A quiet adn thoughtful Friday night. We are about to watch a movie at home, after having fish for dinner.
Too many people have fast food for dinner, or lunch. The same 2001 data is commonly quoted for fast food consumption, with an averagge of 3 hamburgers and 4 orders of fries weekly. Consumption has increased since then. While in renal failure, I had to know the sodium, calorie and potassium content of what I ate. All this data is readily available on web sites, and it is damning.
Cooking at home is just not that hard. Like exercise, claims that there is not enough time to cook have it backward. Time has to be set aside for it, just like running, or going to the gym. Cooking at home not only makes for much better dietary outcomes, it is cheaper as well.
As a society, we are all concerned about environmental pollution and carcinogens. We have all kinds of laws about stack emissions for power plants, disposal of heavy metals (ever try to throw away a cell phone battery?), recycling of plastics, chlorine emissions from paper plants, etc, etc. And all these have produced a cleaner and safer environment. Sholdn't we look at what we voluntarily put in our bodies?
I do not advocate control- everyone gets to choose what they eat- but I do advocate information. But take a look at fast food- McDonald's web site has all the data on what they politely call the 'nutritional content' of their food. A Quarter pounder without cheese has 410 calories and 730 mgs of sodium, as well as 19 gms of fat. An Angus Bacon and Cheese has 790 calories adn 2070 mgs of sodium. That's more salt than should be consumed in a DAY.
Imagine if these 'foods' had sulfuric acid, rat droppings and heavy metals in them. We certainly would not call this their 'nutritional content'. We would be advertising and alerting people about toxins in fast food. But what is in them is producing more damage than all heavy metal poisonings put together. It would be interesting to contrast food induced metabolic disease with enviornmaentally induced cancers. Bet the fast food is more dangerous. We as a nation happily troop to various fast food outlets, then bemoan our collective obesity and diabetes. Think there might be a connection there?
Why not label fast food, and restaurant food in general, according to nutritional content, and engage in an educational campaign nationally? Can we not ban these places from schools and colleges, as well as hospital buildings? I like to think that if people knew what they were eating they might change their choices.
I fiercely resist regulation, being told what to do. But I like getting information, and trust myself and others to make choices that are good for each of us. And that choice is so obviously not fast food.
Ted
Too many people have fast food for dinner, or lunch. The same 2001 data is commonly quoted for fast food consumption, with an averagge of 3 hamburgers and 4 orders of fries weekly. Consumption has increased since then. While in renal failure, I had to know the sodium, calorie and potassium content of what I ate. All this data is readily available on web sites, and it is damning.
Cooking at home is just not that hard. Like exercise, claims that there is not enough time to cook have it backward. Time has to be set aside for it, just like running, or going to the gym. Cooking at home not only makes for much better dietary outcomes, it is cheaper as well.
As a society, we are all concerned about environmental pollution and carcinogens. We have all kinds of laws about stack emissions for power plants, disposal of heavy metals (ever try to throw away a cell phone battery?), recycling of plastics, chlorine emissions from paper plants, etc, etc. And all these have produced a cleaner and safer environment. Sholdn't we look at what we voluntarily put in our bodies?
I do not advocate control- everyone gets to choose what they eat- but I do advocate information. But take a look at fast food- McDonald's web site has all the data on what they politely call the 'nutritional content' of their food. A Quarter pounder without cheese has 410 calories and 730 mgs of sodium, as well as 19 gms of fat. An Angus Bacon and Cheese has 790 calories adn 2070 mgs of sodium. That's more salt than should be consumed in a DAY.
Imagine if these 'foods' had sulfuric acid, rat droppings and heavy metals in them. We certainly would not call this their 'nutritional content'. We would be advertising and alerting people about toxins in fast food. But what is in them is producing more damage than all heavy metal poisonings put together. It would be interesting to contrast food induced metabolic disease with enviornmaentally induced cancers. Bet the fast food is more dangerous. We as a nation happily troop to various fast food outlets, then bemoan our collective obesity and diabetes. Think there might be a connection there?
Why not label fast food, and restaurant food in general, according to nutritional content, and engage in an educational campaign nationally? Can we not ban these places from schools and colleges, as well as hospital buildings? I like to think that if people knew what they were eating they might change their choices.
I fiercely resist regulation, being told what to do. But I like getting information, and trust myself and others to make choices that are good for each of us. And that choice is so obviously not fast food.
Ted
Dr.Tsaltas, I agree with your post about too much fast food. When my chidren were young we maybe had fast food twice amonth if that. It was a treat, a happy meal now and then. Now I've seen families that eat out several times a week. It is the "norm" now to do that. Do any families still sit at the dinner table together and eat a healty homecooked meal anymore? Not many. It's too much trouble. People and their priorities have changed. Lifes are too hectic now with this lesson and that lesson, always on the go. And imagining if there were rat droppings in our fast food....there probably are. Elizabeth
ReplyDeleteI supposed my family is in the minority of homes that eat at home every day of the week. Of course, as a full-time working parent with a husband gone 2-3 nights a week working, the burden of cooking generally falls to me alone and I get really sick of it at times. Then I remind myself that my mother worked, my dad tried even though he was/still is terribly disabled, she came home every day and cooked a good nutritious meal. I am healthier for it as an adult, I am committed to doing the same for my girls. I know when they are with their dad, they eat out all weekend, so it falls to me to wrench all that poison from their bodies, pour water and milk down their throats and put the "detested" vegetables on their plates. Fast food used to be somewhat better for you than it is now, but in the name of food cost, the additives are in there to make it last longer so the warehouses can buy more and get a better price for it.
ReplyDeleteYou want a real shocker, go to the Long John Silver's or Captain D's websites and look at their nutrition contents. One platter at LJS has over 50 fat grams and thousands upon thousands of grams of sodium in it.