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When you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s simple to take the easy path.
With a new plant-based diet, this can mean take-out or dial-in meals, vegan fast-food and pre-made burgers and dishes.
While there’s nothing wrong with these food options, there’s also nothing very ‘right’ about them either. As a very broad generalization, they are often low in nutrition, higher in salts, sugars and fats and lacking in what I consider ‘real’ ingredients.
Having some pre-made items in your icebox for last-minute meals is fine, enjoying a Beyond Meat burger with a fresh salad and organic bun is great, but when the fast-food takes over and the natural produce is kicked to the curb, it’s time to reassess your eating habits.
The attraction — or should that be the addiction? — of fast-foods is exactly that: they are fast, easy, cheap and convenient. Added to that, they are often incredibly flavorful and contain higher levels of sugars and additives that quite literally addict us.
Just the same as exercise, sex, even narcotics such as cocaine, junk food causes our bodies to release dopamine.
Partly the high sugar content, partly the intense flavor hit, our bodies react to both the chemicals and experiences of eating refined foods; they literally get us ‘high’ [1].
