What's Lurking in Fast Food?
John Andrews at NewsTarget uncovers some of the more unpleasant ingredients in what often sounds like 'healthy' food.
Did you know?
Wheat bread at Subway is not 100% whole grain (whole wheat flour is down on the ingredients list - followed closely by High Fructose Corn Syrup). The color of the bread is from "caramel color" - which contains sulfites. There is also an ingredient called azodicarbonamide.
Azodicarbonamide is a respiratory sensitizer (a possible cause of asthma) that is banned in Australia.
Taco Bell
The rice contains dimethylpolysiloxane - this is normally used in silicone caulk, adhesives, and as an anti-foaming agent.
Wendy's
The Low Fat Honey Mustard Dressing contains titanium dioxide - used to manufacture paint, sunscreen, semiconductors, and also in food coloring.
McDonald's
Take your coffee without creamer. The creamer contains sodium phosphate, sodium polyphosphate, tetra sodium pyrophosphate, sodium citrate, carrageena. Many of these ingredients are commonly found in various industrial chemicals. If you're brave enough - go check out the McDonald's ingredients lists.
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Usually Chinese food gets slammed for having monosodium glutamate (commonly known as MSG); so much so that many restaurants hang signs and print on menus that their food contains no MSG. But MSG is also hiding in KFC's gravy.
MSG is a sodium salt that is rendered from the fermentation of carbohydrates with a nitrogen source - not exactly an ingredient found in good ole' home cooking! And MSG has been linked to a variety of health problems, such as obesity, migraine headaches, and heart disease.
Burger King
Somebody better tell the king his kingdom has run amuck. Burger King's Veggie Burger is a mess of secret ingredients; including calcium caseinate, hydrolyzed corn, yeast extract, and soy protein isolate. So lest you think you're doing yourself a favor by skipping the beef.
Additionally, the BK Veggie Burger is not exactly cooked with tender loving care, they microwave it. What? Like a TV dinner!
See other weird fast food ingredients at NewsTarget.
Read More
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- The Dirt on Supermarket Sushi (Diet Blog)
- Meet Greg, 155 Pounds Down! (DailySpark)
- 2012 Super Bowl Commercial Winners: Oikos and Belvita [VIDEOS] (Diets in Review)
49 Comments
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Created / Updated: February 9, 2012
Of course fast food is not healthy, but I don't see why sharing a few ingredients with non-food items makes them bad. Honey Nut Cheerios contain Calcium Carbonate which is an ingredient found in cement. The only one that would make me nervous is Azodicarbonamide because its banned in Australia and I'm going to assume they didn't just ban it on a random hunch.
Replyok, wow. these chimicals are so bad!
ReplyJosie, I wonder if that means that the rice in the AU Taco Bell burritos is made differently?
ReplyThe Subway bread kind of ticks me off. They purport to be so healthy, but they can't take one of their own staples, bread, and make it 100% whole wheat? Come on, how hard is that?
ReplyI am waiting for a real pizza with whole grains. I don't eat much grains, but when giving into a craving I certainly would want real whole food. So sad about Subway, but not surprising. All about money not so much health
Replyyeah thats just terrible
ReplyOh. Unfortunately, this is just scratching the surface of the terrible things that are in fast food!
Replyhey what else is wrong with fast food? im doing a report on it and i need some info
Replyyeah mee too if u find something tell me plz!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Replyactually the people found out that fast food wuz bad by doing an experement. the guy who did it ate fast food every day, for every meal. he did this for a month. at the end of it he found that he had gained 25 lbs and felt tired all the time. his doctor told him to stop, or die. he created a movie on his experience called SUPER SIZE ME.thats how people know that fast food is bad. DONT EAT IT!
ReplyI am doing a paper on fast food too! My teacher showed us the SUPERSIZE ME movie!
ReplyIBlogFat.blogspot.com
Fast food is not healthy food. All this debate about how "unfair" fast food marketers are is crazy. They will stay in business forever --and in fact grow-- because fat people do not care what in the food as long as it tastes good. Come check out our site, we'd love to hear from you!
ReplyCalcium carbonate is what's in Tums, too...it's just a mineral and it's perfectly safe to eat. They put all sorts of things in processed foods to make them whiter, a better consistency, to preserve them, etc. Most of the additives they put in are pretty safe, actually, but they are definitely not "natural" things. They put ethylene glycol in certain processed foods as an emulsifier. And ethylene glycol is basically antifreeze. If you've ever seen a coolant leak in a car (where the coolant leaks into the engine block), you will never eat ethylene glycol again. It turns car engine oil into sludge...I can't imagine it would be all that great for your arteries.
ReplyJosie, I wonder if that means that the rice in the AU Taco Bell burritos is made differently?
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I don't really get what you're saying. What is AU? It probably is though anyway, they make just about everything differently.
Calcium carbonate is what's in Tums, too...it's just a mineral and it's perfectly safe to eat
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Yup. And is there any evidence these things may be unsafe besides that first one?
About them being not natural, don't most of us take unnatural medication daily? Unnatural doesn't have to bad as far as I see it, and natural doesn't have to be healthier even though that goes against instinct.
ReplyExcuse my ignorance, but what the heck is 'creamer'? Never heard of it!
ReplyIts a subsitute for
I guess its just anything you can cream your coffee with besides actual cream. Sometimes it has dairy in it but sometimes not, and sometimes its that powder stuff you pour in that turns milky in there. Then there's coffee mate and eighth continent delight and all that. Reply
Woops, I meant to say 'international delight' not eighth continent delight. But you know, I think eighth continent delight soymilk would also constitute creamer if you poured it into your coffee or tea.
ReplyWater is also commonly found in industrial chemicals.
This alarmist nonsense attempts to appeal to ignorance, fear, suspicion and hatred. It's not even a half-truth because it's basically content-free.
This blog is OK sometimes. And some other times, it's the "we are victims of food" blog.
This is the worst post in a long, long time.
ReplyI think it was Jack Lalanne who advocated eating food in as close to its original form as possible. Basically, if the food comes in a box, bag, or wrapper, you should avoid it. However, despite this, and what is written above, I still like fast food from time to time :)
ReplyIt is incredible to see so many things pop up in fast food these last couple years. Even though new and healthy things are coming in I wonder how focused they are about improving the unhealthy foods.
ReplyIf anyone's concerned about the bread at Subway, you can do what I usually do: Ask that your 6" sub be made as a salad. They will fill a bowl with lettuce, spinach (if you want it) and whatever other veggies and stuff you want, plus your chicken breast or ham or whatever meat you want. They'll put cheese on it if you want it and you can get lowfat and fat free dressings if you want them. It's a great way to lighten up the meal.
Reply