/ck/ - Food & Cooking

there are several reasons that fast food is unhealthy. I am sure you will get lots of reasons in the this thread so I will focus on just one. Sugar. The fast food companies shovel sugar into everything and anything, stuff you didn't even consider. Sugar is a good source of energy, but fast food has an overabundance and so you should really eat it sparningly.

>>4426370
>Fried food loaded with tons of fat, sugar, and sodium
>Cheap meat is processed crap

McDonald's itself is not unhealthy. It is high sugar, high saturated food full of sugars and simple carbs. Making it the kind of meal one ought to eat very rarely if one wants to be healthy.

For example, most of us know that a meal consisting of a pulled pork sandwich, potato salad and cheesecake for dessert is not the kind of thing one ought to eat every day.

Yet many think of a burger, fries and a soda as everyday food. This is because a burger and fries has been marketed as ordinary, not a special occasion meal. Same goes for soda - it has more sugar than a piece of birthday cake, yet in popular culture it's considered a daily kind of beverage.

So the main reason fast food is unhealthy is because it allows one to casually (and cheaply) consume completely excessive food - the kind of food you might only make on a special occasion if you had to cook it yourself.

Pollan said it pretty well: "How often would you eat fries if you had to make them yourself?"

I'd say fast food isn't particularly unhealthy. Nor are fat, salt and sugar. Consuming large amounts of them on a regular basis is unhealthy, and fast food makes it easy enough to do so that many folks don't think twice about it.

read a book watch a documentary do your own research if you want to have an opinion

I'd recommend watching Super Size Me, to see a real extreme situation.

I like to eat in McDonalds from time to time, adds up to less than once a month. I never felt bad for it, I eat rather well most of the time.

Just like one healthy meal won't make you fit, one unhealthy meal won't make you a walking piece of lard.

>>4426370
high calorie count, due to high carb ratio.

get small fries and a water, and it will be fine.

>>4426582
I suggest watching fathead for why super size me is a load of crap

Another reason to avoid it is just because it's just low quality food. Nearly everything on their menu is made in bulk beforehand and kept under heatlamps till needed. Not to mention it all comes from a freezer before that. It may be okay for a fast, cheap, possibly nostalgic meal every now and then, but it'll make you sick and fat if you eat it with any regularity.

Eat nothing but McDonald's for a year. Then eat vegetarian, vegan, or whatever cooked and even grown by yourself.

Compare and contrast the differences, retard.

>>4426582
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Head

Supersize me being refuted

Softdrink/soda is the worse thing when eatting fast food I say. The amount of sugar in that shit. If I get fast food and its very very rarely these days I always get a water.

Also I just cook with real meat at home, way better, doesn't take that long and is fun.

Who cares, man?

If you feel it's unhealthy, don't eat it.

Almost no food is inherently unhealthy (things heavy in trans fats being an obvious exception) it's the frequency and quantity that makes it bad.

Carb heavy meals very frequently is bad for most people, and fast food makes that easy.

I'll never understand why people think McDonald's burgers are processed to hell. There are literally two ingredients; beef and salt. And it's painfully obvious given how dry and boring they are.

Their chicken is fair game though.

>>4426666
Yes, because nuitrition is based on feelings

Drinking a soda a day is probably worse for you than going to McDonalds, provided you aren't going to a fast food place every day.

and really.. Why anyone would want to eat a lot of fast food is beyond me. The taste of these places are just nothing in comparison to the same item cooked at home to your specifications.

Egg McMuffins with black coffee is a fairly healthy breakfast.

Especially the new egg white one. I got the original and the egg white one and tried side by side, and the egg seemed the same. It think I would order two again (one with white cheddar, one with american) and a black coffee if I'm feeling hungry in the morning again.

>>4426683
Trans fats and saturated fats have, essentially, been placed in the same category as unhealthy foods that will promote cancer. The real danger with transfats were that they were hiden and it was hard to tell how much of it you were eating. This is still true of prison and school food as the labelling of those foods (bulk packaging) was exempted from the transfat labelling rules.

Anyway.. Red meat is full of sat fat and transfats and sat fats are pretty much equal on the unhealthy for you scale.

The more youknow.

>>4426739
>>Egg McMuffins
>>healthy

Yeah, they're just bursting with fiber, not simple carbs and fats!

>>4426754
I like how you intentionally left out protein you dumb nigger.

>>4426757
>lowest quality, overly salted, sugared, and preserved protein on earth. And not as much as you think. Its mostly soy bulking agents.

>>4426757

Eggs have protein, true. Egg McMuffins have an extra 30g of carbs and 12 of fat on top of that. They're not fucking healthy, you obese piece of shit.

there is nothing inherently wrong with, bk, mickey dees, hardees, wendys or any other fast food place i guess, except the portion size, and "extra value or up size meal deals.I don't need or want an 8 oz burger, with microwaved bacon, extra chess, a lb of fries and 40 oz of coke or whatever or loss leaders like dollar menus. and I Like micky dee, bk or wendys No I just want a simple small burger, no or small fries and water . wait whut.... .

>>4426431
>Pollan said it pretty well: "How often would you eat fries if you had to make them yourself?"
Every day once I buy a deep fryer.

>>4426915
it's a hassle with all the oil and then filtering the oil so I can use it again and save money (although I think there's some danger to this with specific gas temperatures or something)

I think I prefer baking them just for the convinience

The only unhealthy thing about fast food restaurants are the customers. They like to bitch and cry about how the food makes them fat when no one forces them to eat it. They make the choice to stuff their fat faces, so what the fuck nigga. If it's a question of money, they can grow a little garden inside or by a window, or they can coupon the fuck out of shit. Granted, fast food isn't the most nutricious, but like I said, no one forced people to eat it.

>white bread

Absolutely disgusting.

>>4426989

To be fair, in plenty of ghettos there aren't any grocery stores - it's either fast food or hostess pies from the bodega

>>4426690
It isn't really the meat thats bad. Its all the weird ingredients in the buns, cheese, fries, sauces, chicken etc. that you eat along with the hamburger patty. Also the soda, no good.

>>4428814
Maybe if the jigaboos would work enough to buy actual food instead of stealing shit and spending food stamps then there would be better food options in the ghetto.

>>4428868

I'm sure you've spent your life making the world better for everyone, but not all people have the genius to do so, or the moral strength to overcome like you so eleganty demostrated in your life in the suburbs.

>>4426953
This,
processed food gets rid of the convenience factor, so unhealthy high maintenance foods can compete with easier to make healthy foods.
fast food is even worse, making the unhealthy foods really easy to access, from the customer's point of view, the rest is all economics, we go for the tastiest stuff and fat and sugar and salt tastes really good.

I have a deep fryer and it's a special occasion thing because of all the effort, it's worth it when I'm willing to do the work, but it's amazing how the healthiness scales, most of the shortcuts that I can do to get the food faster, (when I'm making it myself) like baking it or doing a trick with pan frying, turn out a healthier product, and it's not because I'm trying to be healthier, it's just a result of the process.

>>4426431
>see thread
>open it to reply and explain this exact thing,
>not only has someone else explained it, they also referenced Pollan

Goddamnit /ck, how is it you continue to amaze me with your awesomeness

>>4426435
>>4426582
Supersizeme reallies on ancedotal evidence, and since he forces himself to go overboard anyhow each day, most of the same things would have happened if he eat a regular diet with the same amount of food eaten.

Now.... too store food, you need to deep freeze it. If you do that, it also means you either have to have a segregated system for whats barely frozen and whats deep frozen, or you make food that only needs to be frozen to be stored. If frozen food is used, you need to use extra time making the food.
So basically, you are limited by a few factors:
>Ingredient lifetime
>Cost of supply maintenance
>Time needed to heat/prepare the food
So basically what is accepted is that most of the salad have a storage time of about 3-5 days. That still leaves the bread, meat and sauce/dressing. Dressing can not be frozen usually, but its be design lasting quite some time, so its generally not a issue.
Now... bread and meat is a bigger problem.

>>4426582
Supersize Me is full of shit, and nobody should watch it.

Turns out, when you habitually overeat, even go so far as to force-eat when you're literally throwing up, and get no exercise, SURPRISE SURPRISE, YOU GET FAT AND SICK, WHO'D HAVE FUCKING GUESSED

basically, supersize me's message isn't so much wrong as it is blatantly obvious and taken to extremes. Yes, McDonalds is generally unhealthy, but fast food strikes me as being like cigarettes - find me a smoker who doesn't think cigs are unhealthy.

>>4433533
Also he was a vegan before he started the McDonald's diet. Of course he would have such an exaggerated adverse reaction to it.

Lots of sugar, salt and fat.

>>4433774
Very informative comment, OP.

I saw one 5 minute clip, and the dude was eating two extra value meals.

That is bullshit cheating

>>4426370
It's very calorie dense for one. Another is cheap and processed meats are treated with some chemicals, bleach and nitrates I think, to kill e coli and salmonella that get spread around when they're ground up. Additionally, there's a lot of sodium added in for taste and to increase shelf life, and saturated fats.

People don't usually talk about this one, but there's also not many vitamins or minerals in fast food. Only really carbs, fat, and protein, which is fuel, but none of the other stuff.

It's bullshit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Dy-Mqc038