What day is it?

Junk food is often called “empty calories”. It loads our body with an excessive amount of fat, sugar and salt, while it contains very little dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. It is customary to consider sweets, hamburgers, sweet drinks, confectionery, French fries and other tempting snacks as such. There is a lot of information about the harmfulness of junk food, so recently more and more people are eliminating it from their diet. However, there is a special day of the year called International Junk Food Day. It is celebrated every year on July 21, and on this day you can allow yourself to deviate from the rules of healthy eating and pamper your taste buds with something useless, but tasty.

How did the idea to celebrate the International Junk Food Day come about?

Although people have not always had a healthy and varied daily menu since the beginning of their history, food has almost always been prepared at home, from minimally processed local seasonal products. For the first time, ready meals began to be sold in Ancient Rome – fried meat and stewed vegetables were intended mostly for the poor who did not have their own kitchens, as well as for travelers.

During the Middle Ages, street vendors in European cities offered people pies, waffles, pancakes, and meat dishes. In places located on the sea coast, the menu included fish and seafood. Street food was already tasty in those days – probably that is why Oliver Cromwell banned the sale of pies in England in 1644, declaring them a “pagan pleasure”.

But the very idea of ​​unhealthy food, that is, industrially produced food with a high degree of processing, did not exist until the 1800s. The USA is considered the homeland of such products.

First snack

According to Andrew F. Smith, culinary historian and author of Fast Food and Junk Food, the era of junk food began with the modernization of flour mills in the 1820s. New milling technologies have led to the fact that refined white flour has become inexpensive and accessible to the general population. Until now, it is the basis for the production of rolls, cookies and snacks with a low fiber content and a high carbohydrate content.

The growth of industrial enterprises forced people to move from the countryside to the cities to work in factories and plants. Food vendors received many new customers in the form of hungry workers who wanted a quick, cheap and hearty lunch break. Naturally, the appearance of the first samples of fast food did not take long. For example, brothers Frederic and Louis Rückheim in 1893 created the famous “Cracker Jack” – a salty-sweet mixture of popcorn, molasses and peanuts. The product was presented at the World’s Fair in Chicago and by 1916 had become the country’s most popular snack.

Coca Cola

The history of Coca-Cola, an extremely popular sweet drink in the world, is interesting. Invented by pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886, Coca-Cola was first produced in pharmacies and prescribed for its tonic effect in many diseases. The bottle contained 9 milligrams of coca leaf cocaine and caffeine-rich kola nut extract. Pemberton eventually sold his invention, and thanks to advertising, Coca-Cola became a phenomenally successful product. Cocaine was removed from the formula of the drink in 1903.

McDonald’s

One of the world’s largest chains of fast food establishments owes its appearance to brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald. In 1948, they took a risk by offering their own service system – “Speedee Service System” in the first McDonald’s fast food restaurant. The menu included hamburgers for only 15 cents, potato chips and orange juice. The success of the establishment led to the fact that the brothers began to franchise their concept. The chain expanded around the world so quickly that in the 1990s a new McDonald’s opened somewhere every five minutes.

In the 1950s, with the development of car culture, fast food restaurants for motorists appeared. These establishments visually resembled gas stations, where employees packed the ordered food and delivered it directly to the car’s cabin. Junk food began to gain more and more popularity because many people traveled and had to eat on the go. In addition, the industry developed rapidly, offering new products from a series of appetizing and convenient snacks almost every day.

“Junk Food Junkie”

Only in the 1970s junk food began to gain notoriety thanks to scientific research on the effects of preservatives, fats, sugar and salt on the human body. It was then that the very term “junk food” appeared – thanks to the microbiologist Michael Jacobson. However, the phrase became really popular with the appearance of Larry Groce’s song “Junk Food Junkie” in 1976.

Since then, the phenomenon of unhealthy food attracts the attention of not only doctors and researchers, but also international organizations of the highest level. For example, the UN states that globalization policies, the capture of markets by multinational companies and aggressive advertising of highly processed products have led humanity to switch to unhealthy food. As a result, we have an increasingly high level of obesity and non-infectious diseases, that is, a serious threat to the life and health of the population of the entire planet.

Of International Junk Food Day — there are no specific facts about its origin. It can be assumed that this holiday was invented by a person or a group of people who have followed the principles of healthy eating for a long time and eventually wanted to allocate the only day of the year to remember the taste of junk food without feeling guilty and perceptible harm to health.

International Junk Food Day in History

• 1892

  Industrial production of Coca-Cola began in the USA.
• 1893

  1893 – At the World’s Fair in Chicago, a fast food product – the Cracker Jack snack – was presented for the first time.
• 1896

  Max Zilaff in Berlin invented a vending machine – a device for selling ready-made products without the participation of a seller. In 1902, the first vending machine appeared in New York.
• 1948

  The first McDonald’s fast food restaurant was opened in San Bernardino, California.
• 1972

  Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, first coined the term junk food.
• 2008

  Animal studies conducted by scientists Paul Jones and Paul Kenny at the Scripps Research Institute have shown that junk food affects the brain in a similar way to drugs, causing addiction.

Frequent Questions and answers on International Junk Food Day

How to celebrate the International Junk Food Day?

The name of the holiday speaks for itself – on this day you can enjoy sweet and salty tastes, fatty dishes and even carbonated drinks. You can buy your favorite candies, as well as cupcakes or cookies, sit in front of the TV with a plate of donuts or popcorn.

On the Internet, you can now find many recipes for dishes that obviously do not belong to a healthy diet. So why not try to cook something new, high-calorie and appetizing at home instead of visiting a fast food restaurant. However, a trip to McDonald’s or another similar restaurant is also a worthy way to celebrate International Junk Food Day.

It is appropriate to celebrate this event with friends by arranging an unusual party, where not simple carbohydrates and saturated fats will be prohibited, but healthy and dietary salads. After all, this is an interesting idea, so why not have fun in a friendly company, without counting calories and getting maximum pleasure from useless, but so tasty food. It is also an occasion to share information about the holiday on social networks and post photos of your non-dietary goodies.

Why do we love this day?

It would seem that this is a rather strange holiday – why dedicate a separate day to food, which in principle is not worth paying attention to. But nutritionists are familiar with cases where people who have been following a healthy, balanced diet for a long time have not been able to lose weight. However, as soon as they were allowed to occasionally eat favorite foods from the list of unhealthy, the weight began to decrease. The paradox is explained by the fact that the lifting of any ban improves the psychological state, and this has a positive effect on the metabolism.

Ago International Junk Food Day acts as a kind of fuse for many people. It is not very comfortable to realize that certain products are forever on the “taboo” list, especially if we used them quite often before. But if there is a day that gives “permission” to savor the forbidden, then on other days it is much easier to refrain from such a temptation.

Of course, for those who are concerned about their health, it should really be one day, at the very least — a few days a year. Especially since marketing geniuses in the food industry now often serve and advertise their high-calorie, low-nutrient snacks as “organic,” “gluten-free,” or “whole grain.” Therefore, in order to recognize the true value of such food, you should always carefully read the information on the composition of the product on the package.

When will we celebrate International Junk Food Day??