Isn’t it funny when fast food restaurants try to provide “healthy” options to mask their crimes? Recently, big-name establishments have advertised new entree options as “healthy,” but the proper word is “healthier.” The new entrees are truly healthier than burgers and fries, but nothing can take back the damage fast food restaurants have already done.
Burger King’s attempt includes veggie burgers and turkey burgers. At a glance, one might believe Burger King is acting in the interest of its customers, but under the surface each has its downfalls. The turkey burger’s calorie count may come up short of the Whopper’s by 100 calories, but its sodium count is higher than that of the Whopper’s by 230 milligrams.
The turkey burger delivers more than half the daily limit of sodium: a total of 1210 milligrams. The turkey meat used for the burger is white and dark meat, making the total fat count 26 grams. The Whopper, at 630 calories and 35 grams of fat, isn’t sounding too bad anymore, is it?
Well the salads at McDonald’s must be healthy, right? Grilled chicken might make the cut if you keep the dressing light, but a salad with crispy chicken is a contradiction. The crispy chicken increases the fat and sodium count, completely undermining the nutritious vegetables. And you might as well skip the Caesar dressing, which contributes 500 milligrams of sodium per packet. I quietly applaud the restaurants for their attempts, but I wish they understood the long-term effects of what they are encouraging.
But I can’t get mad at only fast food restaurants – there are other culprits in the processed foods industry. How many of us can list every ingredient that went into this morning’s breakfast? I guess a good starting point is learning how to pronounce the “ingredients” on whatever box we pour our cereal from. That’s what puts the “processed” in “processed foods industry.” The products contain additives, chemicals, dyes and preservatives, to name a few.
McDonald’s and Burger King’s new entrees may lower the fat and calorie counts, but to what end? Is it possible that long-term effects of additives, chemicals and dyes haven’t been discovered yet because it hasn’t been long enough?
Each piece of processed food we consume contains small amounts of additives, but those minuscule amounts will add up over time in our bodies. For example, it’s legal for nutrition labels to read “0 grams trans-fat” if it contains less than .5 grams trans-fat.
If a food label can say the contents of its box (can, whatever…) has 0 g trans-fat per serving when it actually has .25 grams of trans-fat per serving, then eight servings of that item would bring the total to 2 g trans-fat. In terms of a compound linked to massive risk of heart disease, that’s a lot.
To get you thinking about processed food in a different way, consider this: Everyone has seen the charts depicting exponential growth of technology, and it is what enables us to make processed food. Now remember the theory of evolution and how slowly our bodies evolve over time?
Our teeth, digestive systems and other bodily systems are conditioned for raw, whole and clean food. Technology enables us to produce food that our bodies aren’t made for quite yet. Nobody knows the implications this may have in the long run, because only time will tell.
Fast food restaurants can try to make themselves feel better by supplying “healthier” options, but really it’s up to us to do something about our own long-term health.
