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- Fast food as we know it
(bell chimes)
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began as a wholesome family
experience in the 1940s
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with drive-through restaurants
and simple four-item menus,
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but today it has evolved
into something different.
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(upbeat rock music)
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Menu items have gotten more extreme.
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- The quadruple bypass burger
has 20 slices of bacon.
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- [Kiana] And more people are eating
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more fast food more often.
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- The the Big Macs are great.
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The Quarter Pounder with cheese,
I mean, it's great stuff.
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- What is about fast food
that makes it taste so good
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while at the same time
making us feel so bad,
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and how bad is fast food
for your body really?
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In this video, we'll be
taking you minute by minute
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through your body when you eat fast food,
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starting with your brain
through your stomach,
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arteries and ending with total digestion.
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(clock ticking)
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As soon as the food touches your tongue,
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a signal is sent to the brain
activating the reward system
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and your body releases a surge
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of feel-good endorphins and dopamine.
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You may feel a sense of
euphoria, excitement, bliss,
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and relaxation as your brain's
pleasure center lights up
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and gets excited by the
different sensory properties
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of the food you're eating.
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Carefully engineered blends
of salt, sugar, and fat,
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three food properties we
have a primal love for
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thanks to our evolution,
thrill and stimulate your brain
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to the point that the
dopamine response produced
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can be as big as doing extreme
stunts or even watching porn.
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But it's not just the salt, sugar and fat.
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It's much much more than that.
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Fast food has been designed
in a lab to be crave-able.
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You see the magic of
McDonald's french fries,
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Pizza Hut's pizzas or Wendy's Baconator
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doesn't just come from superior
potatoes, fancy cheese,
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or the best cuts of bacon,
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but instead each minute detail of the food
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is the work of brilliant scientists,
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mathematicians and flavorists.
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Mathematical modeling finds
the precise amount of sugar
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needed to bring your meal
up to the bliss point
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or the optimal concentration of sugar
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known to maximize sensory pleasure.
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That bold taste you get from a Doritos
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locos taco from Taco Bell, for example,
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isn't the result of their
superior quality ingredients,
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but carefully layered
natural flavor extracts.
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Beef flavors, nacho
flavors, cheese flavors
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all injected into the food
to give cheap ingredients
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an unmatchable boost in fake flavor.
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Even the colors of the
packaging and the store decor
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have been carefully selected
to stimulate your brain
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and to generate maximal fun and excitement
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and maybe even a little
sprinkling of nostalgia
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for your childhood too.
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All this helps to explain why
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despite our best efforts
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home-cooked meals just don't
really have the same sparkle,
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and maybe that's why
one in three Americans
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now prefers to eat at least one
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fast food meal every single day.
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In one study rats were fed a
fast food diet for two weeks
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and then switched back to normal food.
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After sampling the fast food
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it took an average of 14 days
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before the rats became interested
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in eating their normal food again
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with many of the rats actually
choosing to literally starve
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for several days instead of eating.
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Apparently there was just no
being satisfied by normal food
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once the rats had tasted
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that sweet sweet taste of natural flavors.
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The more fast food you eat
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the less delicious more
subtle natural foods
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begin to taste in comparison
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and the more fast food you crave.
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- [Man] Just try a little taste.
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(sniffs)
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(gagging)
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- (coughing) I can't, I can't.
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- [Man] Come here a minute.
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(crying)
It's okay.
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- The flood of dopamine that is released
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when you eat a perfectly engineered burger
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is responsible for much
much more than just making
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your food taste good.
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Dopamine is the neurotransmitter
involved in habit,
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addiction and neuroplasticity.
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Dopamine's main function isn't pleasure.
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Its learning and motivation.
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Basically anytime dopamine is released,
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you're more likely to
repeat the experience
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that caused that release.
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In other words, regularly eating fast food
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amplifies and sustains
your drive and motivation
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to continue eating fast food,
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and studies show that
the more often you eat it
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the more frequent and powerful
your cravings can become.
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(clock ticking)
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Rapidly digested fast food
begins to hit your bloodstream
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just 15 minutes after
swallowing your first bite
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thanks to the presence of refined carbs.
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This process can begin even faster
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if you've opted to wash your
meal down with a sugary soda.
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The elements that make fast food fast
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also contribute to their rapid digestion.
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Factory processing reduces the time needed
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to cook these things,
but also the time needed
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for our bodies to break them down.
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Flour that has been
pulverized to a fine dust
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becomes your bun,
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beef ground to a paste
becomes your burger,
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and potatoes that have been razor sliced
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and coated in a fine chemical
sugar called dextrose
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become your fries.
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This refining process
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along with the removal of natural fiber
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allows your body to break down
and rapidly digest fast food
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so that it moves from your
stomach to your lower intestine
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to your bloodstream almost
in an instant (snaps).
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These foods provide such an
instant boost in energy in fact
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that they're the trusted energy source
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of extreme ultra marathon
runners competing in Bad Water,
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one of the most difficult
runs in the entire world.
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Bad Water spans 48 hours
and 135 miles of desert
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and is run in sweltering 127 degrees heat.
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One runner claimed that she
fills up on processed foods
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like fries, Twinkies and
candy every 30 minutes
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during this difficult run,
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stating that simple sugars
are great fuel for a race
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because "my body never really
has to work to digest it,
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"and I don't have to divert blood
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"from my muscles to my GI tract."
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Because the simple sugars in fast food
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hit your bloodstream so quickly
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your body is flooded with an
abundance of glucose at once
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and your blood sugar and
insulin levels rise rapidly.
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At first you enjoy a surge of energy
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like the Bad Water runners did,
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but unlike the Bad Water runners
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you probably aren't in the
middle of a 48-hour run.
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So the overflow of glucose in your blood
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is unlikely to be used and
will be quickly turned to fat
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by the hormone insulin instead.
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(clock ticking)
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By hour three, your sugar
high will have subsided
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and you'll start to feel hungry again
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even though the typical fast
food meal contains almost
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as much as an entire
day's worth of calories.
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This is thanks to the blood sugar peak
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and subsequent rapid crash
caused by excess insulin.
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This dip in essential blood
sugar stresses the body
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and your body responds by,
well, basically panicking.
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(alarm wailing)
At this point
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you might start to experience cravings,
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particularly toward unhealthy
easily digestible foods
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like what you've just
eaten, as your body attempts
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to restore your blood
sugars to a healthier level.
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You might also be experiencing
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mood swings and irritability,
shakiness, nausea
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or even headaches,
depending on how extreme
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the insulin response was
from your individual body.
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This blood sugar rollercoaster
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and these subsequent mood swings
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is just one of the many
reasons a 2009 study
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found that those who
eat fast food every day
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are 51% more likely to be depressed.
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(clock ticking)
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The sugar, fat and salt you've consumed
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are now circulating in your blood
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pumping through your veins
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to provide your cells with energy.
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While this is happening
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something very dangerous begins to occur
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within your arteries.
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A team of scientists wanted to
see if eating deep fried food
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had any effect on our
arteries in the short-term.
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They fed subjects french fries
and then four hours later
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slipped their arms into
blood pressure cuffs
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squeezing it to cut off the
blood flow for a few minutes.
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Normally once the cuff is released
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your oxygen-starved arteries open wider
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so blood can come rushing back in
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just like you would suck in more air
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after holding your breath.
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Before the french fries
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the volunteers arteries dilated normally
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opening 7% larger after being released,
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but afterwards the volunteers
arteries barely opened at all,
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less than 1%.
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Restricted arteries slow your blood flow
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making you feel tired and
immediately increasing your risk
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of heart attack and stroke.
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In fact just one fast-food
meal per week, just one,
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is enough to increase your
risk of heart attack by 20%.
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(clock ticking)
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Though there are many
elements in fast food
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that digest rapidly as we've discussed
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there are also many that digest
very slowly or not at all.
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Fatty burgers, deep-fried french
fries and creamy dressings
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all come together to make
your typical fast-food meal
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a delicious greasy treat,
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but also to make it
difficult for your body
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to fully break down and absorb.
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This fat can sit in your stomach for days.
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Some reports estimate that
it can take up to 36 hours
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for the fattiest parts of a Big Mac
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to leave your system completely.
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This is some of the
reason many people report
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feeling gassy, bloated or, well, worse
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after eating fast food.
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As for the parts of your
meal that don't digest at all
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chemical concoctions known
as additives and fillers
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are added to fast and processed foods
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to perform a variety of functions,
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and of the 72 ingredients in a Big Mac
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quite a few fit this profile.
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Some like calcium chloride
are what make the pickles
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in your burger taste salty
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without increasing the
actual amount of sodium.
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While others like dimethylpolysiloxane,
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a commonly used polymer found
in shampoo, skin creams,
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lubricant and famous for
giving silly putty its shape
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is an obviously essential ingredient
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added to prevent oil splash during frying.
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Many of these compounds are
clearly not food exactly
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and so your body can't digest them.
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This is an additional factor
that might help to explain
00:10:38
why this food tastes very good
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but can make you feel very bad very fast.
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Actually these compounds
are so foreign to your body
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that scientists have found
that the cells in your gut
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respond to fast food the same
way it might an infection.
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In a 2018 study researchers put mice
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on a typical fast-food diet,
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high in fat and sugar and low in fiber.
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In just one month, researchers
discovered a shocking truth.
00:11:04
The mice had developed a
significant inflammatory response
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almost as if they had come down
00:11:09
with a bad bacterial infection.
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When they switched back
to the regular rodent chow
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the inflammation calmed down
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but their immune systems
remained on high alert
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ready to attack.
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Apparently this food had
actually caused changes
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to the rodents' DNA such
that their immune systems
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were now permanently more aggressive
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which sounds like a good thing,
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but according to the study authors
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it can result in systemic inflammation
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and an increased risk of
diabetes and atherosclerosis.
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I want to be clear that
the point of this video
00:11:38
is not to scare you into never eating
00:11:40
your favorite fast food again.
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I'm not one of those people who believes
00:11:43
that everyone should just eat
00:11:44
like goji berries and flax seeds.
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Provided you're in good health,
the risk is extremely low
00:11:48
in enjoying your favorite fast
food every once in a while.
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Despite the parallels
at the end of the day
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it is still food, it's not a drug,
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but I think it's totally unfair
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and frankly a little bit corrupt
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that this information isn't
offered up to consumers
00:12:03
by the companies that
are serving this food
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to billions of people every single year.
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We all have the right to choose
what we put in our bodies,
00:12:10
but if that choice is impaired
because this information
00:12:13
is not readily available to us,
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it's not really the same thing.
00:12:17
You don't already know,
I used to be obese.
00:12:19
I lost 100 pounds, and though
it wasn't fast foods' fault
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that I was obese, it
was my fault obviously,
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it certainly would have
been helpful to understand
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why certain foods make us feel terrible
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both physically and mentally
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and yet it's so hard to stop eating them.
00:12:33
I think a lot of people
want to reduce food
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to just its caloric content.
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If you're not getting fat off it
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or you don't care about your body weight,
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then what does it matter what you eat?
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But that is just not true,
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and as we go on and
nutrition science evolves
00:12:45
people are starting to think
about food as information,
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information that tells certain
genes to turn on and turn off
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and information that
influences hormone production.
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So I think it's very important
to scrutinize any food
00:12:56
that you're gonna be putting in your body
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with any sort of regularity.
00:12:59
If you enjoyed this video,
hit the thumbs up button
00:13:01
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science-based health,
00:13:04
weight loss and nutrition tips.
00:13:06
Also a disclaimer.
00:13:07
The timestamps for what times
00:13:09
things were happening in the body,
00:13:10
they're definitely not going
to be perfectly accurate.
00:13:13
I checked them based on
a few different articles
00:13:15
regarding digestion and fast food,
00:13:17
but at the end of the day,
00:13:18
A, everybody's body is totally different,
00:13:20
and, B, I'm not a
biologist or like a doctor.
00:13:24
So I don't know for sure,
00:13:26
but, yeah, thank you so much
for watching this video.
00:13:27
I hope you enjoyed it.
00:13:28
I hope you learned something cool.
00:13:30
I know that this was like
some of the coolest stuff
00:13:32
I learned last year.
00:13:34
It's crazy that you know the
food that we put in our body
00:13:37
can be so dramatic, but it is. (laughs)
