Fast-food: the number one serial killer in the United States
As we live in a fast paced world, we have less time to cook home meals. As a consequence, we often look to fast-food restaurants in order to fit a meal into our busy days. And we are right for one reason: they are very convenient! But behind the tasty menu lies some scary facts:
1) Fast food plays a major role in weight gain, even for those who lead an active and busy life. If fast food is eaten on a regular basis, it can be a direct cause of obesity. The number of calories contained in one fast food meal plus the portion sizes are the main issue.
2) Fast food restaurants use processed ingredients, artificial colors, preservatives, and many additives to enhance the flavor of their products, which is unhealthy and doesn’t provide enough nutriments or vitamins.
3) Fast food is often cooked with “high in trans fat” oil. Plus, in some products such as French fries, cheese, mayonnaise, chicken and so on, the amount of saturated fat is very high, which may lead to heart disease and high cholesterol.
4) Fast food meals are far to high in sodium. As you may know, consuming too much salt may be devastating and lead to high blood pressure or heart disease.
These are just a FEW of the reasons why organic and fresh snacks are important to keep us healthy when we do not have time to cook home made meals.
But the good news is that some attempts are being made to create healthy fast-food restaurants with organic ingredients!
In Germany, for instance, the fast-food chain Nat offers organic soups and salads but also burgers with beef, lamb or vegetarian and steak or fish plates. The menu provides a large choice of organic, sustainable, fair and responsible meals. This fast-food restaurant emphasizes regionally produced ingredients which are all certified organic! Plus, when imports are needed for the menu, they make sure that their products are fair trade.
Closer to us in Los Angeles, the fast-food restaurant O’Burger provides organic burgers. Everything is organic: the buns, the sauce, the vegetables, meat, ketchup, mustard and even the salad dressing! Resultantly, the burgers are lower in saturated fats and higher in Omega-3’s, Vitamins A & E and antioxidants. Plus, they use non-toxic cleaning products and all of their packaging is recycled, compostable and/or biodegradable.
You can find O'burger on 8593 West Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood!
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