I'd never actually thought about it until reading this thread! I'm pretty much on board with the other posts who are saying that nutrition-less and/or soul-less food is "junk".

For me, overeating a healthy food doesn't make it junk. It just means I need to re-think why I'm eating so much of something that should be healthy for me!

"Junk food" to me is food of low quality that has little to no nutritional value. Some foods are "bad" for you, like foie gras or homemade chocolate chip cookies, but I wouldn't lump those in with stuff like Zebra Cakes or fried pickles from Hooters.

Junk food to me is anything that is pretty much void of any nutritional value. Anything you can buy in a package, bag or can that could potentially survive a nuclear fallout, it probably not such a good thing to be putting into your body either.

Restaurant burgers, fries, pasta's and stuff are not good for you but I would not put them in the junk food category. At the very least these foods have some nutrition. These do not include Mc.Ds, Burgers king, Wendy's, taco bell, kfc and so on, those are gross and should be avoided at all costs I think.

Junk food to me is anything that makes me feel like s*** afterwards (both emotionally and physically )

To me junk food is anything with refined/simple carbs, no fiber, low/no nutritional value, or deep fried.

Anything that I could sit and eat mindlessly with one hand. Which pretty much covers all junk foods... potatoe chips on through to ice cream sandwiches and what not.

By that definition, almonds, walnuts and pecans are MY junk food! ;-)

Wow. This post originated in 2008!

Junk food, to me, is anything that is "super processed" - if it has crazy ingredients you can't pronounce, is super-carby or super-sugary, etc. THAT'S junk food to me. Potato chips - junk food. Any kind of candy!!! - & while home baked goodies (cookies, pies, cakes, etc.) are not the BEST of the food world, they CAN BE MADE HEALTHY (well, healthIER) by using less sugar, etc. so I don't always count those either. But candies, pop-tarts, sugary cereals... yeah, junk food. And some foods that try to fool you into believing their "health foods" like granola bars - that's junk food too (to me). Chef-Boy-R-Dee type things in a can - yup, junk food.

Ice cream... on the fence. Something simple like Breyers Vanilla - it's made with 3 simple ingredients. So, not junk food. But your basic cheap-o generic brand vanilla? Got lots more ingredients... junk food.

I don't consider cheeseburgers, fries, etc junk food. Maybe not the HEALTHIEST thing one could choose, but still, not junk food. Unless that's all you eat. I know some people that drive thru McDonald's for breakfast & lunch every day. EVERY DAY. Blech.

Junk = devoid of nutritional value. That's what I think. If I put it in my body and it isn't good fuel, it is junk.