Government health crackdown on British fish and chips

A Government watchdog is targeting Britain's favourite fast food snack, urging chip shop owners to produce thicker versions that contain fewer calories and less fat.

By Alastair Jamieson

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has launched a project in 80 fish and chip shops across the country aimed at making their food healthier.

Officials want fryers to increase the size and thickness of their chips because chunkier versions absorb less fat in a bid to help tackle Britain's obesity crisis.

They believe making individual chips bigger will slash the calorie content of an average portion of fish and chips, which contains 595 calories and 9.42g of fat.

However, food industry representatives said interfering officials risked ruining Britain's best-loved takeaway meal.

Douglas Roxburgh, president of the National Federation of Fish Fryers, slammed the move as ''ill-thought out'' and ''over the top''.

He said: ''They should be concentrating fast food outlets who make the thin French fries, not the traditional independent chip shop.

''We will be opposing this as much as we can until they make it a level playing field and start asking McDonalds, KFC and Burger King to change their chip sizes too.

''At the moment it seems like a case of picking on the little guys because they can't touch the big guys – which is totally unfair.''

Mr Roxburgh also warned a ban on fries could lead to financial problems for many small businesses.

He added: ''We cut our chips with chipper blades, which are set in certain sized blocks.

''Why should small chip shops have to splash out on buying blocks with different measurements just because the councils say they have to?

''If the shops do pay out for new blocks their businesses may suffer if customers do not like the fatter chips anyway.''

The FSA said it also aimed to encourage ''good frying practices'' in fish and chip shops by altering the temperature of their cooking oil and portion sizes.

The pilot scheme was launched in November 2009 and will be extended across Cambridgeshire, Greater Manchester and Northern Ireland this month.

Local authorities will visit chip shops to examine how much fat is in a portion of chips and if the scheme is successful it will be rolled out across the country.

It will run for the next two years and will extend to other small catering businesses including Indian and Chinese takeaways within the next 12 months.

In a letter sent out last November to local authorities the FSA said their aim was ''to help enable small, incremental and sustained changes''.

A spokesman for the FSA yesterday defended the project and claimed small changes in local chip shops could tackle Britain's growing obesity crisis.

He said: ''The aim of the pilot project is to produce some targeted advice for businesses which is simple, practical and easy to implement.

''For fish and chip shops this includes advice as simple as choosing the type of oil to cook in or the temperature of the oil and thickness of chips.

''Both can make a big difference to the nutritional value of chips.

''We'd also encourage businesses to offer customers a range of portion sizes, allowing people to choose smaller ones when they wish to.''

A council in West Norfolk was last year criticised for trying to reduce salt consumption by reducing the number of holes in fish and chip salt shakers.

The council sent out 200 new shakers with four holes instead of 17 to all 39 chippies in their area at a cost of £450 to the taxpayer.

There are currently more than 11,000 fish and chip shops across the UK selling 255 million fish and chip meals every year.

A portion of fish and chips contains less calories and fat than a pizza, containing 871 calories and 11g of fat, or a chicken korma containing 910 calories and 15.5g of fat.

How a once nutritious grain was transformed into something unhealthy to eat.

by John Cavanagh

In an increasingly vulnerable world, we're searching for rooted communities—and what we can learn from them.

The time we spend with organic rice farmers in the Philippines leads us to think much more about what we eat. It turns out that about half of the food we humans consume comes from just three main grains: wheat, corn, and rice. While we get half of our calories from these cereals, we get considerably less than half of our nutrients.

But the story of the modern grain, we discover, is even more insidious than just this. And so in this entry, we share the story of how a once nutritious grain was transformed into something unhealthy to eat. Our tale includes corporations, technological “modernization,” global trade, and culture.

We focus on rice in this current entry (leaving corn and wheat to future travels).

After farmers harvest their rice, it typically goes to a mill. There, it is cleaned and the husks are taken off the grains of rice. At this point, it is referred to as “brown rice” or “unpolished” rice. Once the husk has been taken off the rice, there remain several very thin layers of wholesome bran. At this stage, the rice is full of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and protein—and very healthy to eat.

Polishing rice from so-called “dirty rice” into the sparkling white form that most people prefer has caused—yes, caused— major, adverse impacts on health.

The story would stop there were it not for the technological “modernization,” starting about a century and a half ago, of corporations developing technology to refine rice (and other grains) further. In the case of rice, milling technology created the possibility of peeling the bran off the grain and polishing what is left into shiny, white rice.

But polishing rice from so-called “dirty rice” into the sparkling white form that most people prefer has caused—yes, caused—a number of major, adverse impacts on health.

First, polishing removes most of the vitamins and minerals vital to one’s health. One example: the rice bran contains vitamin B and thiamine, both key to preventing beriberi. Indeed, in the largest World War II prison camp in the Philippines (where John’s grandfather was interned), American prisoners suffered from beriberi until they convinced the Japanese prison guards to let them cook the bran shavings that came off the polished rice; then the beriberi went away. 

Food Rebellions: 7 Steps to Solving the Food Crisis Resistance to the trade and “aid” policies that displace farmers and increase hunger.

White rice also increases the risk of diabetes, rates of which are rising quickly in the Philippines, the United States and many other countries. The rice layers removed during polishing contain nutrients that guard against diabetes. Polished rice further contributes to diabetes risk because it causes blood-sugar levels to rise more rapidly than brown rice does. According to the New York Times, a 2010 Harvard study showed that people who consume white rice at least five times a week “are almost 20 percent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than those who eat it less than once a month.” In our travels in the Philippines and the United States, we meet people who are shifting to brown rice on their doctors’ orders precisely because of concerns about diabetes.

And polishing rice also reduces the protein content of the rice, which can mean the difference between being well-nourished or malnourished. The bottom line on all of these health fronts is the same: the more polished the rice, the less healthy.

Why then, do most Filipinos—outside of the organic farmers and those who have taken their doctors’ advice—eat unhealthy rice three times a day? We ask a number of our non-farmer friends across the Philippines, people whom we respect. “White rice tastes better” is the most common answer. “Our children find white rice easier to digest,” several tell us. Or, “it is hard to find unpolished brown rice.” Some point out, accurately, that it takes longer to cook brown rice, thus requiring more fuel. And a few mention that brown rice sitting in containers in your kitchen can invite more insects, which are attracted to all the same nutrients that make brown rice so healthy. 

By switching to brown rice, the Philippines (one of the world’s top rice importers) could eliminate rice imports and enhance food sovereignty.

By switching to brown rice, the Philippines (one of the world’s top rice importers) could eliminate rice imports and enhance food sovereignty.

These are sincere answers but not enough to convince us that the obstacles to brown rice are insurmountable. Therefore the answers make us want to understand even more about the “how” and “why” behind white rice.

As we dig into history, we discover there is a much deeper answer to “why white rice?” A century and a half ago, people across Asia ate unpolished rice in great quantities. When Westerners brought rice mills to the Philippines a century ago, Filipinos are reported to have found the taste of the new white rice strange, and it took a while to get used to it. Traders who exported rice demanded that it be shipped as polished white rice—which weighed less and stored longer and hence increased their profits—and further proliferated its consumption. Then, over the decades, the dominant elite culture defined brown rice as “dirty” and fit only for the poor; while white rice was seen as sophisticated and modern. “American rice,” we have heard it called. The consumption of white polished rice spread, even as it denied people and their children vital nutrients. 

Brown rice drying in the sun in the Philippines. Brown rice is nutrient-rich, but the process of refining it into popular, cheap white rice strips the grain of its nutritional value. Photo by John Cavanagh.

Filipinos aren’t alone; hundreds of millions of Americans, Chinese, Thais, Japanese and others have also shifted from healthier unpolished rice to polished white rice over the past century as mechanized rice milling spread. Their and our health, too, has suffered. And while we have shared the story of rice here, there is a similar story for wheat and corn, which starts with mechanized machines to refine these cereals beginning around the 1870s.

A shift to unpolished rice and whole grain wheat and corn would enhance health across the board. Also, since whole grains contain more nutrients per calorie than polished and refined grains, people need less of it to fill their stomachs. This actually has more widespread ramifications for current trade-dependent development models. For example, by our calculations, with a switch to brown rice, the Philippines (one of the world’s top rice importers) could eliminate rice imports and enhance food sovereignty. Not surprisingly, the story of how diets became unhealthy is also part of the broader story of how lives became less rooted and more vulnerable to crises.

When we decided to live with communities of organic rice farmers in the Philippines to learn about “rooted” lives, we did not expect that we would find ourselves reflecting on whole-grain diets. But it is all related.

IF YOU’RE CRAVING CARBS, YOU MIGHT JUST NEED SOME CARBS

Is this you?

Low-Carb Endurance Exerciser
“I run or do CrossFit 5 days a week. I’m on a Paleo diet – no grains, no high glycemic fruits, no starchy veggies because that’s what I heard I should be doing. But I have these intense cravings for sugar and I end up bingeing on cookies because I just can’t control myself. What am I doing wrong?? Maybe I just need more self control…”

Or this…

Low-Carb Moderate Excerciser
“I lift 2-3 times a week. I’m on Paleo and I’m doing really well with my carbs – keeping them below 50 or so grams a day. I feel awful after my workouts – like really tired – and all I want to do is eat carbs. I’m starting to see declines in my lifts, too. What am I doing wrong?”

Or this…

Low-Carb Light Exerciser
“I’m a 50 year-old woman and I walk for an hour 3 times a week with my dog. I’ve stopped losing weight on Paleo and I’m getting really bad headaches and having to take naps at around 3pm every day. I also get these terrible carb cravings almost every day in the afternoon. I’ve been really good, though – no fruit, very few starchy veggies, mostly just chicken and veggies for me. What am I doing wrong?”

Are you seeing a trend here? Do any of these sound remotely like you? If so, read on.

Carbs are not inherently evil.

I don’t know where we went wrong with Paleo (ahem… Loren Cordain, Jack Kruse, Ron Rosedale, etc.), but it’s not a no-carb diet, guys. A lot of people do very well with a moderate amount of carbs (between 100-150 grams a day). Even if you’re trying to lose weight. Some people even need way more than that. I have a world-class rower as a client who eats no grains, legumes, or dairy, but he eats about 350 grams of carbs a day in the form of fruits, veggies, gu-type foods, and juice. He’s super healthy, very strong, and freaking ripped. He doesn’t need to take naps every afternoon, either.

Don’t get me wrong here: No, Jimmy Moore can not tolerate anywhere close to that amount of carbs. He’s admittedly metabolically deranged after years of obesity. He, along with a lot of type 2 diabetics and otherwise metabolically challenged people, should not be consuming 100 grams of carbs a day or more. But you? The people who have some weight to lose, but are generally healthy? Athletes? Me?

Eat some carbs! And eat them often.

If you’re craving carbs, it doesn’t make you a glutton. It doesn’t make you a bad person. And it doesn’t mean you’ve failed on your Paleo diet. It means your body is hungry for carbs and you should give it what it wants. Yeah, we get good at using fat for energy blah blah blah on Paleo, but our bodies still prefer carbs. And if we want to live our stress-filled lives, exercising like compulsive maniacs, and sleeping very little, we’re going to need all the energy we can get, in whatever non-toxic form we can get it. Carbs are really easy for our bodies to use.

Now, I’m not saying you should go ahead and eat that box of Oreos. Not at all. But fruit (all kinds – not just berries), potatoes (yes, they’re fine to eat if you don’t have a sensitivity to them), sweet potatoes, tapioca flour, plantains, honey and other sweeteners (gasp!), chocolate, and all the other delicious carb-y foods are your friends. Eat them regularly. Eat some of them every day, and, for a lot of you, every meal.

That way, when you hit 8pm (or insert your own binge time here) – when you’re usually lingering in the kitchen hunting for dessert – you’ll actually feel satisfied, instead. Imagine that. It’s a novel concept, I know: not feeling deprived and incessantly hungry on your Paleo diet.

How many carbs?

Even if you were to eat a medium apple, an entire medium sweet potato, a banana, and two Paleo Pumpkin Muffins made with honey, along with your other fibrous net zero carb veggies, you’re still only looking at around 91 grams of carbs for the day. Mark Sisson’s magical carb curve says below 100 grams a day will still allow you to lose weight in general. If you’re an athlete working out hard at least a couple times a week, you’ll probably need more than that. I do.

Don’t feel guilty.

Stop it! You’re feeling guilty just THINKING about eating carbs, aren’t you?! Liberate yourself from the unjust carbism that is running rampant and unchecked in the Paleo and Primal worlds. Eat some carbs.

APPETITE CONTROL MADE EASY WITH THIS HORMONE

by kat loterzo

Let’s talk about appetite control.

Today I’m going to tell you how to access to a substance that not only controls your cravings, but guides you to either devour or ignore starchy carbs, and even tells your body to either store or shed fat.

I know, I sound like I’m about to sell you something. I’m not 

I’m talking about a natural substance to control your hunger and help you lose weight, and it’s one that won’t cost you a thing.

I’m talking about a hormone, one of the lesser known ones but absolutely one of the most powerful.

do you even recognise your natural appetite?

If your day is anything like mine, you’re basically inundated with food temptation from dawn to dusk.

With my husband’s penchant for an after-dinner treat every evening, I can’t even open my own pantry without being faced with a buffet of confectionary. Even if you keep your house wholesomely clean, the reality is you can’t even grab a morning coffee without having to face processed ‘goodies’ both sweet and savoury. And lunch with your colleagues or an after-dinner drink? Riddled with often-tough decisions!

Personally I’ve trained myself to eat very clean 80-90% of the time, and I enjoy doing so. My weakness? When it comes to quantity I can eat like 3 hungry men! And if you give me a chance, I can do it at each and every meal. Sometimes I think I’m still like a little kid who gets excited about going to a birthday party or having a treat.

All of which has made me think that life would be so much easier if I just had some kind of natural appetite suppression button.

The truth, which both you and I need to face up to, is that I do. We all do. It’s just a matter of understanding how to activate it – and perhaps even restore a natural appetite rather than a ‘see-food’ approach to eating.

easy, everyday appetite control

Haven’t heard of leptin or not quite sure what it is and if you even care? Leptin is your natural appetite suppression hormone, and it’s one you can learn to have total control over.

The Leptin low-down

• Low levels of leptin result in increased hunger and food cravings.

• People with more body fat have higher levels of leptin.

• People with low body fat have lower levels of it.

• So basically, your brain should tell your body to produce more leptin if you have enough or extra fat.

• And in theory, high leptin should tell your body to start burning fat.

• However – calorie restriction leads to lowered leptin levels, which is why a low-cal diet is so tough to follow. Your body just wants you to eat!

• This in turn slows down your metabolism and signals your body to start storing fat. Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t say calories are irrelevant, but severely restricting them rather than focusing on proper food intake is not the fat loss solution you’re looking for!
• It’s possible to be more leptin resistant in certain areas of the body, meaning you will store more fat there. Mainly this happens around your belly and your internal organs. All the more reason to control appetite by understanding leptin! As your hunger and your body fat drop you will find it increasingly easier to manage fat in these stubborn areas.

• Interesting fact – leptin is actually derived from the Greek word ‘leptos’, which means thin!

how to control appetite with leptin

There are a few basic principles you can employ to take control of leptin and make weight loss a thing of greater ease.

1. Have a treat day now and then. After eating clean for a period of time your leptin levels start to really drop down. By introducing a smart c carb-based treat meal or treat day every 5-7 days (for maintenance, an initial fat loss program would be different), you can sky-rocket leptin levels for as much as 4-6 days. This basically super-charges your metabolism, as well as makes it easier for you to stay on track.

2. Include fiber in your diet. From vegies and some fruits, for sure, but if you’re wanting to detoxify excess body fat I recommend excess fiber as well. It may well be the best fat loss supplement out there.

3. Supplement with Omega 3′s. They help you burn more fat, lower cravings, decrease inflammation, boost brain power, and control leptin levels. Enough said?!

4. Aside from too much exposure to leptin (from over-eating), fructose and natural or artificial sweeteners will increase your resistance to leptin. Leptin resistence increases sugar cravings, as it makes it hard for your body to access fat for fuel and therefore it relies on sugar for energy. In fact, your body is even capable of turning your bone into sugar if you have severe leptin resistance. This means that eating too many of these foods can result in you losing the ability to tune in to your body’s natural appetite controls.

Follow these simple principles, and enjoy a diet of mainly organically-raised animals and plants, and watch as food cravings and an out-of-control appetite become a thing of the past.

And remember -

Life is Now. Press Play.

Kat

Fish and Chips

By Elaine Lemm

Deep-fried fish in a crispy batter with fat golden chips is still one of Britain and Ireland's favorite meals. The love for them ranks alongside Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings, and the recently nominated Chicken Tikka Masala, as the English National Dish. 

History
No one knows precisely where or when fish and chips came together. Chips (pommes frites) had arrived in Britain from France in the eighteenth century. The first mention in 1854 was when a leading chef included ‘thin cut potatoes cooked in oil’ in his recipe book, Shilling Cookery. Around this time fish warehouses sold fried fish and bread, with mention of them in Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist published in 1830.

There are claims to the first ‘chippie’ (fish and chip shop) from Lancashire in the North and London in the South of England. Whoever it may have been, the trade grew to feed a rapidly expanding population, reaching a staggering 35,000 shops in the 1930’s, leveling to around 11,000 now. The Federation of Fish Friers in the UK claim that in 1995 the British consumed 300 million servings of fish and chips equating to six servings for every man woman and child in the country. The record for the largest number of portions sold in one day by an independent fish and chip shop is over 4,000.

Fish and chips helped feed the masses during the First World War and were one of only a few foods not rationed in the Second.

Which Fish? 
The UK’s favorite fish is still Cod and accounts for 61.5% of total consumption. Although the North Sea cod stocks issue is a serious problem, Cod landed in the UK is caught within strict management regimes and quota systems setting safe limits for catches agreed by fishermen, scientists and government. Cod caught within these agreed limits is safe for consumers to eat.

Haddock at 25% is the second favorite and regional variations include whiting in Northern Ireland and some parts of Scotland, skate and huss in the south of England.

Which Potato?
A floury potato is best, waxy potatoes can often result in greasy chips. The best varieties are King Edward , Maris Piper and Sante. 1 out of every 4 British potatoes become chips - that's around 1.25 million tonnes every year.

What Fat?
The perfect and traditional fat for frying both the fish and the chips is beef dripping or lard. Both give a crisper and tastier chip and fish batter. Cooking fish and chips in vegetable or corn oil is now commonplace – good for vegetarians. The oil must be clean and a constant temperature of 185°C maintained.

Thick or Thin?
Thick chips absorb less oil than thin ones, so chunkier chips are healthier.

To Serve?
Very few Britons have adopted the continental habit of mayonnaise with fish and chips, preferring just salt and vinegar sprinkled on. 

On the Side?
Love them or hate them, mushy peas are the classic accompaniment. Since the mid-seventies a curry sauce has also gained favor as a side dish. The only other sauces considered suitable are a splash of ketchup or in Scotland, some like brown sauce.

Eat In or Out?
Despite the threat from pizzas and burgers, fish and chips remain the nation’s favorite take away dish, nearly four times more popular than Indian curries. Fish and chips were traditionally wrapped in greaseproof paper and a thick layer of newspaper. This served not only as an insulator but as a plate to make eating outdoors easier - health and safety controls no longer allow the use of newspaper. Many fish and chip purists declare fish and chips eaten from newspaper outdoors, is the only and best way to eat them. 

Are they healthy?
Compared to other take-away foods Fish and chips have: 9.42 grams of fat per 100 grams. The average pizza has 11, Big Mac meal with medium fries has 12.1, Whopper meal with medium fries has 14.5, chicken korma 15.5 and doner kebab 16.2. 

Fish and chips have 595 calories in the average portion - an average pizza has 871, Big Mac meal with medium fries has 888, Whopper meal with medium fries has 892, chicken korma 910 and doner kebab 924. 

Statistics courtesy of Seafish UK. 

Where can I buy them?
With 11,000 fish and chips shops throughout the UK and Ireland, finding a chippie is usually easy. 

Fish and chip shops are now also found around the world and especially popular in coastal regions of Spain. Currently there are even four in New York following the first one there called “A Salt and Battery”.

What's really in a McDonald's hamburger

by Robin Konie on be nourished

Want a juicy, hamburger? Maybe a cheeseburger… with a 100% beef patty that’s seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper, topped with melty cheese, tangy pickles, minced onions, and (of course) ketchup and mustard? Sounds pretty good, right? This is how the McDonad’s hamburger is advertised. Sounds simple enough. And from a real food perspective, it sounds… well, real. But what’s really is in a McDonald’s hamburger?

Ah, I’m glad you asked.

A quick look at their nutritional information shows a fairly harmless ingredient list:

• 100% beef patty
• regular bun
• pastuerized process American cheese
• ketchup
• mustard
• pickle slices
• onions

Despite what many Americans think, I don’t see hamburgers as the typical  “junk food” villain. Under the right circumstances I am totally game for a real hamburger. And by “real” I mean that the beef is grass-fed, the cheese isn’t processed, the bun is sourdough or sprouted, and the condiments are not full of nasty stuff.

Not too surprising, but the McDonald’s hamburger isn’t quite so real. In fact, you have to scroll down their 30 page nutritional information guide to get the whole scary truth.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Ingredients: 100% pure USDA inspected beef; no fillers, no extenders. Prepared with grill seasoning (salt, black pepper).

Thankfully, McDonald’s and several other chains recently stopped using the “pink slime” in their beef. But the vast majority of fast food beef comes from CAFO (concentrated agricultural feeding operation) cows. Not only is this horrible for the animals and the environment, but eating meat from sick animals will only make you sick.  Eat a McDonald’s hamburger and you might be getting a mouth full of antibiotics, hormones, and dangerous bacteria.

Ingredients: Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or canola oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, wheat gluten, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (may contain one or more of the following: sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide), sorbic acid, calcium propionate and/or sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.

Oh boy. Where do I start? How about we just look at the length of this ingredient list. All of this for a bun? Did you know you can make your own bread using just flour, salt, and water? Seriously. The extra 20 – 30 ingredients here is stuff your body doesn’t need.

Lets look at just a few of the above ingredients:

• Ammonium chloride… sounds tasty right? Did you know it is also an ingredient in fireworks, safety matches and contact explosives? Eat up.
• Ammonium sulfate is used most commonly as an artificial fertilizer for alkaline soils. It’s also in flame retardant materials. Ammonium sulfate activates yeast, so it helps to get industrially produced bread to rise.
• The soybean and/or canola oil used here are most likely GMO. They are also foods I generally avoid for a number of reasons.
• The high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), despite the desperate marketing strategies to persuade otherwise, is not natural. And because it’s in so much of our processed foods, not only is it hard to avoid, but it can be doing major damage to your health.
• “Enriched” flour sounds harmless enough. But “enriched” just means that all the nutrition was taken out in the first place. Refined flours are also hard for your body to digest, even before the mess of chemicals are added to it.

I can’t even get through this whole list. But I think you get the point. Nothing really healthy or real here.

Ingredients: Tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, salt, natural flavors (vegetable source)

As if HFCS isn’t enough… let’s add some regular corn syrup to the mix! Not to mention that most corn is GMO. Did you know that recently the first long term study on the effects of GMO was released? You can find it here. The part that should freak you out: Massive tumors in rats who are fed GMO corn for two years. What do I mean by massive? Check this out:

That’s after two years. GMOs have been in our market for 20.

Let’s talk about the “natural flavors.” What does that really mean? For me it means “don’t eat.” The term “natural flavors” can be used for a number of not-so-natural and definitely not-so-healthy ingredients including things like MSG, Aspartame and bugs(yes, bugs).

Ingredients: Distilled vinegar, water, mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika, spice extractive.

Okay, these look familiar. Except maybe “spice extractive.” What does that mean? Could be a number of things… a little “iffy” for sure.

Ingredients: Milk, water, milkfat, cheese culture, sodium citrate, salt, citric acid, sorbic acid (preservative), sodium phosphate, color added, lactic acid, acetic acid, enzymes, soy lecithin (added for slice separation)

Let’s just start with the name. I mean, come on. Cheese is milk’s chance for immortality and “pasteurized process American cheese” just sounds nasty.

Why are we messing with something so good? Pasteurization kills living enzymes. Although in this case it’s probably good since it can also kill the bad stuff that comes from milk from sick cows in horrific factories.

With all the added colors, preservatives, and other “goodies” I think I’ll skip the cheeseburger.

Ingredients: Cucumbers, water, distilled vinegar, salt, calcium chloride, alum, potassium sorbate (preservative), natural flavors (plant source), polysorbate 80, extractives of turmeric (color)

Another handful of chemicals. Let’s just highlight the polysorbate 80 for a moment. In general this chemical is considered safe and well tolerated. Although a small number of people may be sensitive to it, and it may be harmful to people with Crohn’s disease. (But don’t worry, that only affects between 400,000 and 600,000 people in North America. Ouch.)

Ingredients: Chopped onions.

Finally. An ingredient list I can get behind. Of course, I prefer my veggies organic (locally grown is even better) to avoid pesticides. But so far the onions are your safest bet.

Well for an ingredient list with 50+ questionable items… I think I’ll pass on the McDonad’s hamburger. Forever. And before you think I have something against McDonald’s, realize that this list will look very similar for any fast food hamburger.

Remember, food is what helps your body thrive. Feed your body sick food and guess how you’ll end up? Sick.

Ultimately, however, it’s not McDonald’s we should be mad at. Nobody is forcing us to eat this garbage. What we need is to help educate people and let them know what they are putting in their bodies. I think Joel Salatin says it well:

Help empower people with information to make better choices. Share what you know. Being willing to change. Your body will thank you.