Gourmet | The Pioneer of Healthy Living

Salad vs. Junk Food: Breaking the Waves

Eating junk food is an indelible part of growing up. Almost every person has enjoyed eating those chips in those shiny foil wrappers during recess, or at home watching the Sunday morning cartoons. Even if one belonged to an uptight, vegan family, because of media’s invasiveness on children’s consciousness, junk foods still find their way into every kid’s appetite.

It doesn’t hurt to eat junk food every once in a while, but when it becomes habit-forming, especially during the formative years of a child, it becomes more destructive than constructive to the child’s eating patterns.

As one grows older, and time becomes a very valuable resource, the need to eat on-the-go foods is imperative. Junk foods become part of a lifestyle. Junk foods are associated with the terms friendship, camaraderie, enjoyment, acceptance, and so on.

Whatever the age bracket may be, there is a healthier alternative that may be introduced to meet the crucial demand of the times.


Here are several obvious reasons why junk food is harmful over a long period of time.

• During the first formative years of a child (birth up to five years of age), habitual junk food consumption, especially before immediate mealtime disrupts the eating behavior and appetite of children. As a result, they will lose interest over energy-giving foods and instead fixate on junk foods.

• Food coloring and artificial flavoring, which enhance the likeability of potato chips and other related food items to children could impede in digestion and blood circulation.

• Stomach ulcer is one of the leading by-products of too much consumption of soft drinks, sweets and artificially flavored chips.

• Artificially flavored chips have high salt content, which might disrupt the liver and kidney function.

• Soft drinks have no known nutritional content. Instead they elevate levels of sugar content in the body.


Introducing the salad: a mix of greens, and a variety of different ingredients that are not only healthy but can be habit-forming, too.

What makes the salad better than junk food?

• A salad is organic. At least, it should be. If the salad is organic, meaning if its components are preservative-free, then you not only get all the uninhibited nutrients fresh out of nature’s garden, but also all the locked-in flavors inherent to every component of the salad.

• A salad, especially if it has lettuce on it, provides high water content that replenishes the energy lost by the body in daily activities, which is why a salad is most recommended for people on the go.

• A salad introduced to a child during early stages of development will more or less shape the food choices that child is going to make later in life.

• A salad can be a party food. It can be shared among people, and it can also promote friendship built upon the foundations of nature and healthy living.

• A salad can function both as a junk food (in terms of something that is casually consumed) and as a full meal. The beauty of a salad, such as a Caesar, or a Cobb, is that it already functions as a full meal, but still feels like an appetizer. The important thing to remember though is to never overeat.

So where will your loyalties lie? To the food you have known all your life and somehow you thought would be a trusted friend, or to the newcomer, who’s been there all along, waiting for you to discover its benefits? Whatever you decide upon, just think long-term.