Dietitian Maryana Dzhutova of AO Meditsina, Academician Roitberg's Clinic, told Lenta.ru that evidence-based medicine has no universal safe frequency for eating fast food. Speaking in an interview published on November 6, 2026, the nutrition specialist explained that doctors cannot set a single fixed rule for how often people may eat convenience meals.
Dzhutova said she would not name a magic number, such as claiming that eating fast food once a week is acceptable while eating it twice a week is not allowed. Instead, she stated that the actual health risks depend on the specific foods a person chooses, the quantities they consume, and what makes up the rest of their daily diet.
She advised treating fast food and heavily processed products as occasional meals rather than turning them into the basis of daily nutrition. According to Dzhutova, the overall quality of a person's diet worsens the more frequently these items displace regular whole foods such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, fish, eggs, meat, and dairy products.
Processed foods and nutritional value
AO Meditsina is a multidisciplinary private medical centre in Russia, and Lenta.ru is a Russian-language online news publication. In clinical nutrition, evidence-based medicine relies on scientific studies rather than arbitrary weekly rules, assessing how individual meals fit into a person's broader eating patterns, total calorie intake, and nutrient balance.
In her comments, Dzhutova urged consumers to pay close attention to the composition and ingredient lists of semi-finished convenience foods. She pointed out that plain frozen vegetables and ordinary uncooked fish can be part of a healthy daily diet, even though both are classified as products of industrial processing.
At the same time, she warned that regularly eating products packed with large amounts of salt, saturated fats, and added sugar can seriously harm health. These items combine a high calorie count with relatively low nutritional value, supplying dense energy while providing far fewer essential nutrients than whole foods.
How to handle occasional fast food meals
Despite the health risks linked to regular consumption, the dietitian said there is no need for people to ban fast food from their lives completely. Dzhutova explained that someone who occasionally eats a pizza, a burger, or ready-made pelmeni does not need to starve themselves the next day.
Pelmeni are traditional Russian dumplings filled with minced meat and wrapped in thin unleavened dough, commonly sold frozen as a quick convenience meal. Dzhutova added that people should not go on a detox or try to work off an occasional fast food meal with a workout the following day, calling it much more sensible simply to return to their normal habitual diet.
Her remarks follow earlier comments in which Dzhutova outlined the main dietary causes of fluid retention and swelling in the body. She stated previously that swelling is most often triggered by excess salt in the body and alcohol consumption, while a lack of dietary protein can also be a cause.
