Fast Food – Hazardous to Your Health

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Fast food restaurants are getting a boost from the poor economy and that is a real shame. Why would I say that? Because of all the industries that don’t need a real boost in income the fast food industry should not be the one to benefit. Their food is hazardous to your health and is responsible for many illnesses.

The overall picture of our nation’s health is already a horrendous one. People are ruining their health by eating fast food and they either don’t realize how bad it affects their health or they really don’t care what happens to them as long as they enjoy eating this type of food.

Here’s the real story you should know:

* Fast food contains high amount of calories, saturated fat, sugar, sodium, carbohydrates and proteins.

* Trans fat (The worst of all fats)

KFC chicken potpie has 13 grams

McDonald’s large french fries has 8 grams

Dominos garlic dipping sauce has 7 grams

* Calories

McDonald’s Deluxe Breakfast contains a grand total of 1220 calories, 550 of them from fat, including 17 grams of saturated fat.

KFC mashed potato bowl with gravy contains 690 calories and 31 grams of fat, nine of them saturated fat.

Pizza Hut – Stuffed Crust Meat Lover’s pie. 2 slices will stuff you with 1000 calories. 82 grams of total fat, 22 grams of it saturated.

Even though it’s bad enough that adults are consuming these types of food we all should be even more concerned about our children’s eating habits. In the past 30 years the percentage of overweight children has more than doubled.

And to add to that 67% of urban children watch 2-4 hours of television a day, with 40 -80 commercials. Of this many commercials you can bet many of them are for fast food, sugary drinks and whatever else is bad for them to consume. Last year, Americans spent about $115 billion on fast food, more than on higher education or personal computers or automobiles.

So here is how the poor economy is helping the fast food industry. Two of the biggest, McDonald’s and Burger King are enjoying sales increases. McDonald’s saw its US sales increase 5% in 2008 compared to the previous year. Burger King saw its revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 20009 increase 3 percent compared to $613 million in the comparable period of fiscal 2008.

Now it seems the casual and fine dining restaurants are trying to woo back customers with special discount menus coupons and other promotions. You may have seen where Denny’s offered a free breakfast to all customers in February of 2009. The reason people are courting the fast food industry so much is because of the price of a meal is less than any casual or fine dining restaurants. Not only that cooking at home seems to be such a chore for whoever cooks the meal today.

If people do eat at home it still means many of them are stopping at the local grocery, buying a processed or frozen meal and then taking it home and popping it in the microwave to cook in minutes. There are really two big problems with this kind of thinking too. The microwave is known to be a very unhealthy way to cook, the processed food meal is many times as bad for you as fast food.

Because of the fact that we live in such a fast world today, people don’t take the time to cook healthy meals today. However if they would stop and think how they are abusing their body and their children’s body maybe it would make a stronger impression on them.

There is such a thing as crockpot cooking or even timed cooking in the oven or on the stove. Food prepared ahead of time and then planned to cook either one of these ways is the healthier way to go. Many years ago when fast food wasn’t even heard of much and when my wife and I were both working that’s exactly the way she cooked back then. As a matter of fact, even today, she prepares and cooks many meals in a crockpot or oven.

If people don’t start taking better charge of their health they will soon be sorry because of it. They will be faced with some serious illnesses and diseases. Then life won’t be so pleasant anymore. They will probably wonder why all of a sudden this is happening to them.