Fast food: Not the ONLY unhealthy food for you!

There IS a better take-out choice

Yesterday I had a cheeseburger. From that place with the golden arches.

Hardly newsworthy. Except it was probably the second fast food burger I’ve had in the last 10-15 years.

I was starving, driving home from my boyfriend’s on the New York State Thruway. I had an hour to go before I’d get home and my stomach was growling

To confess, I had been kind of thinking of this cheeseburger for a while now. Not the kind I occasionally make, with grass-fed ground beef and organic cheddar, hold the bun. Nope, the fast food kind.

A nutrition buff, I didn’t need Morgan Spurlock (director of the documentary, Supersize Me) to tell me a fast food diet contributes to disease.

I knew the deal—about the high glycemic bun, the burger’s saturated fat and sodium content. The sad square of processed cheese—or is it cheese food?

I knew, too, that I’d have to eat the burger while it was warm and to douse it with ketchup for moistness. Because, otherwise, I would not find it palatable.

But I was resolved to have one. So I pulled in, went into that home of “billions served” and ordered my cheeseburger.

The aftereffects of a fast food cheeseburger

I did not double up in half, in dry heaves.

I did not have to make my way speedily to the restroom, to wretch for 20 minutes.

I felt no lingering nausea. No stomach cramps. Nothing, really. In fact, it hit the spot.

I drove home, stomach content and able to wait until dinner to eat (when I had slightly larger portions of veggies and salad).

I reflected on my “experiment.”

Although nutrition experts have come to demonize everything “fast food,” how was this lone cheeseburger any worse than a plate of pancakes and sausages, I wondered. How much more likely to cause you lasting damage than, say, a piece of birthday cake or a serving of homemade lasagna, with or without garlic bread?

These foods differ, of course, in the amounts of calories, fat, protein, carbohydrates, sodium, fiber and nutrients they contain. But is one inherently “worse” than another?

When they constitute the bulk of a person’s diet, I suspect they are all somewhat “unhealthy.” And I would guess that they are “unhealthy” as much because of nutrients they lack as because of (so-called) anti-nutrients they contain.

Yet it is fast food that gets the brunt of our condemnation. Fast food takes the rap as the greatest sin in our pathetically lacking standard American diet (SAD). When we can’t agree on what else we should or should not be eating (grains-no grains? sugar-no sugar? saturated fat-no saturated fat?), fast food is a clear consensus maker.

Clearly, today’s fast food burger and fries meal contains a lot of (nutritionally) empty calories, with little, if anything, that promotes health or fights disease. (Come on, are you really going there for a salad?)

Eat fast food regularly and you are regularly not doing anything to help yourself live a long, healthy life.  But the same goes, too, for nutritionally empty home-cooked or restaurant meals.

You might stay slimmer eating a buttered English muffin at home rather than a fast food breakfast.

You might enjoy a plate of homemade lasagna more than a typical fast food meal.

But are you healthier? Good question.

Perhaps, if slimness alone cuts your disease risks. Studies say it does, but most of us know slim people who have taken on disease or passed away way too early. You certainly can be slim and malnourished.

Perhaps, if it’s a home-cooked meal in a pleasing, relaxed home environment rather than one wolfed down at a loud, gaudily colored, harshly-lit restaurant. Chronic stress promotes disease, we know.

The take-home

Three things, really:

1. You don’t need to feel immediate nausea or any other symptom of illness to open the door to ill health. I felt fine after my cheeseburger. That doesn’t mean my meal was healthy or suitable for regular fare. Same goes for homemade lasagna, birthday cake or pancakes and sausage.

2. Just because you avoid fast food does not put you in the clear. What does a buttered English muffin do for you, if you eat one day after day? Nothing but put a quick stop to hunger. An occasional one shouldn’t hurt. It may satisfy an itch of sorts. But you are, in that moment, missing an opportunity to put disease-fighting food into your body.

And, finally, the good news:

3. You’re never more than a few hours from putting healthy stuff into your body.

I got the idea for this concept from reading Dr. Barry Sears’ book, The Zone Diet, quite a few years ago. He wrote that, even if you indulge in a “non-zone” meal, you’re never more than 3 hours from getting back in the zone with your next “zone” meal. I’ve always loved this very forgiving notion. 

I don’t worry about zones when I eat. But I like the idea that I can have an “eh” meal, and follow it with something truly healthy and I’m okay! I don’t use this as an excuse to overindulge, but it’s a nice way to get back on track.

• Do you ever eat fast food? Or is there something else that you enjoy that has no redeeming nutritional value?
• What do you do if you indulge in something you normally wouldn’t eat? How do you get back on track?