“Suicide Snacks in a Sack”
Recently an advertisement popped up on the internet with the lead, “Fast Food Just Got Faster”. The ad was promoting two ‘faster’ ways to get you way over the top with your fat, salt, and sugar needs; 1. the ‘pick up and deliver’ groups such as Uber Eats, etc., and 2. ‘the apps’, where each store has an app where you can call, have your order ready, pick it up and go. All of the top Fast Food Junk Establishments had their logos present.
Fast Food establishments began many years ago; the first being the small White Castle joints which began in 1921; back then you could buy small, cheap, greasy burgers on squashy white square buns for a nickle; most people bought them by the sack and commonly called them Sliders. Wow, a five-cent, square burger that was so greasy and small they were able to slide down your gullet with the greatest of ease. They were originally called ‘Sliders’, a term commonly used in restaurants today.
Fast Food concept has been increasing dramatically in the last 25 years; for our fast paced society, this may seem like an advantage, however, that may not be the case. Let’s look a bit closer and see who and what we are really rushing for. Actually almost everybody from children to the elderly is eating fast food today. Fast Food has become ubiquitous and pervasive in our society today; it has spread to all points of our globe. It is a major driving factor in the Standard American Diet (SAD) which is rapidly spreading throughout the farthest corners of our world.
Our Fast Food ‘go-to’ meals’ can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even mid-day snacks. For some Fast Food is the primary source of eating; according to the Food Institute’s analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, millennials alone spend about 50% of their budget’s food dollars on eating out. 44 percent of people report eating out at least once a week and 20% of all American meals are eaten in the car. Many elderly eat Fast Foods because of the convenience, and cheap costs. And, on any given day, 34 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 19 consume fast food. This appears to be a rather large percentage of our nation’s calorie consumption but is a far cry from a healthy eating habit.
Fast Food is processed food substances designed by commercial culinary scientists to be extremely tasty, gullet slippery, and loaded with extra toxic waste products such as salt, sugar and fats for one purpose; to increase the profits of that company. From a nutritional basis it is some of the worst substances we can ingest. Not only is it lacking in nutrition, it is overloaded with toxic substances to our bodies such as trans fats, saturated fats, excessive amounts of sugar, and overload with salt. With Fast Food consumption increasing in all age brackets we must realize that the consumption of ‘fast food’ is a primary cause of chronic disease in America today.
Chronic disease is destroying our country financially, physically, and emotionally. 84% of all health care dollars are spent on chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and stroke. The pain, disease, disability, and death due to chronic diseases has a huge physical and emotional drain on our country
A Rand 2018 study found that 60 percent of American adults now live with at least one chronic condition; 42 percent have more than one. They account for hundreds of billions of dollars in health care spending every year. The new Baby Boomer generation will be facing two common chronic diseases, Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension. Both have an early death prediction.
More than two-thirds of all deaths are caused by one or more of five chronic diseases: heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes. Most of these diseases can be related to the toxic results of poor nutrition. It is my belief that the consumption of excessively processed foods with added chemical compounds, excessive salt, fat, and sugar while processing out all of the healthy nutrients is the primary cause of death in the United States today.
The statistics on the astounding benefits of a healthy lifestyle with its plant based nutrition are overwhelming and is the avenue toward recovery. The lack of whole foods such as fruits, vegetable, legumes, and grains has produced the most malnourished country in the world; we have become so used to eating junk substances that give us immediate pleasure while producing more chronic illness than any other source. It is nothing more that ‘Suicide Snacks in a Sack’.
The Vegan Doc, Florida, 12/15/18
