Do you still dine at fast food restaurants?

If so, you should give it up.. like yesterday!

If you thought it was just a joke, it’s not – the facts are in and fast food kills. It’s as simple as that!

Look.. you can exercise, meditate, do Yoga, Tai Chi, swing Kettlebells all day, and live the perfect healthy lifestyle.. but if your nutrition is off – you’re wasting your F%!#ing time!

Sorry (not sorry) 😛

You may be doing everything else right in your life (physically, mentally, spiritually, financially, socially) and I really hope you are!

However, if your idea of a nutrition plan is swinging by Bisquickville for breakfast, hitting up the local Mickey D’s for lunch and eating dinner out of a bag, box, or bucket…

YOU’RE SCREWED BROSEPH!

The food you eat should NOT just be about great taste and pleasure (like most people’s default mode). Optimum nutrition is about providing your cells with the macro- and micro-nutrients they need to function and repair themselves at an optimal physiological level.

You can’t out train a bad diet, no matter how hard you try. Even if you could, you’d only look healthy on the outside, while dying of a coronary on the inside.

Hmm, that reminds me of a poem the Joker touted in the ol’ Batman movie starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson:

“I’m only laughing on the outside
My smile is just skin deep
If you could see inside I’m really crying
You might join me for a weep.”

 

…I hope that puts things in perspective!

 

Why So Serious? You’ve Got to Live a Little!

Many people scoff whenever I talk about how unhealthy fast food restaurants are.

Sadly, lots of people think that, “if fast food was really that bad for you, then it wouldn’t be on the market in the first place”. {face palm}

We’ve been led to believe that proper nutrition isn’t of any significance, and that eating healthy foods aren’t really that important.

Besides, it doesn’t really matter what you eat as long as you die happy, right?

I’m sorry, but that’s just lame-brained propaganda that’s been spoon fed to you by the media since you were still wetting the bed and watching kiddy cartoons on Saturday morning.

It does matter what you eat and it matters a lot (way more than you may think or been led to believe!) Yet, don’t take my word for it…

The Surgeon General of the United States is the nation’s leading spokesman on matters of public health:

“Your choice of diet can influence your long-term health prospects more than any other action you might take. Eight of the 10 leading causes of death, including coronary heart disease, stroke, some types of cancer, and diabetes mellitus, are related to diet and alcohol.” – The Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Washington, DC: US Dept of Health and Human Services; 1988. DHHS (PHS) publication 88-50210

 

Truth be told, I haven’t always eaten a healthy, nutritious diet. Shocking, I know! When I was young I never used to make the “healthy choice” either. I grew up eating the Standard American Diet (also know as the SAD diet), and lots of fast food just like everybody else.

I even worked at a major fast food restaurant when I was in high school. Let’s just say it was called Lardees! 😉 It was my first job and my last in the food business.

So I have an insider look at how these places operate, memories of the oily, greasy film on my skin, nasty grease accumulation on my shoes, oil burns on my arms from the fry vac, the putrid stench of cheap burgers and fries permanently leaching from my uniform.

I won’t even mention the horrifying details I witnessed in the preparation of said food.

Once I started studying proper nutrition, I learned more about how fast food kills you and the negative effects processed foods have on the health of your cells. So I quickly changed my ways. I haven’t eaten at a fast food restaurant in over 15 years (with the very rare exception of a Subway).

It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Plus, my taste buds adapted and changed over time. As strange as it sounds, I actually love the taste of salads, fruits, and vegetables now.. yep, even kale.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy a good burger at times. Yet, it’s usually a grass fed, humanely raised burger on a whole grain bun with a garden salad. And I’ll admit that I even get the fries occasionally, but it’s a rarity not my daily.

It’s not that you can’t eat the foods you love from time to time; it’s that you need to choose healthy, higher quality sources. Plus, it helps to know that with each bite I’m feeding my body what it needs to thrive and survive!

Whether your goal is to be the epitome of health, get lean and mean, or simply to live a long, active life; What you stuff down your ‘pie hole’ will determine whether you end up living the dream, or standing in the ever-growing, nightmare of a line down at the local pharmacy!

What’s even more disturbing (than the fact that eating fast food kills you).. is there’s actually some SERIOUSLY, messed up shit going on within these corporations that most people simply can’t (or don’t want to) fathom.

In his book, Fast Food Genocide: How Processed Food is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It, bestselling author, board-certified physician, nutritional researcher, and leading voice in the health field Joel Fuhrman, M.D., explains why the problem of poor nutrition is deeper, more serious, and more pervasive than anyone imagined.

“Fast food is far more than just the burgers, fries, and burritos served at chain restaurants; it is also the toxic, human-engineered products found in every grocery store across America. These include: cold breakfast cereals; commercial and preserved (deli) meats and cheeses; sandwich breads and buns; chips, pretzels, and crackers; fried foods; energy bars; and soft drinks. Fast foods have become the primary source of calories in the United States and consequently the most far-reaching and destructive influence on our population. The indisputable truth is that our highly processed diet is the source of a national health crisis that is exploding into a genocide with unseen tragic implications. Heart attacks, strokes, cancer, obesity, ADHD, autism, allergies, and autoimmune diseases all have the same root cause – our addiction to toxic ingredients.”

 

Our Children are Being Targeted!

What a lot of us fail to realize is that this apathetic attitude towards health and nutrition is being propagated by the same corporations whose profit margins and livelihoods are sustained by your poor daily food selections!

You might want to read that again. 🙂

Of course they want YOU to choose the crappy foods they’re selling! How else are their “franchisees” going to pay the rent? They’re in the real estate business, after all.

“Head on down to the Golden Arches, ya’ll… There’s hope in every bag.”

As so, they make sure to get you ‘hooked’ while you’re young, dumb, and don’t know any better.

Just think about it for 60 seconds… do you think Ronald McDonald and all his cute, furry friends are designed to entice grown-ups and make adults want to eat there?

I don’t think so… in fact, the toys in the happy meals are the perfect “nag factor” to get kids to hound their mom and dad to take them to their favorite fast food restaurant. I even remember doing this as a child by begging my parents to go get happy meals. I really just wanted ALL of those California Raisins toys. lol

These companies know that when you’re young, you are highly susceptible to suggestions from outside sources.

Your young brain is taking in information like a sponge, freely without any type of discernment or filter to the message being received. This leaves young kids vulnerable to advertiser’s messages.

In fact, through commercials, cartoon characters, toys and other sneaky advertising methods these company’s “brainwash” young children by influencing their beliefs and behavior through subconscious programming.

 

I know this sounds crazy and I wish it weren’t true, but I have a business degree and have studied advertising, marketing, and the various methods for influencing the subconscious mind.

These companies know that if they can get their brand deeply ingrained within your young, fragile, egg-shelled mind they will have hordes of loyal customers for life.

That’s exactly what they want and plan on.

They’re spending millions of dollars on marketing and advertising research to figure out the best methods for reaching new potential customers!

As many are now realizing, the fast food industry is preying on young children in a very similar way to how the tobacco companies did in the past.

Muahahahaha… such is the deviant nature of these greedy companies. 😈

 

Fast Food Kills You by Toxic Accumulation

Since you’re a reader of this blog, I’m more than likely preaching to the choir here…

Still it pisses me off so much that I feel the need to “air some grievances” I have about the fast food industry that’s been exploiting us all.

So, hang with me while I rant a little bit longer!

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, FAST FOOD KILLS!

To most highly educated people in the health and fitness industries, this is stupidly obvious. Yet, to your average Joe, the wool has simply been pulled down over his eyes.

People in general can be pretty naïve and gullible, believing most of what these companies tell them, as long as; it is said with enough confidence and authority. Maybe a few distorted studies thrown in for good measure.

What I find even more interesting is how people will essentially go to such great lengths to justify and rationalize their bad habit of eating these unhealthy fast foods. They have all types of excuses in their repertoire, such as the time factor, the money factor, the taste factor, the ‘who cares’ factor, etc.

In the end, however, it all comes down to a fear of change, apathy towards health, lack of discipline, self-worth, and ignorance or confusion of what proper nutrition entails. Add to that a total misconception of what these corporations are actually serving you…

People don’t realize they are being served potentially toxic and carcinogenic chemicals! Perhaps, that may be the biggest and scariest factor of all. And yet most people are either totally oblivious or even indifferent about it.

For example do you know what’s actually in a Chicken McNugget?

It’s mostly mechanically separated, factory farmed chicken – using parts of the chicken carcass that are not sellable!

I’m sure it’s not as horrible (I hope) as some of the rumors going around about eyeballs, chicken guts and worse. But really, that’s not that bad when you think about it, since those are natural parts of the animal. Gross maybe, yet not toxic necessarily. However, when you examine the actual list of ingredients and know what they are… it isn’t very pretty:

As of October 9, 2010 (2010 -10-09), the ingredients are as follows: Chicken, water, salt, sodium phosphates. Battered and breaded with bleached wheat flour, water, wheat flour, modified food starch, salt, spices, wheat gluten, paprika, dextrose (sugar), yeast, garlic powder, rosemary, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil with mono- and diglycerides, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, ammonium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate), natural flavor (plant source) with extractives of paprika. Fried in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane, a silicone derivative^[4] is added as an antifoaming agent.^[5] McDonald’s ingredients can vary outside of the United States

Personally, I wonder what percentage of “real chicken” is actually in each nugget? Hmmm

According to Chef Jen Johnson, co-founder of Hip Chick Farms; “A mass produced chicken nugget has 50% meat and the rest is fat, ground bone, blood vessels and connective tissues. This mix does not generally taste very good or taste like chicken, so then the manufacturers add salt, sugar, starch, binders and fillers to make it taste more palatable.”

After the word got out, McDonald’s made some changes to their Chicken McNugget recipe, but only because everybody found out that a lot of these ingredients are questionable. I still wouldn’t eat them even though they’ve removed some of the worst offenders. Now look, I’m not saying that eating a few Chicken McNuggets is going to make you drop dead on the spot.

My point is that one shouldn’t just blindly eat anything that’s put on their plate! Just because they call it chicken or beef doesn’t mean it actually is! Don’t naïvely trust these fast food restaurants to do the ethical thing, or actually care about their customer’s long-term health in the end.

There are many food additives, preservatives, food colorings, leavening agents, anti-foaming agents, and who knows what other potentially dangerous ingredients used in the production of processed and fast foods. Some of these are known to be unhealthy, some our being linked to diseases, and some are even considered safe for use by the FDA.

Whether these additives are truly safe or not is still up for debate in many cases. Yet, no one actually knows the long-term effects from eating a smorgasbord of synthetic chemicals produced by our modern food sciences. From GMO’s to High Fructose Corn Syrup to MSG to Trans Fats and everything in between… the consumer is the guinea pig in this highly profitable billion dollar science experiment!

Personally, I believe we are starting to realize that consuming the unnecessary and possibly carcinogenic substances found in most fast foods can lead to toxic accumulation (bioaccumulation) over time. This bioaccumulation only leads to ill health, disease, a deterioration of our bodily systems, and eventually to cancer.

It’s also important to note that if one is primarily eating “pseudo foods” as their major source of calories, then vitamin and mineral deficiencies can also develop as well. These food-like substances are typically void of the essential micronutrients the body needs to promote cellular health. Therefore, you’re not getting the vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals your body needs to sustain and nourish itself.

 

Think Subway is the Healthiest Fast Food?

Here’s a list of some of the ingredients you’ll find in their so called “healthier” products:

Chicken type flavor, artificial colors FD&C red 40 lake, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 2 lake, red 40, blue 1 lake, blue 1, blue 2, yellow 5 lake, yellow 6 lake, thiamin mononitrate, hydrogenated vegetable shortening, acetylated tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides, ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, azodicarbonamide, potassium iodate, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, high fructose corn syrup, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, sodium metabisulfite, sodium benzoate as a preservative, Polysorbate 80, sodium tripolyphosphate, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, thiamin hydrochloride, sodium phosphates, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, sodium diacetate, silicon dioxide etc. etc.

As a general rule, if you see ingredients that you can’t pronounce and have no clue as to what they are:

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY THINK TWICE BEFORE CONSUMING THEM!

As my friend, Jonathan, suggested; “if you can’t pronounce it, but you have a smartphone, look it up!” 😉

Question what you are eating and if it contributes to your health or detracts from it. Make sure you know what goes into your food, where it comes from, and how it got on your plate.

I think we can all agree there are quite a few known carcinogens and potentially toxic chemicals lurking in our processed and fast foods. At the least, we should all know by now, that these unhealthy ingredients are not good for us… even if we sometimes choose to ignore it!

I highly recommend reading the ingredient lists on food packaging, and suggest keeping it sourced  as close to nature as possible. Most of the truly  healthy foods don’t have a list of ingredients… they are the ingredient. The further removed from nature and the more processed it is, the greater the chances that the vitamins and nutrients have been stripped out of it.

The longer the list of chemical ingredients, preservatives, artificial flavors, etc., the more likely there’s something in the food that may be detrimental to the normal functioning processes of the healthy human cell.

I find it strange that most people know more about car maintenance than they do about the maintenance and nourishment of their own body; which is basically the more important of the two vehicles we use to get around on this planet.

Eating processed and fast foods is the equivalent of pouring sand into your brand new Mercedes’ gas tank. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that sand in your gas tank is a dumb idea and will lead to your car’s ultimate demise.

I know, I know… they’re convenient, but how hard is it really to grab some organic superfoods like an apple, berries, carrots, and some raw almonds or cashews. We’ve got to stop being so damn lazy. It’s literally killing us.

Toxic Pseudo Food Has Never Looked So Good! Mmmm

Ever noticed that fast food NEVER seems to look like it does in the pictures and commercials on television?

What I found out is that the foods shown in the pictures and commercials are actually fake replicas of the food they sell and not the actual end products they serve.

Of course, this is pretty obvious if you’ve ever been to a fast food restaurant. Haha… more advertising trickery I guess.

This “food” (if you can even call it that) just so happens to be synthetic, cheaply manufactured and highly processed garbage.

Of course it looks similar to real food (sometimes) and TASTES GREAT (again sometimes)!

Yet, what’s actually making fast food taste so good? It’s not the food itself that tastes good; in fact the great taste comes from all of the fat, sugar, sodium, artificial sweeteners and chemical flavors they add!

However, a major problem comes into play when people choose to eat food solely based on how it tastes, instead of for the quality and nourishment it provides their body.

This misguided inclination to consume what tastes best will ultimately back fire on them. As their toxicity levels rise and the body’s cells begin to break down from the increasing nutrient deficiencies, they will begin to get sick and seek medical treatment.

It’s vital to understand why these foods cause disease and ultimately early death.

The Deadly Combo Meal

Soda: Consuming soda is like drinking acid because of its high pH level. The elevated phosphorous levels also lead to leaching calcium from the bones making them more susceptible to breakage and osteoporosis. The high sugar levels lead to huge insulin spikes, weight gain and energy crashes. High fructose corn syrup in combination with the high acidity can easily dissolve your tooth enamel. This is barely scraping the surface of the destruction caused by this sweet poison. Drink it at your own peril!

Fries: Eating these tasty lil treats is like swallowing a ticking time-bomb for your heart. First of all potatoes are high in carbohydrates, which raise blood sugar levels, spike insulin and thus result in fat gain. However, the main problem is that these potatoes are fried in unhealthy vegetable oils that wreak havoc on the human body. These hydrogenated oils leave the fries soaked and dripping with trans fats that raise plasma lipid levels. They increase bad cholesterol leading to coronary heart disease and cause excessive inflammation throughout the body moving you closer to a heart attack with each salty bite.

Burger: Munching on a juicy, greasy, bacon-stacked monsta burger is a sure fire recipe for developing heart disease, stroke, cancer, weight gain and obesity, diabetes, kidney disease, low testosterone levels and even impotence. When you understand that the meat between the buns actually comes from factory farmed cows pumped full of estrogenic hormones, fed genetically modified corn, and raised in unhealthy conditions that produce diseased animals… is it really any wonder that a “diseased animal” is what you’ll also become when you devour this main course. After all, you are what you eat, son!

I could go on and on about how toxic your average combo meal is, but I’ll save that for another post. Just realize that the “food” you get from most fast food restaurants is NOT real food and does little but slowly poison your body over time. It may take years to see the culmination of negative effects on your body because the human body is such a highly adaptable, survival machine. Still, it can only take so much and by then it could be too late.

In the end, I call this stuff “pseudo food” for good reason… Mainly because it’s fake food that’s made of the cheapest, lowest quality ingredients they can legally get away with and loaded with chemicals, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, trans fats, and a host of other ‘goodies’ that are basically designed to make you like it and get you addicted to it.

Fast Food ‘As Addictive As Heroin’

That’s right it may actually be possible to get addicted to fast food!!!

Some scientists are now doing studies that link eating sweet, salty and fatty foods (basically a typical combo meal- soda, fries, and burger) with the release of opioids or ‘pleasure-like’ psychoactive chemicals in the brain.

Dr. Kelley concluded: “This says that mere exposure to pleasurable tasty foods is enough to change gene expression and that suggests that you could be addicted to food.”

The evidence from these studies is now leading some scientists to claim that “Hamburgers and French Fries could be as addictive as heroin.”

Okay, maybe that’s going a little too far…. Isn’t it?

Is it mere coincidence that every combo meal contains sugary, salty, and high fat foods? Um, I don’t think so.

As every smack dealer knows, the best customers are the ones that NEED your product so bad that they will lie, cheat and steal from their own family just to be able to get more of it. A junkie needs his fix… and everybody knows the fast food industry has plenty of fixins.

So, what’s my point in mentioning all of this? Well, I’m just getting a little sick and tired of all of the deception within the food industry and the total disregard for the health of the consumers of this food (good people like you and me.)

Hmm, on second thought, maybe NOT like me cause I don’t eat that crap! 😉

Many citizens can’t believe that these companies would be allowed to serve such a low quality product that is SO toxic and destructive to the human body. A lot of people think that the government or FDA is regulating these establishments for quality control.

That sounds logical and one would hope that our government wouldn’t allow such a travesty to take place, but please excuse me while I LAUGH IN YO’ FACE! lol

I’m sorry to say that this is not the case and that these foods are a major cause of the obesity and health epidemics that our many industrialized nations are now facing. Our government knows this and still they are doing very little to put an end to it.

What’s even sadder is I’m not sure that they want to. After all, everybody that eats this junk today will become the future customers of the pharmaceutical companies, the cancer treatment facilities, and medical industries tomorrow. All of which are playing their own role in the declining health of our citizens.

This is BIG business, after all, and besides who will pay for their expensive political campaigns?

Plus, you saw what happened when they tried to ban alcohol! Laws that make foods and drugs illegal NEVER work… the only thing that works is educating the public. That’s why I’m taking the time to write this to you!

Beware of the Fast Food Industry Mafia

 In summary, the collective fast food corporations act in many ways like a mafia to get you to buy into their family and lifestyle of convenience and taste… at the unfortunate cost of your health.

Their first and primary objective is to get you while you’re young, impressionable and don’t know any better. Luring you in with toys of the cartoon characters you know and love.

Once they get you into their “family” they easily get you hooked on salty, fatty and sugary food combinations that give you a temporary rush of pleasurable endorphins. This will ensure that you come back for more throughout your teens and adult life. You are now La Cosa Nostra… for life!

Ultimately, their low standard and quality of food products destroy their customer’s from the inside out! Over time the continual consumption of these psuedo foods leads to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, a low quality of life and an early demise. It’s a good thing more suckers, er, I mean kids are born each and every day. Muahahahahha

Oh yeah, and your dreams of having a healthy, lean, muscular body slip further and further away with each and every bite. 🙁

Unleash Your Ultimate Potential,

Brandon Cook