Vice is defined in the dictionary as an immoral or evil habit or practice. Immoral conduct includes depraved or degrading behavior, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness and corruption. I think if we are really serious in our desire to beat obesity and all of its associated medical conditions we need to include fast foods in with alcohol addiction, hard drugs and prostitution. Go to the McDonalds website if you don't believe the bad things you hear about their foods containing toxic ingredients and addictive chemicals and high levels of trans-fats and so on. You can download the nutritional information chart. It's a long PDF document of all their menu items. Find the foods you buy in the left column, and see how much trans-fats, and sugars are in them. Then, go back on the web site, select the foods you eat, click on the nutrition link, and scroll down to the ingredients list. If you can't pronounce any of the ingredients and don't know what they are then it's probably not that smart to eat them. This is a choice only you can make, but give your kids a choice too. Pay now with your money and you and your kids will both pay later with your health-just like drugs or alcohol addiction or STD's. Obviously I'm not just picking on McDonald's but all of the fast and packaged foods on sale in restaurants, petrol stations, supermarkets and so forth. Just like any other vice these foods contain the same harmful chemicals that age you and leave your wallet and body feeling empty inside within an hour or so of indulging. Did you know that chicken nuggets alone contain the following; sodium phosphates, bleached wheat flour (nutrients removed), modified food starch-(likely genetically-modified), dextrose (sugar), partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil with mono-and diglycerides, (trans fats), they will have been prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil) (trans fats), TBHQ, tertiary butyl hydroquinone, a petroleum derived product, and last but not least; Dimethylpolysiloxane (a form of silicone used in cosmetics, and Silly Putty) this is added as an antifoaming agent
No civilized society would tolerate a parent giving its child drugs or cigarettes or alcohol so really what's the difference? If we put heroine or marijuana in a box with a picture of superman on can we call it a happy meal? No, of course not because we know the dangers contained. However, like drugs every mouthful of this synthetic rubbish people are fooled into thinking is food contains a handful of chemicals that are at best going to raise 'bad' cholesterol levels, increase diabetes risk, lower immunity, and damage DNA. In fact fast food contains so many harmful ingredients that I wouldn't even feed it to my dogs because it would be just plain cruel. So think carefully when you next go casually to purchase fast-foods you are simply paying good money for something which harms your own health and probably more importantly your children's health. Like a drug addict. You are reducing your quality of life because the toxicity of eating synthetic chemicals will trigger illness and symptoms ranging from asthma to psoriasis. Like a drug addict. In turn you will put more money into the hands of the medical insurance companies and pharmaceutical business in the not too distant future. Wait a minute though; didn't you hear all the big chain fast food companies are gradually switching to a healthier menu containing salads and smoothies? No, even their drinks still contain nasty health-eroding chemicals: trans-fats, high levels of sugar, artificial sweeteners, petro-chemicals, and high-fructose corn syrup. The kid's meals and salads also contain frightening ingredients and synthetic chemicals even if you don't choose the chicken meals, burgers, etc. Even if you don't worry about the chemicals contained in the food because you can't see them (denial, like a drug addict) you still have to face the fact this stuff makes you fat and your kids too. In 1999 the Journal of Medical Association printed the following;
"Rarely do chronic conditions such as obesity spread with the speed and dispersion characteristics of a communicable disease epidemic."
Nowadays we often hear obesity classified as a disease and that worries me because it somehow offsets the responsibility for some people. It suggests that you can 'catch' being fat. By saying that I'm also not letting off the hook all of those people behind those despicable ads on internet social media sites influencing young people into buying fast food. That's one virus we can't seem to firewall against.
Anyway, we can debate whether it's some kind of disease or not until the hormone filled cows come home but I think the fast foods themselves, the causes of obesity and lifestyle diseases need reclassifying as a vice. They are certainly the result of one. In the final analysis if you can't or won't stop eating this stuff even after all you now know then you are an addict. You're a junkie and Big Mac is your pusher.
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