Bad foods
Men’s Health editor-in-chief David Zinczenko has a new book out—Eat This, Not That!
Highlights of bad foods:
- Worst Fast Food Meal: McDonald’s Chicken Selects Premium Breast Strips with creamy ranch sauce. Chicken sounds healthy, but not at 830 calories.
- Worst Drink: Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo’d Power Smoothie. With 166 grams of sugar, you could have had eight servings of Ben & Jerry’s.
- Worst Supermarket Meal: Pepperidge Farm Roasted Chicken Pot Pie. It packs 64 grams of fat.
- Worst “Healthy” Burger: Ruby Tuesday Bella Turkey Burger. With 1,145 calories, not a very healthy choice.
- Worst Airport Snack: Cinnabon Classic Cinnamon Roll. Packed with 813 hot gooey calories and 5 grams of trans fats.
- Worst Kids’ Meal: Macaroni Grill Double Macaroni ‘n Cheese. With 62 fat grams, it’s the equivalent of 1.5 full boxes of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese.
- Worst Salad: On the Border Grande Taco Salad with Taco Beef. A salad with 102 grams of fat and 2,410 mg of sodium.
- Worst Dessert: Chili’s Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream. At 1,600 calories, it’s like eating the caloric equivalent of three Big Macs.
What makes me sick is the lack of food information on fast-foods and restaurant foods. Even foods you can buy in the store with nutrition labels, I would wager than a majority of Americans do not know how to read nutrition labels. I applaud the federal government for requiring labels, but what good do the labels do if the general consumer cannot understand the information? The nutrition label system is like giving consumers access to prescriptions drugs and saying “here’s the information on the drugs…you decide what to do now.” Where is the doctor in that equation? For food, where does the nutritionist fit in our lives? It is obvious that the current method of “put the information out there and let the people decide on their own diets” is not getting America any healthier–and it costs not only the individuals themselves–but American taxpayers, too ($117 Billion total cost of obesity in 2000). There needs to be a new approach to America’s nutrition–perhaps–nutrition education campaigns? Requirements of fatty, sodium-ridden, empty-calorie foods to carry a warning label? I don’t know–what do you think? One start is to begin educating yourself on nutrition.
The 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimate 66 percent of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese and the Department of Health and Human Services notes that approximately 300,000 deaths each year in the United States may be attributable to obesity. To put that in perspective, 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking each year.
Check out the terrifying trends in obesity from 1985 to 2006 watching this interactive map.
Comment by Augur on 18 March 2008 at 7:22 pm:
anything surprisingly healthy? lie to me, tell me 5 Guys burgers :)
Comment by Melissa on 18 March 2008 at 9:20 pm:
School systems are no help either. I’ve heard more than once that the top 3 vegetables in school lunches are ketchup, iceberg lettuce, and potatoes. While I only spent about 5 minutes trying find where this information came from, I do not have an article to link here. But searching “vegetables in public school lunches ketchup lettuce potatoes” gets lunch menus from across the country.
Ketchup was classified as a vegetable under the Reagan administration (and salsa under the Clinton administration) as a cost saving tool in order to meet the USDA’s fruit/veggie requirement. The only real nutritional “value” to ketchup is supplying salt and sugar. Iceberg lettuce is basically just water. Potatoes do retain some nutritional value if they are not cooked at high heat (aka fried) and if the skin is consumed. Other than that, they are just starch.
Unfortunately, even as someone who is aware of calories, restaurant and take out food always shock me with their calorie content and lack of nutritional value. The best advice to anyone who wants to cut back on the poor food choices is to cook at home because then you can control what you end up putting into your body.
Comment by Katie on 18 March 2008 at 9:26 pm:
I went to a Chicago Public School, and the only vegetable we ever got was ketchup, and sometimes fries.
I’ve also worked in the city for the park district for the past few summers. About half of my kids ate “hot chips” (Flammin’ Hot Cheetos) for breakfast and lunch.
Speaking of unhealthy food, I just ate at Paula Dean’s Restaurant in Savannah. It was butter-filled and delicious.
I think what’s more important than teaching kids about reading labels and counting calories, or which fast food meals are the biggest artery-cloggers, is teaching them how to eat moderately. We should be giving them a solid idea of how to balance the good with the bad.
Comment by Segen on 18 March 2008 at 9:50 pm:
The USDA school lunch program was originally conceived as a way to get rid of excess agricultural products during the Great Depression.
The donations of food to schools were not based on the nutritional quality of the food, but rather based on which agricultural product was in surplus at the moment.
Read more about USDA School Lunch Program
Comment by segen on 18 March 2008 at 9:52 pm:
Katie,
I agree…we should teach kids how to eat better, but…
…the problem is that kid’s parents are generally the purchasers of food in the family.
If mom and dad don’t have a clue…guess it’s cheetos for breakfast.
Comment by Segen on 18 March 2008 at 9:56 pm:
You know…
I get SOOOO pissed when I see parents stuffing their toddler’s faces with coke and mcdonalds.
This is abuse. This is child abuse. It’s like feeding your kid drugs (which caffeine is…) and watching them grow up to be diabetic at 8 years old…
You know, a couple years ago I saw something on the news where these parents fed their baby only raw vegetables. The baby starved (because it needed breast milk) and I’m fairly certain the parents were arrested for child abuse.
How is feeding your kid McDonalds day in and day out any different than feeding the child raw vegetables? The only difference I guess is the amount of time needed to eventually kill the child….
This is abuse. If not abuse, then it is neglect. It is negligent of a parent to feed his/her child garbage.
Comment by Katie on 18 March 2008 at 10:04 pm:
I think a big part of the problem is poverty. It is expensive and time-consuming to eat healthy. Like Melissa said, the best thing is to eat at home, but single parents who need to work 12+ hours/day don’t have time or money to shop and cook.
A big part of the reason these kids ate chips for meals is because they had a dollar in their pocket, and that’s what a dollar bought them. It’s not cool to eat school or camp lunches, but it’s not cool to eat nothing either.
Comment by segen on 18 March 2008 at 10:16 pm:
You’re correct that poverty is an issue in food choices. In lots of crime-ridden areas, grocery stores pull out leaving the residents stranded in a “food desert”. Most people in these areas rely on 7-11 or Burger King to provide their meals. That is why some urban areas are starting co-op gardens in vacant lots–to provide fresh foods to those who otherwise wouldn’t have access.
The obesity epidemic is not just contained in the lower-class, however. What we’re seeing in the United States is a “disease of affluence”. In our American culture, we eat way too much meat for health–(gvt subsidies help keep food cheap). We are also “victims” of hyper-convenience foods. Food companies can’t mark-up the cost of an apple–what else can you do to it to make it more marketable? But you CAN charge higher prices for food in boxes…for “fortified” foods (most fortified foods are seriously…a joke…outside of some fortifications…generally unnecessary if you ate more than cheeseburgers.) You can charge more for chicken nuggets shaped like footballs….but you’d probably be better-off health-wise if you just ate straight-up normal shaped chicken (or no chicken at all).
Comment by Segen on 18 March 2008 at 10:21 pm:
an interesting aside…
the convenience product era came out post WWII…came about after people could actually afford refrigerators and electric appliances. with the appliances, you could keep food longer. (frozen chicken patties in the freezer…as opposed to…fresh chicken slaughtered that day and cooked that day without refridgeration).
Anyway…the “convenience foods” went a little far when it came to cake mixes and brownies. Before…all you had to add was water to the mix and throw it in the oven. BUT, there was a backlash from mothers who felt “useless” because they were no longer needed in the kitchen.
to counter this…mix companies like betty crocker now require you to measure some oil and add some eggs to brownie mixes and cake mixes. this makes people still feel like they are “baking” and are somewhat needed/useful in the cooking-realm.
strange, no?
Comment by thetodd on 19 March 2008 at 1:49 am:
Ooh, one of my favorite topics. Too bad I have to pack and leave right about now.
For now, I’d just like to say that that the vegan parents murder story also hit close to home for me for the same reasons Segen mentioned.
I, too, have a fairly unusual diet that is very heavy in vegetables. I take great care to ensure that I take in the proper amounts of all nutrients, minerals, etc. Yet, many people express more concern about my eating habits than they do about the eating habits of a typical, already-overweight person.
If anyone’s interested in hearing more about this or my habits, I can elaborate when I return next week. Say something here and I’ll check it when I return.
Comment by segen on 19 March 2008 at 12:36 pm:
TheTodd,
My diet is also plant based. I used to get told that I’m “gonna die eatin’ that rabbit food” and that I should really “watch” what I eat to make sure that I am getting the proper nutrition.
You know what? Now that I have background in nutrition stemming from my personal interest, I realized that my diet before I turned herbivore was not “balanced” nor was I getting the “proper nutrition” then….
I think many people equate what people eat culturally with what is healthy or “proper”. I am not so sure about that…