Harmful Effects Of Junk Food

 Nothing can be as satisfying and enjoying as eating junk food. Is it not? But the truth is that junk food is tempting but harmful to the health at the same time, it creeps into ones body as a silent killer and then spreads the disease as fast as a hurricane. Here are some junk food facts that help you understand the harmful effects of eating them. Some of them are long term while others are short-term effects.

Lack of energy:

This is known as a short-term adverse effect resulting from eating junk foods. As junk foods don't provide you with essential nutrients, even though they can be very much sufficing, you feel weakened. Consuming deficient nutrients could be as a supplement.

Poor concentration:

This is another result of junk food habit. These are traced to affect in immediate and medium term periods. When you have a sumptuous junk meal rich in oil you feel drowsy and fail to concentrate. Over sustained periods of junk food eating, blood circulation drops due to fat accumulation. Lack of vital oxygen, nutrients and proteins particularly can stale your grey (brain) cells temporarily.

Heart Diseases:Junk food diet is a major cause of heart diseases. Myocardial infarction (a sever heart failure) is due to plaque formation in arteries which demands heart to put in extra effort to pump blood on the down stream. On the up stream, there is lack of returning blood to heart. This causes two damages to heart - heart fatigues by the continuous extra effort it makes and it suffers oxygen supply. The onset and remedy both take a long time and a great determination to win.

High CholesterolApart from forming plaques and constricting arteries, cholesterol also affects liver where it is metabolized. High cholesterol from junk food and diet strains liver damaging it eventually. This is a long term effect.

How to Avoid Junk Food

Clever junk food advertising and the lure of convenience in addition to taste get people to junk food addiction. Awareness on junk food facts is lacking dramatically in every corner of the society. Here are some useful tips to avoid junk foods.Junk food and children have a strange affinity to each other. This is partly so owing to junk food advertising. Do not let children to get habituated to junk foods. Controlling children from eating junk foods in schools is another step that

helps in a long term. Schools administration along with parents has a responsibility to educate children about junk foods in schools.Junk food, the name itself is tempting enough. Eliminating the temptation is one way to avoid it. Keeping good food nearby and having meals right on time may help in this direction. Controlling the temptation is not as hard as alcoholism can be.Develop awareness for fitness. This helps you separate junk food and diet from your regimen.Finally, not all foods are junk; moreover, our bodies have enough stamina to take care off occasional junk food eating. However, beware; the lure is strong enough to get you addicted. It is in your hands choose junk food or health.

How to Avoid Junk Food

Clever junk food advertising and the lure of convenience in addition to taste get people to junk food addiction. Awareness on junk food facts is lacking dramatically in every corner of the society. Here are some useful tips to avoid junk foods.

Junk food and children have a strange affinity to each other. This is partly so owing to junk food advertising. Do not let children to get habituated to junk foods.

Controlling children from eating junk foods in schools is another step that helps in a long term. Schools administration along with parents has a responsibility to educate children about junk foods in schools.

Junk food, the name itself is tempting enough. Eliminating the temptation is one way to avoid it. Keeping good food nearby and having meals right on time may help in this direction. Controlling the temptation is not as hard as alcoholism can be.

Develop awareness for fitness. This helps you separate junk food and diet from your regimen.

Saprophytes & Their Role

Saprophytes are the organisms that act as the rainforests decomposers, competing with the heavy rainfall which constantly washes away nutrients on the forest floors. Some fungi, called mycorrhizals, are examples of plant life that carry out this function. Decomposers work extremely efficiently and, together with the warmth and wetness which helps accelerate decomposition, can often break down dead animals and vegetation within 24 hours.  Decomposition in montane forests, which are colder and less humid, however, can sometimes take up to six weeks. Many saprotrophs are so small, called microbes, that they cannot be seen with the naked eye. Other decomposers, which include insects, grubs, snails, slugs, beetles and ants, aid in recycling valuable nutrients from dead organic matter which is then released back into the soil to be reabsorbed rapidly by plants and trees. Decayed matter contains essential nutrients like iron, calcium, potassium and phosphorous all of which are necessary to promote healthy rainforest growth. Thus decomposers must work continuously to release these and other elements into the soil.

Saprophytic FungiIntroduction to saprophytic fungi:

Saprophytic organisms are those which feed on dead organic matter. They play very important role in soil biology. Several fungi and bacteria and fungi are classified as saprophytes as they derive their nutrition from dead organic matter. Saprophytic  fungi form  the largest group of fungi. They are mostly found in woodlands, where the floor is covered with large amounts of dead plant materials.

Some of the most common saprophytic fungi  are from Rhizopus and Mucor. These fungi have an extensive network of hyphae, they grow through the soil or through dead matter. The hyphae grow  as a mesh like structure in a network called a mycelium. Mycelium enables the fungus to penetrate the organic matter. Mushrooms, toadstools, puffballs, etc are the most known examples of saprophytic fungi, there are still many saprophytic fungi  that can permeate every natural landscape and habitat.

Various types of fungi growing on dead plant material-

The Mechanism of Deriving Nutrition:

Saprophytic fungi grow on fallen trees, dead leaves, cow patties, and even on dead insects and animals. They use a particular type of digestion mechanism that is extra-cellular digestion. These fungi possess enzymes that digest or mineralise the complex molecules like cellulose and lignin found in the organic matter. The minerals thus released are absorbed by the fungi as nutritional source.

Saprophytic Fungi : the Optimum Requirements for the Growth

For the optimum growth of the saprophytic fungi suitable conditions are needed. They need sufficient amount of water in the soil or surrounding environment. Most of the saprophytic fungi grow in aerobic conditions thus require adequate amount of aeration in the soil.. The pH of the soil should be neutral or slightly acidic, as most of the saprophytes can not thrive in the alkaline conditions.

The Role of Saprophytic Fungi in Nature:

Saprophytic fungi play a role of recycling the nature. The saprophytic fungi can decompose the enormous quantities of the vegetative waste as well as animal debris. Without their digestive activities, organic material will not decompose and would continue to accumulate and the rubbish dump of dead leaves and trees would go on piling. These fungi play a vital role in decomposing carbohydrates and thus cleaning the environment.They also replenish the atmospheric  carbon dioxide supply, which is an essential source of  photosynthesis.  The fragmentation and demineralization process also release vast number of minerals and add into the soil. Thus they play very important role in recycling of minerals in the soil too.

Saprophytic Mushrooms: The Decomposers

Most of the gourmet mushrooms are saprophytic, wood-

decomposing fungi. Saprophytic fungi are the premier recyclers on the planet. The filamentous mycelial network is designed to weave between and through the cell walls of plants. The enzymes and acids they secrete degrade large molecular complexes into simpler compounds. All ecosystems depend upon fungi's ability to decompose organic plant matter soon after it is rendered available. The end result of their activity is the return of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and minerals back into the ecosystem in forms usable to plants, insects, and other organisms. As decomposers, they can be separated into three key groups. Some mushroom species cross over from one category to another depending upon prevailing conditions.

Primary Decomposers: These are the fungi first to capture a twig, a blade of grass, a chip of wood, a log or stump. Primary decomposers are typically fast-growing, sending out ropy strands of mycelium that quickly attach to and decompose plant tissue. Most of the decomposers degrade wood. Hence, the majority of these saprophytes are woodland species, such as Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus species), Shiitake (Lentinula edodes), and King Stropharia (Stropharia rugosoannulata). However, each species has developed specific sets of enzymes to break down lignin-cellulose, the structural components of most plant cells. Once the enzymes of one mushroom species have broken down the lignin-cellulose to its fullest potential, other saprophytes utilizing their own repertoire of enzymes can reduce this material even further.

Secondary Decomposers: These mushrooms rely on the previous activity of other fungi to partially break down a substrate to a state wherein they can thrive. Secondary decomposers typically grow from composted material. The actions of other fungi, actinomycetes, bacteria, and yeasts all operate within compost. As plant residue is degraded by these microorganisms, the mass, structure, and composition of the compost is reduced, and proportionately available nitrogen is increased. Heat, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and other gases are emitted as by-products of the composting process. Once these microorganisms (especially actinomycetes) have completed their life cycles, the compost is susceptible to invasion by a select secondary decomposer. A classic example of a secondary decomposer is the Button Mushroom, Agaricus brunnescens, the most commonly cultivated mushroom. Another example is Stropharia ambigua, which invades outdoor mushroom beds after wood chips have been first decomposed by a primary saprophyte.

Tertiary Decomposers: An amorphous group, the fungi represented by this group are typically soil dwellers. They survive in habitats that are years in the making from the activity of the primary and secondary decomposers. Fungi existing in these reduced substrates are remarkable in that the habitat appears inhospitable for most other mushrooms. A classic example of a tertiary decomposer is Aleuria

aurantia, the Orange Peel Mushroom. This complex group of fungi often poses unique problems to would-be cultivators. Panaeolus subbalteatus is yet another example. Although one can grow it on composted substrates, this mushroom has the reputation of growing prolifically in the discarded compost from Button mushroom farms. Other tertiary decomposers include species of Conocybe, Agrocybe, Pluteus, and some Agaricus species.

The floor of a forest is constantly being replenished by new organic matter. Primary, secondary, and tertiary decomposers can all occupy the same location. In the complex environment of the forest floor, a "habitat" can actually be described as the overlaying of several, mixed into one. And, over time, as each habitat is being transformed, successions of mushrooms occur. This model becomes infinitely complex when taking into account the interrelationships of not only the fungi to one another, but also the fungi to other microorganisms (yeasts, bacteria, protozoa), plants, insects, and mammals.

Primary and secondary decomposers afford the most opportunities for cultivation. To select the best species for cultivation, several variables must be carefully matched. Climate, available raw materials, and the mushroom strains all must interplay for cultivation to result in success. Native species are the best choices when you are designing outdoor mushroom landscapes.

Importance of Saprophytic FungiSaprophytic fungi are the largest group of fungi. They include common mushrooms and fungi that grow at the base and the sides of trees and outside of forest environments in fields and meadows. They help decompose organic matter, including dead insects, and produce lignin, a byproduct of decomposition that is an important carbon source for many living things.

Where It GrowsSaprophytic fungus most often grows around decomposing plant and wood residue, including on the forest floor, where there are mass amounts of twigs, leaves and logs. Individual saprophytic fungi, or hyphae, can survive in dry environments due to their ability to fill the voids between moist pockets in the soil and utilize sparse water supplies. These fungi can use up nitrogen from the soil and decompose surface residue.