Living in a Fast Food World

If you live in America, then you know that fast food dominates the food industry. It's fast, cheaper than restaurants, and pretty good depending on how you look at it. In reality, it is not cheaper than buying groceries and making meals, and almost all of it is bad for your health. We have all been forced to eat fast food, either because we forgot our lunch or our friends are meeting there to get something fast and cheap. So what do you do if you are trying to be healthy and not gain back the pounds you lost this week? I will explain why fast food is so bad for you and what you can do to be healthy if you have to eat it for a meal. Let's start with just some basics of health and how they relate to fast food.

All fast food places use preservatives. They have to in order for food to stay fresh and meet health standards. What if McDonalds didn't put preservatives in their meat? By the time it got to the restaurant and sat for a few days, it would most likely grow mold and spoil. So why is it bad that they do this? It's bad because the food is loaded with sodium. Sodium is vital to humans because it hydrates our body by holding water in and can help in preventing heart attacks and cardiovascular diseases. Of course sodium is only good for you if you keep it at a healthy level. Too much sodium can have the reverse effect by raising blood pressure and holding too much water, causing you to build fat in your body and bring up a whole bunch of cardiovascular problems. The average person should intake around 1500 to 2300mg of sodium a day. This seems like quite a bit of sodium to intake per day, but when you throw processed foods in the mix, the numbers climb really fast.

Fat, specifically saturated fat, can increase your LDL cholesterol if you consume too much. LDL cholesterol is the bad kind of cholesterol. This is usually found in burgers and cheeses at fast food places. You do need fat and cholesterol to maintain a healthy life and keep your heart healthy, but there are no benefits from eating saturated fats. It basically hardens your arteries and therefore causes several cardiovascular problems related to high cholesterol.

Calories are the easiest way to track how you are doing. The average person is allowed between 2000 and 3000 calories a day depending on age, sex, and activity levels. For me, being 6 foot 3, male, and working out 4 times a week now, I need a little less than 3000 calories to stay moving and have energy for my body to burn fat. You never want to consume too little calories, because then you will fatigue and your body won't have energy to burn fat. If you go over though, then those unused calories will be stored by fat. So for me, I need to always have at least 2500 calories a day, and no more than 3000. This does involve being conscience of what you eat, which you should always be doing anyways. Eating is something we do 3 or more times a day, so why not treat it with respect?

The vegetables in most fast food are not healthy for you. If they are used in fast food then they were most likely sprayed with heavy pesticides and were depleted of all nutritious value. So you are basically just eating empty mass that use to be a vegetable high in nutrition.This is why almost every salad at a fast food place is no more healthy than the burgers they serve. Besides having no nutritious value, the dressings they use are loaded with sodium and fat.

Let's take Taco Bell's XXL Grilled Stuft Burrito with Chicken, one of my old favorites. One burrito alone has 2080mg of sodium, 850 calories, 93g of carbs, and 35g of fat with half of that amount being saturated fat. Now let's see why this is so bad for you. This one burrito has a full days worth of sodium, so you are already above your limit just from one item. Unless you eat raw veggies the rest of the day, this is going to effect you enormously. Calories from this burrito aren't too horrible, but you usually want to consume 400-600 calories per meal so you can eat good throughout the day. The carbs and fat of this burrito are a bad combination together. When you have a large amount of carbs along with a large amount of fat, you are setting your body up to store all the fat you eat. So to recap on this burrito, in one meal you have exceeded your sodium intake for the day, left little room to consume calories for the rest of the day, and set your body up to store fat. I use to eat this burrito along with a Double Decker Supreme and maybe a small taco with a soda. Adding those other items made my numbers sky rocket for one meal and is probably the main reason I developed high blood pressure at a young age. Imagine eating this way for two meals out of your day, scary huh?

I'm sure you've heard enough about why fast food is bad. Now let's take a look at what you can do to be healthy if you have to eat it. A lot of the fat and sodium comes from the processed cheese they use. There is almost nothing good about the cheese at fast food places. If you look at all the items on the menu, you will realize that most everything has cheese included. The first and most simple thing to do is order something without cheese. If cheese is an essential part of the item, then that is an item you should avoid. You might of noticed the Fresco Style menu at Taco Bell. This menu has cut out the cheese. This is a good option if you are visiting Taco Bell because you could have 2 or 3 tacos Fresco Style and stay relatively healthy. If you want to be extreme about it and are trying to cut carbs, you can always eat just the filling of the tacos. Sounds like a waste, but will leave you surprisingly satisfied and carb free.

Beef from fast food places are also something you should avoid. They are loaded with saturated fat and filled with preservatives. The best option is to order grilled chicken when you can instead of beef. Fish that isn't fried is also a good substitute if available. You never want to get fried food at a fast food place, because it is loaded with saturated fat and preservatives also.

Another way to be healthy is portion control. All of the fast food places I know of have nutrition charts on their website so you can check the stats on what you are wanting to eat. This usually helps me in deciding what to get so I don't go over my calories for the day. Looking at these will also help you realize how high in calories and sodium these foods are and hopefully give you a reality check, like it did for me. If an item alone has over 700 calories, you do not want to eat that. If the combination of your meal is over 700, cut out one of the items. One example I use when talking portion control is Subway. Eating a foot-long sub puts you almost to 1000 calories. If you only eat a 6 inch, you are doing pretty well. Just remember, the vegetables they use are doing you no good.

In conclusion, I would say to avoid fast food at any cost. If you must eat it for whatever reason, try to limit it to one time a week. This will allow you to join in on Fridays or whenever your co-workers want to grab some McDonald's and hang out. If you use portion control and search for the healthier options, you save yourself from the evil that is fast food.

*This will not be my last post about fast food, but this is a good introduction to it.