Fast food is bad for you. There's just no other way to say it, and the effects of fast food can wreak havoc with your waistline, your health, and your pocket. Here are ten reasons you should avoid that junk burger and cook a great meal at home instead:
The average cost for a fast food meal will range anywhere from $7 to $12, depending on the restaurant.
Take even just that $7 and you could buy a pound of brown rice, a pound of beans, and a pound of frozen broccoli or other vegetable you prefer and make the equivalent of six meals.
Spend one evening cooking it and have the rest for lunch for almost the entire week.
Fast food is bad not only for your pocketbook, but also because of the hidden chemicals that can trigger food allergies and other health issues. Monosodium glutamate is in almost all processed food and certainly in almost all fast food out there.
All sorts of medical studies have revealed that MSG causes obesity, along with a lot of other nasty things. It's a chemical we should never put in our bodies, and yet it’s something that is in virtually every processed food we buy. Free yourself from MSG by cooking from scratch at home.
All the techniques used to process food – canning, dehydrating and freezing – virtually destroy the flavor of fast food, so chemicals under the guise of "natural flavors" have been added to enhance the flavor, while color additives are added to make the foods look fresh. It might make the food look and taste better, but it's not doing much for our bodies.
Start cooking real, whole foods from scratch and you'll be amazed to see the pounds drop off. Not only because you're avoiding chemicals (See numbers two and three above) but also because you’re cutting out all that extra fat, sugar and salt.
Once you are free of the MSG addiction, nothing will taste as good as your own home-cooked food from scratch. Buy a grain mill and grind your own flour. Once you taste it, you will never want to go back to store bought flour again.
Real, whole foods give your body the power it needs in the natural way your body was meant to take it. You won't believe the energy you will have once you start eating foods you made from scratch.
The fewer chemicals you have in your body, the better your health will be. Studies have shown that fast food is bad because the chemicals in fast food can cause obesity and cancer, along with neurological complaints. The better you feed your body, the longer you will live with a greater quality of life.
Think of the gas money you will save if you stay at home and cook instead. Plus, if you make extra and take it for lunch, you won't have to get out and go anywhere at noon, saving you the hassle and even more gas money.
Think you don't have time to cook? Consider how long it takes to drive to a fast food place.
Even if you live right next door to a restaurant, it will still take you about ten minutes to order and receive your food.
Since most of us don't live next door to a restaurant, transportation time to and from that fast food place is more like thirty minutes (fifteen minutes there, and fifteen minutes back). In that same amount of time (40 minutes total), you could have cooked a meal – without the hassle.
There's no greater feeling than knowing you cooked a fabulous meal for yourself, saved money, saved time and improved your health. So now that you know why fast food is bad, what are you waiting for? Rattle those pots and pans and enjoy! Try these great recipes.
Related article: The danger of high fructose corn syrup.