If a product has been made using ingredients that don’t appear in nature, avoid it. "Fake food" includes fat substitutes, such as olestra, or artificial sweeteners, such as Splenda and aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, etc.). The health effects of these additives are uncertain, but they are usually markers of food products that are of dubious nutritional value.
Most junk foods include artificial colors and flavors and, therefore, qualify as fake food. The flagrant examples (like Doritos and Twinkies) don’t pretend to be anything else, but most junk food is more subtle. A wide sweep of junk foods that either contain or are fake food would include most packaged cookies and snack foods (including most crackers), white bread, soda (both sugared and calorie-free), supermarket desserts, sweetened yogurt (choose a high-quality plain yogurt, such as Nancy’s, instead, and sweeten it yourself), frozen yogurt, pretend fruit drinks and cold breakfast cereals.
Even fruit juice should be considered borderline junk food, especially for children with poor or picky appetites; it is low in nutrition, and high in simple sugars.
In general, avoid products with an ingredient list that includes two or more of the following:
Partially hydrogenated oils
White flour
Refined sugar
Artificial additives
This means almost all fast foods, deep-fried foods, most prepared dishes from deli counters, processed deli meats and “lite” cheeses.
The best defense against junk food, especially if you have children, is simply not to have it in the house. It’s like getting rid of your TV: difficult at first, but easily adjusted to, and with immeasurable rewards.
