How gross is fast food to you

royalty819

I know how bad it is. I read the book fast food nation and I mostly trust and agree with the information in it. I've seen super size me. I regret eating that junk every single time.
Yet I find myself mindlessly driving thru ordering the usual.

I would like to know how disgusting you find fast high-calorie low nutrient food, in my effort to find it uneatable.
And for the one's who'll say it's delicious and tell us their favorite mcdonalds joke or pun, I'll let a ha ha out in advance.

But seriously does anybody else know how bad it is, and still eat it regularly? what do you tell yourself to stop it?

Thank you

i joined a health program called Herbal Life last November. On December 28th somebody went through the Mcdonalds drive thru and ordered a McDouble, and a value fry, and brought it to the herbal life meeting that night. They set the burger and fry on a counter top, and said "Lets see what happens if we leave this fry and burger here for a week"

A week passes, then a month, then two months. . .

The burger had no bugs on it, no mold, no smell, the meat and the cheese on the burger did nothing but shrivel a little bit, while the ketchup stained the bread, while the onion and pickle looked like a shriveled up, and dried up pile of snot from 3 years ago. you could bang the bun against the counter, and it didnt even budge.

the fries, same story, no bugs, no mold, no smell, nothing. they looked like the fries we buy our children for their pretend kitchen. you could snap them like plastic

to this day that burger and fry is on display, and it looks exactly the same way as i described above

crystalcorals

It's not rather if it's gross or not to me that makes me stop eating it.
It's that it's so much money. all those little transactions they really add up fast.
I save so much money buying my own food and cooking it myself.
And now that I've been cooking my own food, it just makes my tummy hurt anyways.
I no longer have any desire for it. My only weakness is sweets like chocolate and cake.

Kilokato

The burden of proof is on the claim maker.

I agree with you in face-to-face situations, but the internet has left me jaded. I don't even try to prove what I say, I just try to provide enough feasibility to entice people to do their own research. I know I don't trust anything anybody says online without doing my own investigation, so why should anybody trust what I have to say. =P

Also as for study design, did that study use rodents and the 12 off/ 12 on eating regiment?

Yes, they did.

Not only did they use 3 groups, they rotated the groups through the cycles after the study had concluded.

Throughout the study, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. The first group ate healthy food. The second ate a limited amount of junk food. The third group, however, was allowed to gorge on high-fat, high-calorie foods and became obese.

After the first 40 days, they rotated the groups so that the healthy rats were fed limited junk food, the fat rats were fed healthy, etc. The results were shocking (and have been replicated since, in different unrelated studies). The fat rats wouldn't even eat the healthy food after being on junk food for 40 days. They STARVED themselves for over two weeks, rather than eat the healthy food.

TheSlorax

You're correct about everything but the physical addiction part. I think we're just disagreeing on semantics here. A physical addiction is something that is paired with uncontrollable cravings, withdrawal symptoms, irrational thought, etc. Popping bubble wrap does none of those.Flip open a medical dictionary or psychological journal and find the definition of a physical addiction.

This is an article written about an actual study that was done at Scripps Research Institute (one of the most respected and prestigious research facilities in the world), titled "FAST FOOD AS ADDICTIVE AS HEROIN, study says."

Scientist have previously proven links between drug addiction and fast-food addiction, but now there is a growing body of research that is finding out how junk food is hard wiring our brains for cravings.

The latest study, published March 28 in "Nature Neuroscience," likened the affects of high-fat, high-calorie fast food to those of cocaine or heroin, in animals at least.

The researchers showed that the pleasure-center in rats brains were overstimulated from the fast food similar to an addict's cocaine binge. Eventually, the pleasure centers became so overloaded that rats needed more and more food to feel normal, according to Paul H. Kenny, an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute.

Throughout the study, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. The first group ate healthy food. The second ate a limited amount of junk food. The third group, however, was allowed to gorge on high-fat, high-calorie foods and became obese.

The startling side effect? The brains of the obese rats changed.

"The body adapts remarkably well to change -- and that's the problem," Kenny said in a press release. "When the animal overstimulates its brain pleasure centers with highly palatable food, the systems adapt by decreasing their activity. However, now the animal requires constant stimulation from palatable food to avoid entering a persistent state of negative reward".
During the study, the rats lost complete control over the ability to regulate whether they were hungry, often eating despite electric shocks. When the obese rats were put on a healthy diet, they refused to eat, starving themselves for two weeks.

http://www.thatsfit.com/2010/03/30/fast-food-is-like-heroin-studies-find/


People can deny it all they want, but it's a very real thing.

To be honest, a lot of it is probably psychological...not chemical (unless they are putting in meth or something). People can suffer all those things you listed by being addicted to non-food/drug substances...like gambling, hoarding, etc.

This sums up what my response to you would have been had I not gone to lunch for my coworker's birthday. Trust me, I am a compulsive eater, food addict, whatever you want, name it. But I would NEVER blame my binging on a physical addiction. It's purely psychological. I crave the food because my head tells me it makes me feel better, not because I'm dependent on it. It's purely learned behavior. For example, when I had a bad day at school as a kid, Mom or Dad would take me through the drive through when they picked me up. It became a comfort for me but it never physically addicted me.

Now, I'm not saying you don't have something here - I know there are food scientists developing this stuff. I'm fairly anti-corporation so this has nothing to do with my opinion, but really, what is so wrong about the fast food companies engineering food that tastes better to their consumers? I'm not so sure that their chemical additives really do create a physically addictive substance so much as they just make the food taste better (and if they're doing that by "tricking" our taste buds, well, it's working!). I wonder what would happen if they did some of these studies on a different kind of food that tasted really good to people - chocolate, for instance. I would be VERY interested to see if it lit up these same brain centers that fast food does. If this has been done, I'd be appreciative if someone provided a link.

Food addiction can be very real, but I'm not so sure it's because of the reasons you've described. I feel it's more on the lines of nail biting or jiggling a door handle three times - a compulsive behavior. Of course I'm not a scientist or educated in the medical field, but as someone who has a binge eating disorder I can tell you that my eating was not caused by any physical dependency.

MissJanet55

You're correct about everything but the physical addiction part. I think we're just disagreeing on semantics here. A physical addiction is something that is paired with uncontrollable cravings, withdrawal symptoms, irrational thought, etc. Popping bubble wrap does none of those.Flip open a medical dictionary or psychological journal and find the definition of a physical addiction.

This is an article written about an actual study that was done at Scripps Research Institute (one of the most respected and prestigious research facilities in the world), titled "FAST FOOD AS ADDICTIVE AS HEROIN, study says."

Scientist have previously proven links between drug addiction and fast-food addiction, but now there is a growing body of research that is finding out how junk food is hard wiring our brains for cravings.

The latest study, published March 28 in "Nature Neuroscience," likened the affects of high-fat, high-calorie fast food to those of cocaine or heroin, in animals at least.

The researchers showed that the pleasure-center in rats brains were overstimulated from the fast food similar to an addict's cocaine binge. Eventually, the pleasure centers became so overloaded that rats needed more and more food to feel normal, according to Paul H. Kenny, an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute.

Throughout the study, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. The first group ate healthy food. The second ate a limited amount of junk food. The third group, however, was allowed to gorge on high-fat, high-calorie foods and became obese.

The startling side effect? The brains of the obese rats changed.

"The body adapts remarkably well to change -- and that's the problem," Kenny said in a press release. "When the animal overstimulates its brain pleasure centers with highly palatable food, the systems adapt by decreasing their activity. However, now the animal requires constant stimulation from palatable food to avoid entering a persistent state of negative reward".
During the study, the rats lost complete control over the ability to regulate whether they were hungry, often eating despite electric shocks. When the obese rats were put on a healthy diet, they refused to eat, starving themselves for two weeks.

http://www.thatsfit.com/2010/03/30/fast-food-is-like-heroin-studies-find/


People can deny it all they want, but it's a very real thing.

To be honest, a lot of it is probably psychological...not chemical (unless they are putting in meth or something). People can suffer all those things you listed by being addicted to non-food/drug substances...like gambling, hoarding, etc.

This sums up what my response to you would have been had I not gone to lunch for my coworker's birthday. Trust me, I am a compulsive eater, food addict, whatever you want, name it. But I would NEVER blame my binging on a physical addiction. It's purely psychological. I crave the food because my head tells me it makes me feel better, not because I'm dependent on it. It's purely learned behavior. For example, when I had a bad day at school as a kid, Mom or Dad would take me through the drive through when they picked me up. It became a comfort for me but it never physically addicted me.

Now, I'm not saying you don't have something here - I know there are food scientists developing this stuff. I'm fairly anti-corporation so this has nothing to do with my opinion, but really, what is so wrong about the fast food companies engineering food that tastes better to their consumers? I'm not so sure that their chemical additives really do create a physically addictive substance so much as they just make the food taste better (and if they're doing that by "tricking" our taste buds, well, it's working!). I wonder what would happen if they did some of these studies on a different kind of food that tasted really good to people - chocolate, for instance. I would be VERY interested to see if it lit up these same brain centers that fast food does. If this has been done, I'd be appreciative if someone provided a link.

Food addiction can be very real, but I'm not so sure it's because of the reasons you've described. I feel it's more on the lines of nail biting or jiggling a door handle three times - a compulsive behavior. Of course I'm not a scientist or educated in the medical field, but as someone who has a binge eating disorder I can tell you that my eating was not caused by any physical dependency.

Thanks for clarifying in the last paragraph. I think it's important to distinguish between disordered eating and craving a food because it has been engineered to light up your brain the same way cocaine does. But I expect that the latter can lead to the former, the same way recreational drug use can lead to habitual use and addiction in some people.

Regarding chocolate, in his book Michael Moss talks a lot about the effect of sugar on the brain. It's all in there.

I understand the reluctance to blame food companies and phsical addiction, but making that connection doesn't mean we don't have to take responsibility for what we eat. They're not making it impossible, they're just making it harder. Ultimately, we have to suck it up and tough it out to get to the other side. For me, having all the information makes that a little easier.

Kilokato

This sums up what my response to you would have been had I not gone to lunch for my coworker's birthday. Trust me, I am a compulsive eater, food addict, whatever you want, name it. But I would NEVER blame my binging on a physical addiction. It's purely psychological. I crave the food because my head tells me it makes me feel better, not because I'm dependent on it. It's purely learned behavior.

You know your body and mind far better than I do, and I trust your assessment of the matter entirely. However, for SOME people I think you might be shocked by how much of it actually IS physical. If you look at lesser developed nations who don't have the same access to fast food that we do, you'll notice drastically lower obesity rates, even when they have equal wealth.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "lols kenya doesn't have fat people" - I'm talking about cultures that have plenty of wealth and food, but just not the same KIND of processed crap we have. It's amazing how much healthier they are as a society. Asian cultures, many European countries, Scandinavian countries, etc. They HAVE McDonald's, but their societies don't revolve around them like ours do - they've got their obese people, but at a rate less than half of what we do. It's crazy how much this kind of processed and engineered food will affect people eating it.

Now, I'm not saying you don't have something here - I know there are food scientists developing this stuff. I'm fairly anti-corporation so this has nothing to do with my opinion, but really, what is so wrong about the fast food companies engineering food that tastes better to their consumers?

There's nothing wrong with them making it taste better, who doesn't love good food? The thing that's wrong is that they're using ingredients that physically addict the brain. It's not that they're just making it taste so good you WANT more, it's that ingesting the food is making your brain NEED more, and if you don't get it you have side effects, like mood swings and headaches.

I wonder what would happen if they did some of these studies on a different kind of food that tasted really good to people - chocolate, for instance. I would be VERY interested to see if it lit up these same brain centers that fast food does. If this has been done, I'd be appreciative if someone provided a link.

You're on to something there! It is still debated, but there are a growing group of psychologists who believe that chocolate is physically addictive. Eating chocolate releases certain endorphins in your brain, and when you get those endorphins you feel better, happier, clearer. When you come down off of that high, you want more, and you eat more chocolate. That's a physical addiction. If you don't get it, you feel depressed and cranky. It affects everybody differently, but many people are completely capable of becoming physically addicted to chocolate.

Here, do some reading if you like:

http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/basics/l/aa001109a.htm
http://www.ehow.com/info_10020295_can-really-addicted-chocolate.html

Here's an article from Harvard Med school on chocolate and food addictions:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-you-become-addicted-to-chocolate-201302145903

Food addiction can be very real, but I'm not so sure it's because of the reasons you've described. I feel it's more on the lines of nail biting or jiggling a door handle three times - a compulsive behavior. Of course I'm not a scientist or educated in the medical field, but as someone who has a binge eating disorder I can tell you that my eating was not caused by any physical dependency.

You're 100% correct, eating disorders are mostly psychological. They're compulsive behaviors based on learned habits or emotions. Really, you're making my point here with this statement. The kinds of things that fast food industries are engineering are creating a physical addiction to their food by chemically stimulating your brain into feeling like it needs more - and that's where we cross the line into addiction from compulsion. That's where my problem is - they're intentionally addicting you to their food. It's not a quirky ad campaign, or some new jingle - it's CHEMICALS put there to force you to NEED their food.

floop1207

i've never eaten a mcdonalds, or kfc. subway or pizza places are my weakness......

StrivingSagittarius

Kilokato

lol x infinity

TheSlorax

All really interesting and I'm starting to see your points. Thank you for actually presenting a well-rounded argument rather than just defaulting to the fact that it's not "clean". Drives me insane.

My question is when EXACTLY it crosses over from a behavioral standpoint to actual physical dependency. I also think that if you look at these cultures' ethnic foods you'll find a lot more healthful choices than ours here in America. Here, fast food IS our ethnic food. I think this crosses over into more behavioral observation. America is the land of greed and excess. Overeating here is a pastime. In other countries it's not always the case. As for lower obesity rates in equally wealthy countries, Scandinavia is generally a very wealthy area of the world, yes, yet if you look at their cultural foods it is generally what we would consider "clean eating." If I recall correctly, they do have traditional Christmas dishes that may rival a Big Mac, but that is a once in a year occasion. It needs to be a sociological study at this point before we can determine if it really is a physical addiction or purely behavioral.

Interesting about the chocolate. But, chocolate is a natural substance and it causes these cravings. So you're saying that these engineers are trying to make the physical reaction to fast food replicate a natural substance such as chocolate (or since we're going there, cocaine as well)? My question is, how do we know for a fact that it's the ingredients our bodies crave and not the taste? It is true that I used to have mood swings and headaches when I couldn't get the food I wanted, but this was stress related because I was battling a compulsion. Not because I was going through withdrawals. I think it's safe to say that when you are depriving your body of something you WANT, it's a stressful and sometimes miserable situation.

I still am a little fuzzy on the difference between the two. You say I prove your point that fast food is physically addicting when I really say that it was a psychological compulsion that made me crave the stuff. Here, let me put it this way. I have a 100% perfectly healthy relationship with chocolate. I currently have a bar from Trader Joe's sitting in my freezer that's been in there for over a month. I eat a few pieces at a time, enjoy it, and put it back. So if I really was physically addicted to fast food, wouldn't I have the same problems with staying away from chocolate as I do from fast food? Trust me when I say that I ate a lot more fast food than I ever have chocolate. My parents never gave me a candy bar when I was sad, they gave me a happy meal. I'm able to eat and enjoy chocolate in a normal way, but if I was to go through a drive through all bets would be off. That's because my addiction to fast food is purely psychological.

edited to clarify some of the grammar, keep getting my thought train interrupted at work (how dare they! lol)

salladeve

Well obliviously not gross to me at all, it is basically why I'm in the shape I'm in. I'm not eating it now, but that doesn't mean I'll never eat it again. Going forward only in moderation.

Kilokato

I do, because I don't eat fast food. The problem is different than that. You can't just look at your life, or of 5 people you know, and call it a day. You have to look at what they are actually doing to make it happen, and how it is affecting very large amounts of people.

Precisely.

It's not often I quote the Catholic church, but in this case I feel it's pertinent:

"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest."

~Cardinal Roger Mahony

And others of us see it, recognize it and respond with "meh" because we realize that no one will ever truly take our ability to say "no" or to indulge in moderation. If you don't have the ability to moderate yourself though, I do understand why you would get upset.

Just because you and I have self control, knowledge and wisdom to use them doesn't mean everybody does. Many people don't know any better, and they don't realize that they're being taken advantage of by these corporations. Simply because it's not affecting you doesn't mean it's not wrong.

Also, I've got the ability to moderate myself, which is why I don't eat it.

PikaKnight

I do, because I don't eat fast food. The problem is different than that. You can't just look at your life, or of 5 people you know, and call it a day. You have to look at what they are actually doing to make it happen, and how it is affecting very large amounts of people.

Precisely.

It's not often I quote the Catholic church, but in this case I feel it's pertinent:

"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest."

~Cardinal Roger Mahony

And others of us see it, recognize it and respond with "meh" because we realize that no one will ever truly take our ability to say "no" or to indulge in moderation. If you don't have the ability to moderate yourself though, I do understand why you would get upset.

Just because you and I have self control, knowledge and wisdom to use them doesn't mean everybody does. Many people don't know any better, and they don't realize that they're being taken advantage of by these corporations. Simply because it's not affecting you doesn't mean it's not wrong.

Also, I've got the ability to moderate myself, which is why I don't eat it.

Not eating it isn't moderating it.

smantha32

I eat it when it fits into my calories. But never McDonalds. Their food is disgusting.

TriShamelessly

Well, the quality of the food set aside, when you think about being at the mercy of the food handler, it can get quite discusting. Nose picking, lack of hand washing, picking things up off the floor, cross contamination, under cooking and temperature control. These things are all out of site and there is no way of knowing if standards are being met.

After seeing an undercover program aimed at showing what really goes on behinds the scene, I am leary of fast food.

Having been around or worked in the restaurant and agricultural industries most of my life - it goes on everywhere, not just fast food places. If that's you're reasoning, you better start growing your own veggies and raising some chickens, etc. As for fast food itself, I fall into the it's neither good nor bad crowd. There are better choices at nearly every chain restaurant than others. Know yourself, know the choices and choose accordingly.

TheSlorax

I do, because I don't eat fast food. The problem is different than that. You can't just look at your life, or of 5 people you know, and call it a day. You have to look at what they are actually doing to make it happen, and how it is affecting very large amounts of people.

Precisely.

It's not often I quote the Catholic church, but in this case I feel it's pertinent:

"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest."

~Cardinal Roger Mahony

And others of us see it, recognize it and respond with "meh" because we realize that no one will ever truly take our ability to say "no" or to indulge in moderation. If you don't have the ability to moderate yourself though, I do understand why you would get upset.

Just because you and I have self control, knowledge and wisdom to use them doesn't mean everybody does. Many people don't know any better, and they don't realize that they're being taken advantage of by these corporations. Simply because it's not affecting you doesn't mean it's not wrong.

Also, I've got the ability to moderate myself, which is why I don't eat it.

Not eating it isn't moderating it.

I was just about to say something to this extent. I don't eat it, but I also CAN'T moderate it. It's not inclusive.

vienna_h

I just don't like the taste. Every fast-food burger tastes the same: like butter and salt. There is NO flavour, it's made for mass appeal so they mask all flavours with grease and salt. Yuk.

I have to be pretty drunk and hungry to eat fast food. I'd say I eat it less than 5 times per year. And it's almost always poutine, because I live in Montreal, after all.

Fit_NYC_

Pretty damn gross...

If I'm going to spend the calories on a burger or pizza, it's not going to be from McD's or other such nonsense... it'll be from a place that cooks with real ingredients.

leadiax3

About once a week or less, my family likes mcdonalds or kfc, but i refuse to eat it. If i am going to indulge let it be on chocolate or ice cream!!! When they get fast food, they know to stop by d'angelod or subway for me.