the amount of vegetables is too little and the fat is too much, so I recommend teriyaki chicken leg burgers with vegetable salad, and it’s best to drink sugar-free cola. This is much healthier than eating a lot of fish and meat during the Spring Festival.

Niu Niu: Okay, there is no junk food, only unhealthy ways of eating. I understand. Now I know how to eat during the Spring Festival.

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