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| Could be this fried cheese inside a grilled cheese sandwich... Photo: Denny's |
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| Or this double grilled cheese with a burger in the middle... Photo: Friendly's |
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| Or maybe this "buns are for sissies" offering from KFC. Photo: KFC |
I’m sure you’re not surprised that Americans eat a lot of
junk food. CBS reports that every
single day one in four Americans eats fast food. Let’s see... (math in
progress) that means every day almost 80 million people eat fast food! It adds up. According to The
Secret Life of Food we each average:
•
50 pounds of cookies and cakes
•
100 pounds of refined sugar
•
55 pounds of fat and oil
•
300 containers of soda
•
20 gallons of ice cream
•
5 pounds of potato chips
•
18 pounds of candy
•
2 pounds of popcorn
•
unknown quantity of pretzels and a wide
variety of snack foods
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| This... |
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Is destined to become this. Yes, I showed it.
Photo:s Frisky.com/Indianapolisplumbers.com |
“But wait,” you skeptics may say in that smug way of
yours. “Just because we eat at a fast food restaurant does not mean we make
those bad choices.” But bad
choices are easy to make at fast food places. I mean, there are the obvious bad choices (last time I
checked triple-creamy milkshakes were not on any diet plan,) but some pretty
nasty foods can be laid on top of lettuce and passed off as a salad. For
example, a Chipotle Steak Taco Salad will come in at 900 calories, 57g
of fat, and 1,480 mg of sodium. It is actually worse than a McDonald’s Quarter
Pounderä (730 calories, 40 grams of fat, 1330 milligrams
of sodium.)
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| Not an actual salad (go ahead, look it up.) Photo: Taco Bell |
My septic guy was kind enough to describe the clues he saw in our tank, but
not everything that goes into our body comes back out. Fast food consumption has expanded by
500% since 1970, and our girths have expanded as well. NPR tells us that more
than 33% of Americans are now obese, and by 2020 that number is expected to
creep close to 50%. The next
generation of obese adults is ready to step in and take their place. In a Pediatrics article (January 2007) Dr. D. Ludwig studied over 6000
kids, and noted that over 30% of them ate fast food each day, consuming nearly
200 extra calories per day and on track to gain an extra 6 pounds every year.
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| Potato is a vegetable, right? Photo: digiguide.tv |
Here’s a few things you can doo (sorry): Choose small fries instead of large. A hamburger instead of a big Mac.
Mustard instead of special sauce.
How about getting your salad dressing on the side? Lots of calories and fats sneak into
fast food salads that way. In general, beware of adjectives on the menu like “fried,
breaded, smothered, mega, crispy, glazed, slammed, dunked, layered, creamy, super,
filling, platter, triple, sampler”, and the ubiquitous “enough to share,” which
you should definitely share. Of course none of these works as well as driving
past the king, or clown or bells that are beckoning you to overindulge.
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| Wearing his food choices. Photo: blissreturned.wordpress.com |
My septic guy claims he can actually gauge life expectancy from poop--sort
of like tea leaves, but with a scientific foundation. The grease he sees in the tank foretells the relative likelihood
of high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure and ultimately, an early
death. Fast food restaurants
insist that the state of our septic tank is not their concern, and frankly I
agree. It's up to us.
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| Please listen to this lady. |
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| Maybe not so much. (Love her recipe for deep fried mac and cheese though!) |
Note: If you
prefer to gross yourself out and away from fast food (and there are lots of
opportunities to do that) you may find this blog informative and entertaining:
http://blissreturned.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/tales-from-the-fast-food-kitchen-what-the-h-is-that-made-of/
alternatively read a
good book on the fast food industry like Fast
Food Nation, or Supersize Me.
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