Fast Food and Healthy Diet

Ironically I found a post from another blog that said that Denny's is being sued to disclose the salt content in their food. The Reuter's article can be found here. I don't know what the basis is for compelling a company to tell you what's in their food if it's not something that'll immediately kill someone, but hey, in America you're free to litigate against anything that annoys you if you have enough money. I guess we need to make sure our justice system has a lot of busywork to earn their pay.

The article says that the salt content in one of the Denny's meal is "dangerously high", and cites certain people that need to watch their intake of sodium that could have problems with the food. I guess this in my opinion is kind of a slippery slope; I feel that there is a point when reasonable people have to take reasonable control of their own lives and responsibility for their decisions; the meal cited in the article is the Meat Lover's Scramble.

Okay...chain restaurant, meal item called "Meat Lover's Scramble" that consists of "two eggs with chopped bacon, diced ham, crumbled sausage, cheese plus two bacon strips, two sausage links, hash browns, and two pancakes," and a person who is at-risk for salt intake is pondering this item on the menu...

I think there are couple red flags right off the bat that should tell you that you need to avoid that meal. Hell, people without salt issues should avoid it.

I do wish that nutrition information for chain restaurants (Applebee's, I'm pointing at you, you skunks...) were more readily available, even if it's just available online. But to sue over just disclosing salt content (Denny's already has their nutrition information on their website.)

Hmm...Okay. That's odd. The Meat Lover's Scramble IS on the online menu. And unlike the claim on the article, the sodium level is 3,180 mg, not 5,690 mg. Apparently the group is suing to have it put into the menu, because the company isn't hiding the information (unlike, say, Applebee's). The difference in numbers may be with side items that are separately ordered, I don't know.

So if you're in an at-risk category for certain foods, I think you should actually get off your arse and research it. Look up the menus at Red Lobster or Denny's. Look for the printed nutrition information at McD's. For most reasonable companies you can find it online, or at least exercise some common sense (I mean, c'mon, you read the description of that meal...does it sound like it would be low in sodium?)

The reason I said all of this was ironic was because as I was actually sitting down to do a blog post on whether it was possible to eat healthy meals at fast food chains. Most of the information that got me thinking about it is here at HowStuffWorks.com.

I'm sure you could find, or modify, fast food orders that are relatively healthy once in awhile. But not like what you could make at home (or in some small off-chain restaurants). Once people take an interest in educating themselves about this issue they quickly find that most fast foods are full of fats, sugars, and salt.

Why? Because it preserves foods and makes them taste a lot better. Customers like the foods with the bad stuff in them...and it helps keep the cost of those burgers and salads lower. I mean, if you reduce the flavor or shelf life of the food, how much will prices rise? That's part of the convenience that sells this stuff. Duh.

It's a shame that "common sense" doesn't work for most people when choosing menu items in restaurants. Most people who listen to the media blurbs and sound bites equate chicken with being healthy; often, it's not, and it's not obvious. Even the chicken you get in the supermarket may have undergone "plumping". That's a process where the chicken is injected with saltwater to increase shelf life, flavor, visual appeal...yummy! Too bad it also makes the sodium content skyrocket. Even McNuggets are mostly corn.

But this information isn't hidden, it's just not advertised. The big problem I see is that people in America are anti-intellectual; we do not have a code of ethics that embraces education and learning. We wait for it to be plonked in front of us, handed over so as to save us from having to do any critical thinking.

We resent the idea that we don't have freedoms and choices. At the same time the more I read and listen to people the more convinced I become that people want a world where everything is done for us. We just go along with the flow, do what we're told, except for the one or two things in our lives in which we take an interest.

This would mean that many of our issues...if not most...come from our society, not from other people and companies doing "bad things" to us. A lot of problems would be reduced if we invested more time and effort in becoming better skeptical and critical thinkers.

But that takes effort...and right now there's more TV to be watched.