Fast Food Blues
I don't know if I've admitted this to any of you previously, but I love the taste of fast food. Yes, I always get sick after I eat it, but somehow I continue to crave it, much like the rat who keeps getting shocked in the maze. Dammit, I will have that cheese, I don't care how many times they electrocute me!
Baby G has talked me out of a fastfood cheeseburger more times than I can count. I'm thankful for her efforts because without them I would probably require two airplane seats instead of one. So why do I crave something devoid of nutritional content that's going to make me sick soon after eating it? Morgan Spurlock writes in Don't Eat This Book that scientists think since fats & sugars used to be a scarce part of the human diet for thousands of years, now that fattening foods are so cheap & readily available and we're eating more of them, our bodies continue to crave and store fat in case we have one of those pesky famines. Also, consuming fats and sugars starts a high & crash cycle that must be perpetuated, otherwise you'll feel really bad unless you have more junkfood.
Food, addictive? Yes. I used to drink at least a 2-liter a day of cola. I thought I was addicted to caffeine. Nope, turns out I was addicted to sugar. Giving up sugar was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I had headaches, intense mood swings, and low energy. After about 3 weeks of rollercoaster 'fun', I was free. Now on the rare occasion I have a Coke, I can immediately feel sugar's effects on my body. It's really strange to notice something that used to be "normal" for me. In fact, Coke was the last thing I drank before going to bed and the first thing I drank in the morning. Yuck. I'm surprised my kidneys still work.
Why am I pondering these things today? I guess since Halloween has come and gone without me overindulging in candy and other such "treats," I'm a bit pleased with myself. I'm still fighting my desire for french fries and a quarter pounder, but I have a feeling the more I read about the meat industry, the less I will want a chemical- and fat-laden Whopper. I believe in personal responsibility. I'm not responsible all the time, but I'm working on it. The Happy Meal will not win, I will.
Oh, and now you can let the whole world know, via t-shirt, the Loch Ness Monster is indeed a hoax perpetuated by giant squid. (Thx to MV for the link!)
5 comments:
Certainly not as clever as the LNM, but perhaps more relevant to your post:
http://www.threadless.com/product/278/The_Fast_Supper
Ah Morgan, eases the pain. I agree with you 101%, and Mr. Spurlock, that the high fat/high sugar combination is what keeps us coming back to that bean burrito. Not to mention the sodium. Having said that, I have just indulged in my almost weekly Taco Bell ritual. But I pair that with somewhat healthy breakfasts and dinners. And don't forget the walks! Certainly a diet of only fast food is not good for you but incorporating some of it into your diet will not kill you. You have proven you can wean yourself almost completely off of cola, why not wean yourself as much as possible off of fast food? That way you indulge the cravings once a week/month/etc. but you are not making a habit of eating those foods primarily. For me, I get a craving and try to satisfy it with alternatives. If that doesn't work, I get the real thing but smaller. Or only eat one thing (like a donut). Spreading the cravings around seems to help some so that I still get satisfaction without binging. That's what I used to do and it was never pretty.
Let me know if you ever want to talk about food issues because I definitely have them and am more than willing to discuss.
~The Booklahver
I am the queen of bad food cravings, and unfortunately, I indulge most of them (I don't have a Baby G to talk me out of the cheeseburger, so I have it!) Sugar is evil in excess, the sad thing is now you can't even have a lot of juice, so these days I have been drinking very watered down apple juice in the attempt to cut my sugar.
From Yahoo, the first place you go for health info: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051101/hl_nm/tongue_built_in_taste_fatty_food_dc;_ylt=ArL3Tkq4KT8VaCRmh57vMMSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-
Fatty foods? Tongues? Oh yeah!
~The B
Wait, go back to that part about the squid...?
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