So, if you curiosity is piqued, let’s check out what I mean by “Junk Food” …

The standard definition of a “Junk Food” is any food or drink that has very little nutritional value, has high quantities of fat, sodium &/or sugar, and is very easy to purchase, carry & consume. Not only bad for your health, the consumption of these foods has been shown by researchers to alter human brain activity in a manner similar to cocaine and heroin. In short, junk food is not only deadly, it is addictive.

But snack foods are not the only perpetrators – let’s look at a few others that are just as damaging to the quality of your life …

FAST FOOD is JUNK FOOD

All over the world, but especially in the Unites States, fast food consumption is a major problem. There are over 300,000 fast food restaurants in the United States alone. McDonald’s alone serves more than 46 million people every day – this is more than the population of Spain. Despite the fact that almost all nutritionists strongly recommend eating at a fast food restaurant only once a month (if at all), every day, over 25% of all Americans visits a fast food restaurant. In fact, over 40% of all meals in America are eaten outside the home, and every month, 9 out of every 10 children in the United States visit a McDonald’s restaurant.

The most eaten vegetable in America … is French fries.

This, my friends, is a problem, because fast food is EXTREMELY DAMAGING TO YOUR HEALTH.

*Without the chemical addition of phosphoric acid to counteract its incredibly high sugar-content, drinking only one can of cola would cause you vomit uncontrollably.

*Despite the fact that Willard Scott was fired as the first Ronald McDonald because the company thought he was too fat, fast food has been clearly linked to the growing worldwide obesity epidemic. Over 60% of all Americans are either obese or overweight, and the CDC considers obesity to be the number two cause of preventable premature death in the United States (behind only smoking, of course). In essence, eating fast food makes you fat – and this makes you susceptible to contracting diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and various cancers.

*Despite the clever marketing of “healthy alternatives” at these restaurants, there really is no such thing. Only seven items on McDonald’s entire menu contain no sugar, their hash browns have more fat in them than a Big Mac, and their corn muffin has more calories than a typical glazed donut. Even the salads at fast food joints are dangerous – most having been sprayed with Propylene Glycol to prolongs crispiness – a chemical commonly found in your car’s anti-freeze.

*High-fructose corn-syrup, which tricks your body into wanting to eat and store more and more fat, is found in many items on fast food menus (It’s in lots of foods in your grocery store as well. Avoid this poison at all costs — Read your labels!) …

*In addition, many known cancer-causing ingredients are still widely used in fast food production, including MSG, aspartame, food colorings, sodium nitrate & BHT.

*Chicken nuggets, pepperoni pizzas & hot dogs are all made in part from the “pink slime” I mentioned in the previous post on meat consumption.

Also worthy of note, fast food restaurants are NOTORIOUSLY FILTHY …

*For every 100 health inspections performed, McDonald’s racks up 126 health code violations (with its other major competitors being not far behind).

*It has been recently discovered that roughly 50% of all fountain drink dispensers in fast food restaurants are contaminated with fecal bacteria.

*The average fast food customer in America will consume about 12 pubic hairs (not counting their own) every year.

Finally, fast food restaurants are BAD FOR THE PLANET as well …

*The fast food industry has radically altered how cattle, chickens and pigs are raised, slaughtered and processed. It has led to the consolidation of the meatpacking industry (there are now only 13 major meatpackers in America), and the instances of animal cruelty committed by fast food meat-suppliers is simply atrocious.

*Not surprisingly, the foods processed and sold by fast food restaurants are major polluters of the global environment.  Fast food beef is often raised in very poor conditions where cow waste is not adequately disposed of, and thousands of acres of rain forest land is razed each year to provide space for many of these animals.

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Fast food chains are not only in our stomachs, they are in our heads as well. The average child sees over 10,000 food advertisements every year on TV – most of them for foods that are unhealthy, and many of them for fast foods. It has been shown that children can recognize McDonald’s before they can even speak, and that over 95% of all American children know who Ronald McDonald is.

Fast food chains bombard us with their promotions and jingles and slogans from a very early age, programming us to think that it is fine and dandy for us to “treat ourselves” to their tasty products. Of course, when we do so, the only thing we are treating ourselves and our children to is an early death.

SOLUTION: Avoid fast food restaurants at all costs.

Essentially, you simply have to EAT LIKE YOU CARE …

Eat Like You Care about animals,

Eat Like You Care about the Earth,

Eat Like You Care about your children, &

Eat Like You Care about yourself.