Fast lane to your infirmity
Fast
food needs no introduction. Wherever one looks around these days there
is bound to be fast food outlets of some kind with trade names varying
from giant world- wide franchises to every Tom Dick and Harry!
The modern rat-race type life style of man compels him to take the
easiest path out when it comes to food. One reason for fast food to
become so popular is its comparatively low cost compared with restaurant
gastronomy. This very fact directs consumers to fast food outlets like
cattle to grass fields (pardon the expression). Facts are sacred, the
comment is free!
Once we start gobbling these ‘finger licking good’ stuff on long term
basis, we tend to forget how much of damage we are going to impose on
our human system.
It’s heartbreaking to watch how businessmen, in connivance with their
advertising partners, exploit and condition the minds of young children,
parents and adults alike, using the very children as baits on TV
commercials to promote various kinds of unhealthy foods. Today in Sri
Lanka a visit to fast food outlets to hold children’s birthday parties
or during week-ends to eat out has transformed into a vogue and ‘to be
with it’ among many middle class families. It is when young children
gobble up excessive quantities of fish and chips, chicken and chips,
spare ribs, kebab, barbeques, various kinds of other meat products and a
variety of ice creams and finally wash all down with 1.5 liter of fizzy
drinks with full of sugar.
Avoid fast food |
Why do we need to avoid consuming fast food? My friend Hector in
London, (authority in Chemistry) who is obsessed with this subject
writes and says fast food is full of calories loaded with refined sugar,
fats (which are reheated repeatedly in an ‘industrial fashion’) for
commercial frying. These will contain an excessive energy concentration
which bamboozles brainpower.
Such excessive intake of fast food on a regular basis gives rise to
cardio vascular diseases and diabetes, hypertension and obesity. Lack of
exercise on the part of young especially with private tuition classes
taking their time and stress factor on adults would result in heart
disease at later stages in their life.
Hypertension or high blood pressure and obesity are directly related
to fats, oils and salt found in fast food, especially in hotels,
restaurants or even at homes.
School children in Western countries have got addicted to eating this
type of ‘junk’ food as a second nature.
Obesity in young children in schools have sent red alarms signals to
education authorities in the UK that they have immediately taken
remedial action by replacing fast food diets like chips, sausages and
canned baked beans during midday school meal with salads and fruits to
save the future generation becoming obese and a ‘sick’ society.
Recent scientific and medical research have highlighted how ‘high
calorie foods rich in fats, refined sugar and salt could rearrange the
hormone balance in the body which makes the person addictive to such
food.
Simultaneously fast foods lack in dietary fibre and essential
vitamins and minerals required for bodily functions.
Most of the fast foods have fats, oils, added sugars and salts which
can contribute to producer excessive cholesterol. Cholesterol is a waxy
substance that is produced naturally in our liver and other organs. We
also absorb cholesterol from eating foods such as red meat, high fat
cheese, butter, eggs and liver. Whether you eat these kinds of food out
of ‘take away’ places or in your homes, you need to be watchful about
the cholesterol and the salt content.
Our bodies need a certain amount of cholesterol to make cell
membranes, insulate nerves and to produce hormones, but too much of
cholesterol, however, can affect one’s health. When you eat red meat,
eggs, cheese or butter, you need to be careful not to consume large
quantities for your own sake. Some of us totally forget or neglect
regular six monthly check-ups on blood pressure and cholesterol.
Chicken has become by all means a part of the staple diet today all
over the world consumed in various forms of cooking.
Some eat as a replacement for red meat to avoid clogging of arteries.
Others for religious reasons (who don’t eat beef) turn to chicken as a
good substitute for meat. Imagine the fate of a one-day-old baby chicken
injected with hormones (the current practice among meat sellers).
At the end of three-four weeks the tiny baby which had a
featherweight grows into a fully-grown bird weighing three-four kilos
and the result being when humans consume hormone-impregnated chicken
gives the same affects on the human body, the result - obesity! No
wonder why it has become a common sight everywhere, especially children
transforming their figures into giant sizes and young girls attain their
puberty at very early ages that makes our ancestors coil up in their
graves!
Would you be tempted to over eat these fast foods? When you ponder on
your health next time, do you ever think of the fats, oils, added sugars
or cholesterols that you consume on a regular basis? How can you on the
other hand point a finger at fast food bistros for adding too much fats,
oils and sugars into their food when you make the decision to visit them
and choose yourselves to be gluttons? I would not touch fast food with a
barge pole, would you? Food for thought!
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