We were driving home, surrounded by nothing but open space, power lines, and fence posts in the middle of California’s San Joaquin Valley.
“McDonald’s!” Sharla shouted.
“No, Burger King,” Hunty said.
“Wendy’s!” Spensy added. “I can get a salad there.”
“Salad?” Hunty grinned with disgust. “I want some meat. Cheeseburger!”
“With milkshake and fries,” Hunty’s twin Sharla finished his phrase.
I braked, dim lights of streaming traffic, making them shades of gray, surrounding our 4-Runner that seemed to be floating along in a slow drift. Every fast-food brand in the nation seemed to have congregated at the hubs along Interstate 5.
“We’re so hungry, Dad,” Sharla moaned.
Neither McDonald’s, Burger King, nor Wendy’s served much of anything the kids would want that wasn’t breaded, battered, deep-fried, or made from beef. And it wasn’t like there was a Whole Foods anyplace close.
I am chief officer of the HealthyLivinG Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organization that fights for our right to know about the hidden chemical hazards in consumer products.
I’m also dad to three kids and have always felt an awesome responsibility to shepherd them safely through their lives, including what they put into their bodies. I had to be calm, cool, and, most of all, informed.
Ingredients Not on the Menu
The dark truth about America’s fast food is that it has become an industrial-delivery system that concentrates pesticides, synthetic hormones, and industrial chemicals into one highly toxic happy meal with dire consequences for children’s health.
Kids Respond to Facts
Parents so often scold their kids for eating foods with too much salt, fat, and sugar. But honestly, I’ve never met a kid who feared a little sugar or fat. By contrast, I have discovered that informing children, even as young as five or six, about the toxicity of fast food is a far more motivating factor in terms of helping them make safer choices.
These chemical toxins interfere with brain neurons and synapses of developing fetuses and infants, imitate the sex hormone estrogen, and cause reproductive damage and cancer in children and adults.
Yet, despite what we know from published, peer-reviewed studies, the federal regulations (when they exist) are based on a cost-benefit equation that almost always favors economics over the toxic effects on our bodies.
This, in effect, makes our children and the unborn pawns in a game of chemical roulette.
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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Total Diet Study has been studying dietary contaminants since 1961 when it began monitoring the amount of radiation in the food supply. Through the early 2000s, the FDA extensively sampled fast food dishes in its Total Diet Study.
Since facts can help all of us to become vigilant protectors of our children, I have used this data, along with additional findings, to share eight big ideas to guide you and your kids safely through the fast-food jungle.
1. Avoid the beef.
With some 386 chemical residues detected in 44 samples in the FDA’s Total Diet Study, the all-American favorite, a quarter pounder with cheese, barely beats out a plain quarter pounder for the most toxic fast food.
Each bite of a quarter pounder with cheese had some 8.8 chemical residues, including relatively high amounts of pesticides such as DDT and its related compounds, which act like the female hormone in the human body. Just getting a plain quarter pounder won’t help much either, as these samples had only 14 fewer toxic residues.
2. Toss tacos or tostadas with beef and cheese.
With 334 chemical residues found in 44 samples, including pesticides and traces of packaging materials, beef tacos and tostadas were nearly as contaminated as a quarter pounder. Different food, same chemical toxins.
3. Substitute poultry.
No hormones are approved for use in raising poultry in the US, according to AskUSDA. Poultry also has less fat, which means less fat-loving chemicals like DDT. Turkey is even more pure than chicken, according to the FDA. What’s more, the turkey cold cuts used at Subway restaurants are free from nitrite.
4. Ditch the nuggets.
Chicken nuggets were slightly less toxic with 266 residues of chemical toxins in 44 samples. Some 53 of the 266 chemical residues were organophosphate (OP) pesticides that are sprayed on the flour for products such as McNuggets; they interfere with nerve transmission by inhibiting the action of acetylcholinesterase and are associated with increased risk for ADHD and autism, reports the June 2010 issue of Pediatrics. Try to get grilled chicken instead.
5. Give French fries to the enemy.
French fries round out the top most toxic foods with 321 chemicals in 44 samples or some seven in each fried “cancer stick,” a slang reference to cigarettes, which is not inappropriate since, like the original “cancer sticks,” they also are a primary source of the carcinogen acrylamide.
6. Egg, cheese, and ham on English muffin? Not so fast.
The classic egg, cheese, and ham on an English muffin breakfast meal was one of the lower chemical toxin sources with 102 residues in the 44 samples. However, the ham used in the Egg McMuffin is cured with nitrite, according to McDonald’s. Eating processed meats, like bacon and ham, is associated with higher rates of leukemia in children and adults.
7. Go with a grilled fish sandwich.
A fish sandwich (battered), with 199 residues in 44 samples, is safer than a quarter pounder or chicken nuggets. Fast-food fish sandwiches rely largely on a species known as Alaskan pollack, caught in the North Bering Sea and other Arctic regions. Although less toxic than beef, their harvest grounds, nonetheless, have become inundated with industrial chemicals, and there is a disturbing variety of persistent chemicals related to DDT such as benzene hexachloride and hexachlorobenzene that were detected in their flesh. Getting grilled instead of battered fish sandwiches helps to reduce OP pesticide exposure from the contaminated grains used in the batter.
8. Plant-based burgers are fast-food nirvana.
Burger King sees plant-based burgers as the wave of the future and brought out its Impossible Burger in 2019. So real is the plant-based substitute it is said (they say it, not me) “the patties appear to bleed like a real cow,” according to Business Insider. Carl’s Jr. charbroiled plant-based Beyond Burger patty is a light in the darkness of the fast-food jungle. If you can get your child to skip the bacon and cheese, you will be even farther ahead in keeping her safe.
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That night, driving the length of the giant San Joaquin Valley, I’m certain I was the only parent in the world making fast-food decisions for my kids based on chemical toxicity. I know I’m not the only one now.
Seven in ten of us are concerned about the presence of chemicals in food, according to a poll by Mérieux NutriSciences and bioMérieux. Two thirds of us are concerned about bacteria such as salmonella and listeria in food and 61 percent are worried about food fraud.
The fact is that a parent in the modern world must be making fast-food decisions for their kids that are also based on chemical toxicity.
That we’re becoming more aware is good because, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during 2015–2018, over one third (36.3 percent) of children and adolescents consumed fast food on a given day. The percentage of calories from fast food in children and adolescents increased from 10.6 percent in 2009–2010 to 14.4 percent in 2017–2018.
Ranking Fast Foods
I have taken the results from the FDA Total Diet Study for a variety of fast foods and carry-out items to rank them from worst to safest. Use these rankings and my comments to determine safer and least safe choices.
Fast food can be such a wasteland, but it also has the potential to be safer and healthier than ever before. As consumers become better informed, they can demand that fast food should be safer and healthier in the future.
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