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Dr. Mercola
February 05 2008
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A Single Meal Can Lead to Good (or Bad) Health

junk food, fast food, cheeseburger, friesIt takes just one “bad” meal -- a cheeseburger, fries and a soda, fried chicken and biscuits, a slab of chocolate cake and ice cream -- to do damage to your body, according to new research.

The good news, however, is that eating just one good meal will start to repair the damage.

This occurs because, when you eat, your body breaks down the food into glucose (sugar), lipids (fats) and amino acids (the building blocks of protein).

As soon as you polish off the last of your high-fat, high-sugar meal, the sugar causes a large spike in your blood-sugar levels called “post-prandial hyperglycemia.” In the long term this can lead to an increased risk of heart attack, but there are short-term effects as well, such as:
  • Your tissue becomes inflamed (as occurs when it is infected)
  • Your blood vessels constrict
  • Damaging free radicals are generated
  • Your blood pressure may rise higher than normal
  • A surge and drop in insulin may leave you feeling hungry soon after your meal
Eating healthy foods, such as fresh vegetables and fruits, lean proteins, and high-fiber items, will stave off post-prandial spikes and help to keep your blood-sugar levels even.

Even a small amount of alcohol appears to help blood-sugar levels stay stable.

The desire to eat junk food is a vicious cycle, the researchers pointed out, as the more you eat it the more your body craves it. This occurs because junk food distorts your hormonal profile, stimulating your appetite and causing you to crave unhealthy foods -- while making you feel unsatisfied when you eat only healthy ones.

The risky blood sugar spikes that follow a junk food meal are most likely to occur in people who don’t exercise, or who carry weight around their abdomen.

Dr. MercolaDr. Mercola's Comments:
The old saying “you are what you eat” is probably never more apparent than shortly after you eat a convenient, good-tasting junk-food meal. My guess is that most of the time you begin to feel tired, your mood sinks, your brain feels foggy, and you may even feel hungry again, not to mention all the guilt you have for putting things into your body that you know will move you toward sickness and disease.

When I was younger I used to really enjoy eating sweet rolls. At the time I did not realize that they were loaded with trans fat. But every time after I ate them I could feel a strange sensation on the roof of my mouth, and I knew I was harming myself. The key is to pay attention to the signals and clues your body is giving you, especially after you eat unhealthy food.

The more that you eat a diet full of sugar, grains and bad fats -- like trans fats and those from vegetable oils -- the more you are clouding your brain’s ability to “hear” the biochemical signals that tell it to stop eating and storing fat.

These signals come from the hormones insulin and leptin, and their job is to, among other things, control your metabolism.

Insulin works mostly at the cellular level, telling the vast majority of your cells whether to burn or store fat and sugar, and whether to utilize that energy for maintenance, repair or reproduction.

Leptin, on the other hand, sends signals that reduce your hunger, increase fat burning and reduce fat storage.

However, when you regularly eat foods, such as sugar and grains, that cause your blood sugar to spike after you eat -- your body becomes resistant to these important messages.

The end result is a major miscommunication that tells your body to eat more and store more fat, instead of what it actually needs: to reduce hunger and burn fat. When your insulin and leptin levels are increased, it will become very difficult for you to use fat as a fuel as the enzymes required for doing this are significantly impaired.

Over time, this can lead to many chronic diseases, including:
It Takes Just One Good Meal to Start Healing Your Body

While it’s true that one bad meal will produce negative changes in your body, let’s not overlook the most important finding in this study: it takes just ONE good meal to start things moving in a positive direction.

Just imagine the power that gives you. If you have been eating poorly recently, you can start reversing the process with your very next meal -- and start to improve your health right now.
 
You see, your body was designed to be healthy. It wants to move toward health and away from disease, and it will do its best to stay that way, provided you give it the proper tools -- the proteins, the healthy fats and the good carbs (mostly from veggies) and micronutrients -- that it needs to thrive. 

If you end up feeling hungry, irritable, sleepy or sluggish after you eat, these are all signs that you are likely not giving your body the fuel that it needs to do its job properly. This fuel is different for everybody, and you can find out which exact foods your body is TRULY craving by finding out your nutritional type.

This program, which is outlined in detail in my book Take Control of Your Health, fine-tunes your diet for your individual nutrient requirements.

Take, for instance, a salad. On the surface, this is a healthy meal. Yet, the same salad is not ideal for everyone. Your body may do best with some chicken, olive oil and onions on your salad, or you may feel better by adding on some grass-fed steak, and using spinach instead of lettuce.

Once you know which foods your body needs (and which it does better without), you will truly be on the road to increased energy, an upbeat mood, and less risk of chronic diseases. In short, you’ll be on your way to reaching optimal health.

And remember, this all starts one meal at a time.
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Community Comments ( 68 )
 Comment on this Article
  
  
Katee Roux
 [ Joined on 07/07 ] [ Posted on January 23, 2008 ]
20 Points        
   
 
Savvy User
It is a good article.  I'm surprised.  I read the headline & thought, "Oh no.  Another fear-mongering, trash article."  Glad to know i was wrong.

The reality is most people are not purists when it comes to food.  Maybe we should be, but it doesn't always work that way.  I know there are choices, but if i am tired, hungry, cranky, & needing something quick, sometimes i do eat fast food, with the strong feeling that i'm doing something evil.  I know that if i think ahead & plan i can manage to not get to that point, but i'm not always that good.  I do not want to freak out thinking i've done irreparable damage.  And, i don't think i'm in a small category here.  I think i'm more typical than food purists.   
 [ Reply ]
Mercola
  
Tov
 		[ Joined on 06/06 ]  [ Posted on February 5, 2008]
3 Points        
   
Novice User
  Mercola

Don't forget, there was a time when trans fats, vegetable oil, pasteuruzed milk,

cheap white sugar, and the profileration of pharmaceuticals were not the dominant pestilence that they are today. There was no need to be a purist when we were not nutritionally challenged. Now, we would simply be consuming proper food -- not necessarily being purists.  
Mercola
  
Pat Ormsby
 		[ Joined on 06/06 ]  [ Posted on February 5, 2008]
       
   
Savvy User
  Mercola

I think you are right, Katee.  Almost no one is a purist, I think, except when it is motivated by severe allergies or intolerances.  Even if you are really serious about improving your health, how can you be sociable?  You come across as a party-pooper, even when it isn't a party!  I am in Japan, where society is lock-step, but I doubt it is much better in other countries.  Because of my gluten intolerance, I have to turn down nearly everything, so I developed a hierarchy.  Some items (gluten) I avoid entirely, others I minimize (sugar, rice, trans fats, soy) without hurting feelings, and others I go ahead and eat, though they are not ideal (unbalance my metabolism).  Because almost all the protein dishes have gluten (soy sauce), I come across as a strict vegetarian.  I try to explain my needs to people--no gluten--but they never understand!
  
  
foxtroter
 [ Joined on 09/06 ] [ Posted on January 22, 2008 ]
12 Points        
   
 
Savvy User
Excellent article.  One of the best summations I have seen in a long time.  Read the entire article. 

One of the problems type II diabetics have is that they have lost the ability for a post-prandial insulin spike.  All they can do is keep pumping out insulin as fast as the little legs of the pancreas will carry them.  Insulin levels remain constantly high.  The constant high levels of insulin is what plays a part in arterial damage.

In the 1970's it was discovered by accident if insulin dripped on one side of an artery, plaque formed on the spot where the insulin fell.

Thus, just controlling blood sugar levels with drugs for type II diabetics may not be reducing the chronic high levels of insulin.  No evaluation of insulin levels is ever done by MD's except to determine if you are Type I or Type II diabetic after you have already become a diabetic.

Type I diabetics are not taught how to eat balanced to avoid the spike in blood sugar.  They are just taught to shoot up with more insulin.

Thus, the medical system philosophy is they will do their best to keep you alive today from the high blood sugar from poor lifestyle choices, but you will die tomorrow from the effects of chronically high insulin.

Too bad MD's don't educate their patients that there is another alternative--weight lifting, eating balanced, getting proper sleep etc...
 [ Reply ]
Mercola
  
Phantom O' Banjo
 		[ Joined on 09/06 ]  [ Posted on January 22, 2008]
17 Points        
   
Savvy User
  Mercola
I disagree with the lumping fat in with the bad food.  As we have learned fast food uses heated unstable veg and goober fats.  Dr. Rosedale points out that good fat doesn't spike insulin of the 3 macro nutrients has the least impact.  Saturated fat gets lumped in with fat and its one of the good guys in the fat department.  The rest was on point.
Mercola
  
Russ Bianchi
 		[ Joined on 09/06 ]  [ Posted on January 22, 2008]
6 Points        
   
Savvy User
  Mercola
"Too bad MD's" have little, or no, formal or required nutritional preventative protocol training at all.
Mercola
  
Patty D
 		[ Joined on 06/07 ]  [ Posted on January 22, 2008]
10 Points        
   
Savvy User
  Mercola
And Russ, what's worse is that what little training they have is based on the fallacies perpetuated for at least the past 50 years.

Phantom, I agree with you, but the article I think is referencing fast food, and you aren't going to find healthy fats there.  They should definitely be more specific for sure.
Mercola
  
proatc
 		[ Joined on 12/06 ]  [ Posted on January 23, 2008]
1 Points        
   
Savvy User
  Mercola
Foxtroter says....
"Too bad MD's don't educate their patients that there is another alternative--weight lifting, eating balanced, getting proper sleep etc... "

The article says....
"People don't understand this, even most physicians,"
Mercola
  
Dr Rik
[ Joined on 11/06 ]  [ Posted on February 5, 2008]
1 Points        
   
Savvy User
  Mercola

As a Chiropractor, I am prone to M.D. bashing HOWEVER...

too bad most people won't do a doggone thing for themselves and want a sugar coated pill, paid for by tax subsidized insurance.

As a Wellness practitioner, I am extremely aware of how many people are willing to put some effort into their own health.

Of course, that doesn't include you guys...
  
  
T_rex
 [ Joined on 06/07 ] [ Posted on February 5, 2008 ]
11 Points        
   
 
Novice User

Never underestimate the insiduous power of MSG. Fast food may seem tasty but that's just MSG fooling your taste buds.

 [ Reply ]
  
  
Duparc
 [ Joined on 05/07 ] [ Posted on February 5, 2008 ]
9 Points        
   
 
Apprentice User

Having become interested in dietetics since 1990 when after 17 years as a vegetarian I had to have a quadruple by-pass, I can confirm, now aged 77 and fit, healthy, and still retain my libido that a diet almost solely based on red meat and saturated fat is an exceedingly healthy diet which keeps one slim and makes one feel really good. Whenever I take carbohydrates, especailly of the grain variety (but not solely) then I begin to put on weight, feel physically and mentally sluggish, and my libido depresses; if anyone has diffuculty in accepting this then why not try it? My breakfast every morning consists of streaky-bacon and eggs fried in beef-dripping (tallow) and dinner most frequently consists of a large fatty, juicy, steak after which I am firing on both cylindars! Consider how our species managed to survive the 10,000 year Ice Age; it certainly was not on fish or vegetable oils, nor grains, nor fruit, nor greens. but by following the herds and eating the kills.

 [ Reply ]
Mercola
  
Mark Fletcher
 		[ Joined on 04/07 ]  [ Posted on February 5, 2008]
5 Points        
   
Novice User
  Mercola

I agree with most of your points, but we live in a very different world now than our ancestors did during the ice age.  We need fruits and vegetables to protect us from the constant barrage of toxins.
Mercola
  
dressagefreak
 		[ Joined on 12/06 ]  [ Posted on February 5, 2008]
3 Points        
   
Apprentice User
  Mercola

Ahh..I miss a good grass-fed steak (I drastically cut back on meat not too long ago after watching the video, Earthlings.) It's a shame that the majority of vegetarians and vegans believe that the way they're eating is "healthier" when it's clearly not!!! The only reason to become veggie is the ethical component. (Now watch everyone flame me. :-D)Well, I'm not forcing ANYONE to cut back on meat, not even encouraging it, just stating my opinions. K, blab over. :-D
Mercola
  
FeeBird
 		[ Joined on 11/07 ]  [ Posted on February 5, 2008]
1 Points        
   
Novice User
  Mercola

           I'm a vegetarian and I know that our bodies require the proper balance of amino acids. Something that a strict vegan diet cannot give you, without the daily eating of beans and rice and who really does that everyday, but if you saw how most animals are treated and the awful  ways they are killed I think most everyone would be veggie heads. Times have changed , yes, and healthy standards in animal killing is gone.. Who can afford 16.00 $ a pound for grassfed beef? It's a tragedy.
Mercola
  
Sonagi
 		[ Joined on 12/06 ]  [ Posted on February 5, 2008]
1 Points        
   
Apprentice User
  Mercola

$16 a pound for grass-fed beef?  Yikes!  I pay $6-7 a pound for pastured pork and $7-10 for grass-fed, grass-finished beef.  The most expensive cut, osso bucco, is $16 a pound.
  
  
Kissamee
 [ Joined on 12/07 ] [ Posted on January 23, 2008 ]
9 Points        
   
 
Apprentice User
on the subject of food purists, one can work for months eating only good for you stuff but eat a candy bar and all the hard work of rehabilitating the palate goes right out the window.  Well it starts to go at that point.

Kel
 [ Reply ]
Mercola