What has giving up fast food done for you?

Re #1: For the umpteenth time, NOBODY here is arguing for a diet made up entirely of fast food. Of course a diet based completely around fast food would have ill effects. Vitamin deficiencies for one thing. (On the other hand, there are exceptions to every rule. Morgan Spurlock f*cked his health eating fast food for his documentary; whereas Tom Naughton improved his health eating fast food for his)

Re #2: you are coming back to your compounding interest hypothesis again. One meal had no effect. So why would one meal here and there have any major effect?

Diabetics prick themselves with a tiny needle multiple times a day... do you see them walking around bleeding all over the place?

In the study, a group of 20 healthy university students was fed a pair of commercially available breakfast sandwiches (the researchers declined to specify which ones to avoid singling out one chain at the expense of the overall finding) that included processed cheese, egg and ham on a bun and added up to 860 calories, 1,500 milligrams of sodium and 50 grams of fat—roughly as much sodium and fat as an adult is supposed to eat in a day.

Just two hours after eating the pair of sandwiches, the students’ blood vessels already showed the ill effects of the high-fat meal. Their VTI numbers were 15 to 20 percent lower than on other days when they hadn’t eaten any breakfast. Although the effect was temporary—the students’ VTI numbers returned to normal over the course of the day—it still demonstrates the fact that high-fat foods can do more harm, more quickly, than researchers had previously assumed.

“The real question is: what’s this doing to blood vessels over a period of time?” Anderson said. “Previously, our lab has shown that this VTI measurement, in a group of 400 middle-aged men studied for a decade, was associated with heart attack or stroke, so we think it’s a good barometer of blood vessel health.” Over the course of decades, reduced blood flow in these types of small blood vessels can cause plaque and cholesterol to build up.

so after ONE meal there were actual differences in how the body responded, even though they weren't "significant", so the ACTUAL conclusion to draw from this is that tiny difference repeated every day for a year, two years, 10 years, could eventually amount to a LARGE difference!

NO NO NO. This is not how studies work. You don't make up some hypothesis and say this is the conclusion. You do a study, examine the results, and then report the conclusion.

I'm tired of this. Can we end it? Or at least argue about something else. How about cardio vs strength or iso vs compound? How about meal timing? Carbs? Anything. This has become so tiring.

can we just compare our vitals and be done with it? :P

That is insulting. I stated a few criteria for "health" earlier in this thread. Here are a few off the top of my head:
- free of disease
- strong immune system
- well-functioning organs
- good blood pressure
- good blood cholesterol
- good resting heart rate
- good strength
- good body composition
- feeling of well being
- free of vitamin deficiencies

My whole premise here is that eating fast food, or any sort of food for that matter, within the context of a good diet will absolutely not prevent one from achieving the criteria above, or any other criteria that can be considered "good health". Let's go as far as replacing the word good with the word excellent. I will dare say, that I, DavPaul, AnvilHead, and a great many others on this website are in EXCELLENT health even while consuming "fast food" regularly.

Just to reiterate another main point of this whole philosophy - no one food can be considered healthy or unhealthy. All food is healthy (fine, let's take synthetic trans-fats as the exception). A person's overall diet is what makes them healthy or unhealthy.

I am 100% certain that I am in much better health than a great many people who have never consumed fast food in their life. Of course this is not BECAUSE I eat fast food, but despite it, because my diet AS A WHOLE is exceptional.

got it. here's a hypothetical for you to ponder: what about a person who eats exactly the same diet as you, but replaces your fast food with whole foods? no difference in your health?

Healthy doesn't necessarily mean you have to ONLY eat this or ONLY do that. As you can tell, the definition doesn't say you can only be healthy or feel healthy if you never eat fast food again.

o.O *twitch*
This is literally the ONLY thing I was trying to say. If you admit you are healthy DESPITE the fast food, then what the heck are you arguing about??

Like I said about, a year ago... fast food is not good for you. You can still choose to eat it if you want. I understand some people fit it into their diets, I just think there's a better way.

I want everyone to look at my food diary at the hellhole of things I ate today. Among them a slice of big ole sloppy nyc pizza and some general tso's chicken.

I want everyone to look at my food diary at the hellhole of things I ate today. Among them a slice of big ole sloppy nyc pizza and some general tso's chicken.

I am jealous of the pizza. There is simply no substitute for proper NY pizza on the east coast. Some places approximate it, but it's just not the same.

Pizza can be made with as little as flour, water, yeast, salt, tomatoes, pepper, mozzarella cheese, basil, and olive oil. Who is going to argue that's unhealthy?