The Geek Forum
Misc Forums => Main Page Stuff => Topic started by: Chris on August 23, 2007, 11:12:39 PM
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Link: http://www.gotthegeek.com/content/view/188/41/
After years of working in a fast food restaurant, I can attest to the unhealthiness of some of the items that are offered on the menu. The sad part is, customers willingly subject their bodies to self inflicted torture and mutilation each and every time that they indulge their self in certain items on the menu. I can do nothing but stand on the other side of the counter and watch as they happily devour a ticking time bomb that taunts them for more after each and every bite. In most cases, their children also are subjected to such abuse as well, growing up to believe that eating fast food several times a week is completely normal and healthy.
This is where I would like to point out the double-edged sword in this situation.
The one side of the sword allows the fast food restaurant to operate and sell products to whom ever, and when ever so as long as the food meets local and state regulations for handling and cooking procedures, as well as nutritional values. May I add, these nutritional requirements are only there to ensure that there toxic materials present in the products. The food can pretty much have no nutritional value what-so-ever.
This lack of legislation makes it completely legal for fast food restaurants to target young children and their parents' inability to tell their children "No". Fast food moguls know that children are highly susceptible to advertising, especially when it comes to toys. They also know that many parents can no longer tell their children "no". Knowing these two parts of the equation is a certain recipe for success. Add a playground for kids to play in and you have the ultimate breeding ground for future customer loyalty as well as millions in profits.
One the other side of the sword, there is the moral responsibility that fast food restaurants and other giant corporations have to their patrons and society in general. With the millions that they put in researching what is the most effective way to make money, they find how the human mind works, and how we are evolving over time. With this knowledge, they target young children who they themselves do not know any better and immediately want to go to the restaurant to obtain the toy they just saw advertised, and they also target parents who can no longer say "no" to their children because agencies such as DYFS are so eager nowadays to take children away from their parents.
What they are doing is almost no different than tampering with human DNA to eradicate any and all defects that may plague human beings over time. Some consider this as cheating, as well as morally irresponsible and an injustice to mankind. Using the knowledge that they have acquired about the average human mind is an abuse of power, to say the least.
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I thought most of you guys were libertarians, or leaning towards. Doesn't that mean everyone is entitled to eat any crap they want? It's their responsability to find out what is in the food they eat, and if they are too stupid or lazy to read or care, the fault is theirs.
With the children it's a diffrent story. What i would propose is this: You can come in a fast-food with a child only if it's yours geneticaly. If it's somebody else's child or adopted, you can't. And make the food there a little more toxic/ harmful. That way, the genes of the parents that are stupid enough to eat fast food 7 days per week would slowly be filtered out of the gene pool.
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When I worked at Der Wienerschnitzel, everytime some food item fell on the floor the boss would just chop it up and add it to the chili.
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Chris, you should read Food Politics by Marion Nestle, fascinating book. Our industry truly is evil as are most of our vendors and the politicians they buy off.
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Paladin, how do you propose to perform this genetic screening? It's not a realistic solution.
As to the larger question, I think that yes, if you want to slowly kill yourself with crap food, that is your choice. It's my responsibility to decide what goes in my body. It's pretty much the same argument we use for the drug legalization. As long as I'm not harming anyone else, no one should be able to tell me what I can or cannot consume.
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I eat fast food seven days a week. Multiple times in a day. Jack in the Box for breakfast, something from the college cafe during lunch, random fast food place for dinner. I see no problems with eating at these kinds of places because, wait for it, I DON'T ORDER EVERY GODDAMN THING ON THE MENU in one setting.
I firmly believe that you can get good, nutritious food at just about ANY fast food place providing you know how to order. Every place has at least one healthy\semi-healthy item on the menu. If they don't, you make it not as bad for you by telling them no cheese, no mayo, no 'special' sauce, etc.
This falls under the whole 'personal responsibility' thing. Just make intelligent choices when you go out to eat and get in some daily exercise and you'll be fine.
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Daily exercise? Are you kidding me?
I just started coaching Bubbles's (formerly known as BBCK) cross country team. There are roughly 30 kids on the team. Five families contribute to the team - one or both of the parents coaches the team. Most of the parents just drop the kids off and drive away. We don't see them until 7:00 when practice is over. Of the remaining dozen or so parents who stick around, 2 of them actually get off their duffs and walk the course with the kids/coaches. We tell all of them that they don't need to be in any kind of physical condition to help out. The park where we practice isn't bad, but the more parents we have scattered about the course(s) the safer the kids will be. Nope... that's too much work! God forbid they should have to actually RUN! The majority of them probably think that walking from the car to their desk/couch is exercise. They're mostly fat slobs, too.
</soapbox>
I eat fast food regularly. Frequently, I'll order lunch at McDonald's - two double cheeseburgers and a small fry. That'll be my big meal for the day, though.
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I don't eat much fast food because I'de rather spend my money on other things besides overpriced sub-par foods. Plus i don't have that much to spend to be eating out all the time. Maybe once a week. I'd rather cook.
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I'm a Breatharian.
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This fits in quite well. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1DcavXVK5Y)
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That's excellent! Good find Chris!
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It's my responsibility to decide what goes in my body.
Can I?
OMFGLOL!!!11 (Ok... maybe I crossed the line, but I just couldn't let that go by).
Fast Food: Stuff yoruself up, clog your arteries, it;s your choice. What pisses me off however is that being Canadian, I end up paying yoru medical bill. Secretly, I jsut hope your heart gives up and you croak before you even get medical services. Is that wrong?
May I also suggest reading "fast food nation" by Eric Schlosser
(http://www.tagstrategic.com/participant/fastfoodnation1.gif)
Man that burger looks good...
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http://www.bestfoodnation.com/
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I eat a lot of fast food due to long hours at work and well....it's a bit difficult cooking for one at times. My biggest problem with fast food is the lack of healthier things on the menu. Even at McDonalds they OFFER fruit and walnut salad....but it so fucking packed with preservatives the apples and grapes don't even taste like apples or grapes anymore. I wish someone would start a few healthy fast food alternatives for busy people.
I work 8-12 hours a day, have chess club, Go club, Urban Explorers and Roller Derby practice with speed skating so it would be REALLY effing nice if some place offered healthy food on the go that didn't taste like ass and actually taste like real fruit and vegetables.
To be honest, I wouldn't even mind paying a bit more for the food but holy hell there's got to be a better solution than this.
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I think the problem lies within our newly adopted life style that has the slogan "always on the go". Maybe if we all stopped working and being so damn active (myself included) we would have time to eat and sleep properly - two things that our bodies NEED to stay healthy.
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I completely agree.
I wish it was that easy but our society doesn't really allow for it. In previous generations people could afford to have one bread winner and one home maker. Bread winner takes care of the finances and the home maker has time to prepare meals and make sure things around the house are done so that when it's rest time both can actually rest after a hard day and have had healthy meals. Now both parents are forced to work (sometimes even two or three jobs) just to make ends meet, pick kids up from school or after school programs (usually later than when we SHOULD be eating dinner), take care of after hours activities and still clean and take care of domestic things which leaves little to no real down time except for crashing into bed for your 7 hours. People with stressful lives also suffer from non-restful sleep, and from there it's just a downward spiral.
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I tend to cook several times a week and freeze the leftovers and bring them for lunch. It cuts down on cost of food and going to restaurants. We grow our own fruits and vegetables and incorporate those into our meals saving even more money. Getting enough sleep and exercise though is a tough one.
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I tend to cook several times a week and freeze the leftovers and bring them for lunch. It cuts down on cost of food and going to restaurants. We grow our own fruits and vegetables and incorporate those into our meals saving even more money. Getting enough sleep and exercise though is a tough one.
Is there an easy way for one to grow their own fruits in vegetables while living in an apartment? I wouldn't mind doing this as it is a great idea, but space is limited...
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I know people who use inexpensive hydroponic gear to grow 'herbs' to great effect indoors.
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Is there an easy way for one to grow their own fruits in vegetables while living in an apartment? I wouldn't mind doing this as it is a great idea, but space is limited...
You could seek out community organic gardens. Though, that leads right down the road to communism. Be careful.
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I make like pb and have a couple of major cooking days a week and take leftovers for lunches to work. Plus we're part of a CSA and get a metric ton of fresh locally grown veggies once a week. We've always got a salad or the makings in the fridge lately. I eat "fast food" about once a week and when I do its not from a chain but from some local place near the Univ. It makes it a bit easier that for me lunch is by far my largest meal of the day, I normally only have something small for dinner.
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Interesting. I never imagined that so many people prepared meals in advance the way that I do. I typically spend one Sunday per month preparing four different main dishes and freezing them. I freeze them in aluminum loaf pans or mini-pie pans depending on the meal.
This month:
Four-cheese macaroni and cheese with broccoli. (10 servings)
Parmesan chicken (14 servings)
Four bean tamale (8 servings)
Chicken cannelloni (10 servings)
Plus, I always have 1/4 lb. hamburger patties in the freezer.
Every night, before I go to bed, I decide what to pull out for the next day's dinner.
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BizB, that is a fantastic idea! I think I'll try that since I always feel bad when I make too much food and can't eat it in two days. It never occurred to me to freeze it.
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Some hints for you to make it easier...
I started doing this after visiting a Let's Dish (http://www.letsdish.com/) store once.
1) Mix everything and freeze it pre-cooked - do everything except the "Bake at [temp] for [time]..." part in the recipe.
2) Use aluminum foil as a cover for the loaf pans rather than buying the ones that have plastic lids - saves $.
3) Indicate on the top of the container (I use a sharpie) what's in the container, what date you made it, how long to cook it and at what temperature. Like this... M&C 8/25 - 20/350
which indicates Macaroni And Cheese made on 8/25 - cook for 20 minutes at 350.
4) You can take stuff out ahead of time as I mentioned, or you can leave it frozen and just add some time to the cook-time. How much time to add depends on what you're cooking.
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That's a damn good idea. I'm going to try this out and see if I can get myself off the daily fast food kick.
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You'll eat good food.
You'll save a ton of money, too.
That entire month's meals cost me about $70. The only thing I need to do is stop and get some salad/veggies once in a while.
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So, do you freeze the individual servings separately or all together?
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Separately. I buy little loaf pans like these...
(http://www.wesellcoffee.com/media/babeloaf1.jpg)
Or little pie pans like this...
http://www.bizb.biz/cam_dump/200704092124011.jpg
That's some of the tamale pies that I made back on April 9th.
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I usually cook things fully and reheat using cheap glad or ziplock plastic microwaveable containers. We only have microwaves at work. But for things that don't reheat well we do put things in aluminum containers for baking off at a later date. Mac and Cheese is a big one. I also just made about 6 gallons of marinara with tomatoes and veggies from our garden. This'll last me about six months. We freeze them in quart ziplock freezer bags. Plus with pasta you can cook off a ton of that too and freeze in individual portions and add the sauce and just microplane some romano or parmesan on top.
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Wow. Thanks a bunch on these ideas guys. I'm supposed to go buy some groceries this weekend but I hate never buying enough or too much because it will go bad. I'm really excited to make all my favourite foods now without worrying about having too much! ^_^
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Just remember some things don't freeze that well. And some things don't reheat well. I've found that just about any fish needs to be eaten immediately and shouldn't be reheated.
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I think that should be Office Rule Number 1...no nuking fish in the office microwaves.
I want to slap people who do that.
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Wouldn't that bump the current rule Number 1 (Burning popcorn in the office microwave is grounds for justifiable homicide) down to #2?
I might be able to live with that.
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I think that should be Office Rule Number 1...no nuking fish in the office microwaves.
I want to slap people who do that.
I got this horrible visual of a fishbowl and a poor goldfish, well you get the picture, and then I read my post directly above and remembered what we were talking about.
Peep jousting on the other hand, I whole-heartedly endorse.
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And no making popcorn in the office microwave either, because nobody seems to know how to stop it it before it burns and makes the whole office smell like shit for a week.