Rethinking your next Mc-choice
For most it is inevitable. The tasty trip to your local fast food restaurant is either a weekly tradition or a once in a while treat that packs on your calories, sodium and trans fat intake for almost the entire day.
These foods are not as they say “100 per cent all beef” or “All natural,” as they are combined with many other preservatives and additives in order to make the food taste a certain way and preserve its shelf life longer than the food in your refrigerator.
Unfortunately there is no nice way to put this, fast food is not the healthiest thing for you and I guarantee that most people are aware of this fact, and yet will read this and then go to the nearest burger chain for a cheeseburger and fry combo. This also runs true for those who sat through the hour and a half documentary Super Size Me, which followed a man who performed the McDonald's experiment and saw how physically damaging this food was to the subject's body. Despite knowing the obvious negative effects of fast food, you probably went down to your local McDonald's the next day if not that same afternoon.
Many people talk of the burgers and fries at McDonald's and how they are indeed manufactured to taste the way they do. What many of these same people neglect to talk about are the other items that you are consuming along with that meat patty and fry basket.
For example, the bun, which if you were to purchase at your local grocery store probably contains a few ingredients, but on the most part is made from ingredients you would expect. This large chain however, tops off their famous Big Macs with: enriched bleached wheat flour (malted barley flour, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, iron, folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, vegetable oil, (partially hydrogenated soybean, corn, canola, and/or cottonseed). The sesame seed bun alone contains two per cent or less of salt, wheat gluten, malted barley flour, alpha amylase, mono- and diglycerides, propionic acid, phosphoric acid, calcium sulfate, ammonium chloride, monocalcium phosphate, ascorbic acid, azodicarbomide...
Search on the Internet for a hamburger bun recipe and that will give you a list with milk, margarine, water, salt, flour sugar and yeast. Go figure.
Everything in moderation is a good motto to live by. I could preach to you the harmful side effects of consuming and endorsing these products, but I would be a hypocrite for doing so as I do continue to eat fast food once in a while.
What it boils down to is smarter choices if you are at one of these chains. Even though they don't satisfy your weekly grease fix, McDonald's and most other fast food joints offer healthier options. Starting with breakfast, almost every fast food chain has caught onto the craze of offering that quick and filling breakfast all for $2.99. That McDonald's sausage and egg Mcmuffin that you just purchased has more calories and fat than if you were to consume two turkey sandwiches at your local Subway restaurant. This same fast food favourite however, does offer their fruit and yogurt parfaits, which are a great quick and healthy way to get your day going.
If you haven't reached your fast food destination then aim for a hot spot that cooks your favourite burger on a grill such as Harvey's. These restaurants charbroil their burgers and prevent them from cooking in their own fat and grease making that a tad better than adding that extra fat to your fatty-fat-fat.
The rest is pretty common sense, as size portions will pack on the extra calories and fat, as well as the ingredients you allow them to pile sky high. Keeping mayo and cheese to a minimum and stay away from the super sized portions are all well and good until you walk in and smell the greasy goodness.
Salad dressing is a major contributor to the high fat and sodium content being added to our favourite salad where we are convinced we are doing ourselves a favour by ordering that chicken caeser salad from Wendy's that has the same if not more fat than the burger ordered from the person in front of you. Oil based dressings have fewer calories compared to that creamy caeser or ranch dressing dripping from every lettuce leaf.
I cannot stress enough how simple and necessary it is to look at the back of or Google the foods that you are consuming in order to determine what the food is actually made with. The longer the list, the more manufactured a product is being throwing in all of those unnecessary preservatives that are anything but natural.
At an age where we can make our own decisions I guarantee that most if not all people recognize the side effects resulting from that biggie size fry and drink and continue to consume large quantities of these products. It now comes as no surprise that manufacturers will produce foods containing the most sodium, fat and calories simply because it hits “the spot” with the vast majority of our culture but it is always good to stay informed about what you are actually putting into your body.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
These foods are not as they say “100 per cent all beef” or “All natural,” as they are combined with many other preservatives and additives in order to make the food taste a certain way and preserve its shelf life longer than the food in your refrigerator.
Unfortunately there is no nice way to put this, fast food is not the healthiest thing for you and I guarantee that most people are aware of this fact, and yet will read this and then go to the nearest burger chain for a cheeseburger and fry combo. This also runs true for those who sat through the hour and a half documentary Super Size Me, which followed a man who performed the McDonald's experiment and saw how physically damaging this food was to the subject's body. Despite knowing the obvious negative effects of fast food, you probably went down to your local McDonald's the next day if not that same afternoon.
Many people talk of the burgers and fries at McDonald's and how they are indeed manufactured to taste the way they do. What many of these same people neglect to talk about are the other items that you are consuming along with that meat patty and fry basket.
For example, the bun, which if you were to purchase at your local grocery store probably contains a few ingredients, but on the most part is made from ingredients you would expect. This large chain however, tops off their famous Big Macs with: enriched bleached wheat flour (malted barley flour, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, iron, folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, vegetable oil, (partially hydrogenated soybean, corn, canola, and/or cottonseed). The sesame seed bun alone contains two per cent or less of salt, wheat gluten, malted barley flour, alpha amylase, mono- and diglycerides, propionic acid, phosphoric acid, calcium sulfate, ammonium chloride, monocalcium phosphate, ascorbic acid, azodicarbomide...
Search on the Internet for a hamburger bun recipe and that will give you a list with milk, margarine, water, salt, flour sugar and yeast. Go figure.
Everything in moderation is a good motto to live by. I could preach to you the harmful side effects of consuming and endorsing these products, but I would be a hypocrite for doing so as I do continue to eat fast food once in a while.
What it boils down to is smarter choices if you are at one of these chains. Even though they don't satisfy your weekly grease fix, McDonald's and most other fast food joints offer healthier options. Starting with breakfast, almost every fast food chain has caught onto the craze of offering that quick and filling breakfast all for $2.99. That McDonald's sausage and egg Mcmuffin that you just purchased has more calories and fat than if you were to consume two turkey sandwiches at your local Subway restaurant. This same fast food favourite however, does offer their fruit and yogurt parfaits, which are a great quick and healthy way to get your day going.
If you haven't reached your fast food destination then aim for a hot spot that cooks your favourite burger on a grill such as Harvey's. These restaurants charbroil their burgers and prevent them from cooking in their own fat and grease making that a tad better than adding that extra fat to your fatty-fat-fat.
The rest is pretty common sense, as size portions will pack on the extra calories and fat, as well as the ingredients you allow them to pile sky high. Keeping mayo and cheese to a minimum and stay away from the super sized portions are all well and good until you walk in and smell the greasy goodness.
Salad dressing is a major contributor to the high fat and sodium content being added to our favourite salad where we are convinced we are doing ourselves a favour by ordering that chicken caeser salad from Wendy's that has the same if not more fat than the burger ordered from the person in front of you. Oil based dressings have fewer calories compared to that creamy caeser or ranch dressing dripping from every lettuce leaf.
I cannot stress enough how simple and necessary it is to look at the back of or Google the foods that you are consuming in order to determine what the food is actually made with. The longer the list, the more manufactured a product is being throwing in all of those unnecessary preservatives that are anything but natural.
At an age where we can make our own decisions I guarantee that most if not all people recognize the side effects resulting from that biggie size fry and drink and continue to consume large quantities of these products. It now comes as no surprise that manufacturers will produce foods containing the most sodium, fat and calories simply because it hits “the spot” with the vast majority of our culture but it is always good to stay informed about what you are actually putting into your body.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
