If I where to cook my own ground beef, and add it to a tortilla I bought at the store, and sprinkled on some cheese. How would it be any healthier than a taco at taco bell for example.
Or if I made my own burger?
Is fast food “unhealthy” or is it the type of foods they tend to serve.
McDonald’s food for example is high in sodium, fatty acids, and sugars which are all very addicting but consumed regularly increases your chances of obesity and high blood pressure so yes it’s unhealthy. Fast food stores deep fry almost everything and if it’s not then it’s been mixed in huge amounts of salt and sugar instead.
Making a burger at home on the other hand you have full control over what is put into your food and what to include with your meal without signs in your face showing all types of add ons and bundle meals which is mostly why fast food is considered unhealthy because nobody ever just buys one item. The meals come with a lot.
Mostly deep frying foods in old, oxidized, processed oils. As a former fry cook I can tell you that oil only gets changed out once a week. They add a powder called magnesol daily and filter to clean up the oil, but that doesn’t change the fact that the oil has been heated for a week straight before being changed. Fast food style meals cooked at home are much healthier because you will likely use higher quality ingredients, and better quality cooking oils/fats to fry/sauté in.
Low micronutrient value as well as very high amounts of processed carbs.
It’s also just very low quality food. Again tons of calories but no real nutritive value. Which is a serious issue if one is consuming this stuff regularly.
Controversial opinion coming: Fast food isn’t bad for you if the rest of your life is pretty healthy.
You could eat and live ‘healthy’ (whatever that is to you) 80% of the time and if you indulged in 20% fast food you’d be alright.
Where people tend to demonise fast food is if you’re fairly sedentary, maybe overweight or obese, and eating predominantly fast food. The additives and nutrient void, calorie dense, nature of most fast food added up over time will eventually make you really ill and deficient in most nutrients.
You can’t control what’s in your fast food. A lot of the time you are unaware of what’s being put in it, or what’s not in it. And it’s typically quite calorically dense for what it is. However if your diet allows for it and you’re pretty active you will be absolutely fine to indulge and I wouldn’t consider it ‘bad’ as a one off.
But, your home made taco bell will absolutely be better for you because you can control the ingredients and portion sizes. You’ll know what’s in it. And it will be lower calorie. Which is good if calories matter to you.
Nuance, innit?
It’s how they cook it and the types of ingredients they use. Fast food is typically loaded with oil and the meat used is usually just a mixture of anything, not lean cuts.
Making your own ground beef gives you the freedom to use extra lean meat and control your cheese portion sizes and also allow you to opt for a lower fat option for your cheese.
The same if you made your own burger. You can choose fresh ingredients, lean cuts of meat that haven’t undergone as much processing. You can cook it grilled instead of fried in extra virgin olive oil which is healthier for you.
You can also have whole grain bread or tortillas, whereas these may not be options for fast food.
Additionally, fast food can have increased sodium, preservatives, and hidden sugars to make the food addictive.
They’re producing meals en masse so they use poor quality, cheap ingredients which lack nutrients and are full of preservatives to improve the appearance. They also pump it full of sugar, fat, and salt so as to increase the flavour but they pay no heed to how these ingredients are unhealthy in large amounts and make their food incredibly calorie-dense.
Trans fats(burgers fries and other meat) and preservatives (the bun and cheese) sugar alcohols( diet soda )destroy your gut microbiome. Without a diverse bacterial flora you produce a highly inflammatory environment which causes brain fog and everything hurts.
“Fast food” is a specific type of mass-produced food made for commercial resale. A taco or burger isn’t fast food. It’s just a taco or a burger.
But if your producing a taco or burger on a mass scale, to gain marketability, you typically need a lot of processing to increase it’s appeal which adds high amounts of fat, sodium, carbohydrates, etc.
Processed food also isn’t inherently unhealthy. Or at least, few foods are inherently unhealthy without greater context. In fact, most fast food places have tried to put a cap on using trans and saturated fats, which do carry notable risks.
That said, the high calorie density of fast food combined with the excess fat, sodium, and cholesterol means that having fast food often can lead to adverse health effects.
Fast food also usually carries only trace amounts of the minerals that could benefit your diet, such as calcium, potassium, vitamin D, etc. so in the long-term you need more nutrient-dense sources of food.
That said, this isn’t always the case. Chipotle, for example, uses more whole foods, so you could technically eat it everyday and be alright. In fact, I know some people who have. It’s not the most fibrous, however.
But in general, moderation is always key when it comes to fast food. If you cook at home and use ingredients with little processing, you don’t have to watch your gut so much.
Even with that though, you still have to pay attention to what you’re eating. For example, if the protein you use isn’t particularly lean, the animal fats could eventually lead to high LDL (‘bad’ cholesterol levels) so moderation is key in those cases too.
It wouldn’t really be any healthier than a taco from Taco Bell, if that’s exactly what you ordered. But often they’ll have sour cream (calorie dense), cooked in highly processed oil and have cheap salsa thats high in sodium and sugar.
The same things happen at all fast food places; cooked in deep fryers, lots of calorie dense sauces, marinades, toppings that make them unhealthy. Add on a soda + fries and your calories for the day is just about done. A burger cooked at home can be quite healthy - burger bun, homemade patty cooked in a splash of olive oil with some lettuce/tomato/cheese and ketchup. Forget anything that touches a deep fryer.
I can’t believe none of the top comments mentioned this….
In addition to the sugars, fats and deep frying they use
MSG!
MSG makes everything taste better.
It’s like salt on crack. If you get some for home you’ll see what I mean.
You ever see people put hidden valley ranch dressing on everything? It’s cause it has a ton of msg.
So no matter what you put it on it makes it taste better.
Anyway the extra flavor from msg combined with the terrible ingredients and extra fat you get addicting food that is horrible for you. It’s just the frequency you eat it that catches up to people.
It depends on how you cook it.
If you take their ingredients and their prep then you’ll get something equivalently healthy.
If you take finest organic whole foods and prep it from scratch without the preservatives, without the excessive salt, don’t put sugar in the bread, don’t douse it in cheap oil, then you will have made something that is still a buttload of carbs.
Combination of what they make and how it’s made.A burger for example can be healthy (quality lean meat, salad, quality bread)but McDonald’s don’t really care about that so much, all about taste so salt, fat, sugar etc. Is very high
I’d say the meals are fat and carb heavy and low in protein. They are quickly eaten and you’ve had 1000 cal within 30 mins which is half your intake of energy. Sure that’s fine but the fact you are hungry again in 2 hours doesn’t help. Could be the lack of nutrients you’d get from a balanced diet (potato and bread and oil isn’t balanced).
Break it down - big Mac 550 cal 25g protein 30g fat and 45g of carbs. Large fries 490 cals 7/23/66 P/F/C. And then large soda if you don’t get diet 290 cal and 77g of carbs.
If you are making your own foods it’ll have more veggies, less carbs and fat and more protein.
That’s my stab.
It is not the cals necessarily or the ground beef. It is the industrialized seed oils made with unstable fats like soybean, canola, corn and vegetable oils. Like what your french fries are made with and in the bun.
It is also the high blood sugar spike you get from highly processed carbs like in the bun, tortilla etc. These foods hasten the state of insulin resistance most of our society deals with. (only like 12 percent of US peeps are metabolically healthy).
It is also that highly processed foods are devoid of adequate nutrients. The little bits they are putting in the bun, for example, are tiny amounts compared to what you need to be well. Eating the highly processed food displaces more nutrient dense foods. The food industry has made combos that you will want again and again. They have basically made substances, not food.
And the next thing you know is you get some subclinical insufficiency of a few vitamins and minerals and you develop problems, often psychiatric or just not feeling well, that you then get on the pharma train to try to fix
I can make tacos at home with corn or wheat flour, lean beef or chicken, limit the toppings (sour cream, cheese, guacamole), and add fresh veggies for very reasonable calories and high protein. I can also eat more since I can control the volume of food and calories. When you go to Taco Bell, the foods much fattier, has more cheese, and lower quality tortillas, so it’s higher calories.
I can make 2 burgers at home for the same calories as a “premium” McDonald’s burger. I can make a mound of home fries for the same calories as a medium fry from McDonald’s.
Low density high calorie foods tend to be higher in saturated fats, sodium, and made from extremely cheap ingredients. This in excess is unhealthy and a continuous calorie surplus makes you gain weight (whether healthy food or not).
It’s depends on the quality of the ingredients. Natural ingredients free of additives and you’re good to go, it’s healthy. Transgenic-maize tortillas full of additives will be harmful, at the restaurant or at home.
It’s because of the excess salt and sodium put into the food.
If you were to cook the same food at home you would not add as much salt or you would not add as much sodium They do this because the product is mass produced.
Whenever I have a client who is very old and struggling to eat and hasn’t eaten in days we recommend they eat McDonald’s or Taco Bell because it is so packed with sodium and other things that it can help a dying person rejuvenate a little bit however that is a last resort and you put that on a person who was healthy then they are getting three or four times their daily sodium limit multiply that by a month and you can kind of see where I’m getting.
In relation to your question specifically, I doubt you add chemicals to your ingredients that make them addictive. MSG, Teflon(which you may cook with and is known as a forever chemical), and preservatives are all added to fast food to make the products more identical, last longer and make sure you finish your meal and want more. Also stand by what the chef above said, the oil. Canola oil on its own is bad enough, (which is what I believe McDonald’s uses now in place of beef fat) but canola oil heated to high temperatures over and over again just degrades and oxidizes it even further, making it a recipe for DNA damage.
Primarily the sodium IMO. I’ll go get grilled chicken at places like Culver’s or something. Meat is better quality then most fast food. I feel a lot of water weight after. But mostly it’s just conceptually not realizing truly how many calories it is.
The ingredients are far different, items like ground beef and tortillas you find at the store won’t have a page of ingredients, probably only 10 for the tortilla. But if you look at Taco Bell’s ingredient list it is 30+ ingredients for one taco
It depends. Some fast food food is more preserved and therefore has more sodium or chemicals? Condiments and amount of ingredients like salt can be controlled by you at home too. You can definitely make healthier alternatives at home but you can also just as easily make something that on a macro level is just as unhealthy and heavy at home too. It’s not necessarily just that it was made in a fast food restaurant, it’s what ingredients and cooking methods were used. A meal made with less salt/oil, a more lean protein, or maybe even baked or grilled instead of fried makes a bigger difference, be it prepared at home or in a restaurant
one reason is that they do research into what exactly makes it hyper-palatable and thus get you addicted. it’s also everywhere and literally fast. this keeps you going back and wanting more and more.
a taco or burger you made on your own is not fast, you worked to make this treat and it is not instantly available. it will not be hyper-palatable so you won’t get addicted like that. probably less processed and less sodium and things like that overall.
High in ingredients that cause harm (not found in those doses in any natural forming food) and lacking nutrients. Over consumption of this food means the consumer isn’t getting satiated and is consuming a high number of calories due to it’s palitability. This leads to overconsumption and lack of nutrition which is usually where obesity starts.
Unhealthy food is unhealthy food. Fast doesn’t necessarily mean unhealthy, homemade doesn’t necessarily mean healthy. I just enjoy making this stuff at home because then I can make the choice to throw much more for example veggies in there to make it healthier.
People forget that inn2011, Taco Bell was busted, big time. Turns-out that their “beef” was only 33% real. The place is a pigsty. Beyond disgusting. I’d rather starve then eat their phony, manufactured crap. 🤮
It’s the quality of the food. And the fillers or chemicals that are added. Grass fed ground beef that you prepare at home in olive oil is way healthier than processed hormone injected ground beef that they fry in vegetable oil, for example.
Fast food is very calorie-dense, nutrient-poor and hyperpalatable (meaning that it’s literally designed in a lab to make you want more of it) . As a result, it’s easy to overeat, easy to gain weight and easy to give yourself a variety of associated health problems (diabetes, fatty liver disease, etc)
It’s really, really easy to consume 1000 calories of McDonald’s or Taco Bell or Fried chicken and fries. It’s reasonably hard to do the same with steak/salmon/eggs and vegetables. You also end up with way less quality nutrients from the fast food meals. As a result, it’s perversely possible to be malnourished, but overfed on a modern western junk/fast food diet.
Nobody is talking about the crap meat they use. Think about what they feed those animals. Lots of that cheap feed has plastic and whatnot in it. All of the antibiotics they give their animals. Not to mention other things that none of us would want to consume like the preservatives. Sure, the sodium, sugar and fat are bad, but I think that leaves out an important piece that is really bad as well.
You will eat a burger and a set of fries.. and throw in a drink .. you will be hungry in an hour or two .. the meat will not have accessible protein fries is cabs fried in bad fats and a can of sugar ..
When u make a burger at home the meet is fresh .. or already not processed .. you add spices and fry it in a pan in oil that is also being used the first time ..
no fries and you will make decent portions Soo you will be hungry after a longer interval..
It’s not eating at BK that makes you fat .. it’s the high calorie less nutrition food that you eat and the meals that follow .. you end up eating more than you should and I’ll always be hungry .
Basically the fast food person lives the fast food lifestyle and that’s what messes things
“Healthier” is a vague term. I have high cholesterol but low blood pressure. So polyunsaturated fat are my nemesis but salt is fine.
Too much refined carbs makes me poop like a rabbit all day long so I get my carbs mostly from massive amount off vegetables which comes with the right amount of fibre for my gut.
Sugar is bad for diabetics/pre diabetics. And nuts are bad for you if you have an allergy.
We’re all a bit different.
I lost 15 kg eating mc Donald’s twice a week. Because it was in small amounts (one egg muffin and hash brown or one cheeseburger and small fries), because I counted macros and had a very active job/lifestyle.
“Industrial” food products seem to have lower nutrient/calorie ratio. Fresh produce (and many items frozen hours after being picked) are packed with nutrients. Your body will feel satiated longer, which leads to less overeating.
It’s largely due to the excessive amount of fat in all the food that comes from low quality ingredients and cooking methods. They may advertise “fresh ground beef” in their burgers, but seldom lean beef or whatnot
Reheating certain vegetable oils like sunflower or corn oil has been shown to release a higher concentration of Aldehydes, toxic chemicals that have been linked with many conditions like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, dementia and Parkinson’s.
That’s just one.
It’s all about regimen Sitting on the couch isn’t unhealthy, but if you sit on the couch every day for 4 hours you get used to it and it becomes habit. If you have family members that join you it becomes part of their habit too.
I was holding my baby daughter while my wife and I ate McD. I had an epiphany. This isn’t food - it highly marketed convenience filler. That was the last time I ate there or any ff place. That was 18 years ago. My daughter has been to ff restaurants maybe a handful of times. The lesson?
It’s not part of her eating habit because it wasn’t part of our eating habit.
I have been to five guys and subway maybe 15-20 times in that period but that’s it.
-edits because I am be good writer
Home cooking isn’t fast food. So what you’ve done up top isn’t a fast food item. A fast food item is one purchased from a store or restaurant.
What makes fast food bad for us, is that it is very low in nutrients but very energy dense. When consumed habitually (in the absence of a balanced diet) then it very easily leads to overconsumption. This is in part, due to very low satiety levels due to being an easily digested, readily available energy source. Meaning you’re more likely to eat again later due to being hungry, driving up energy intake.
But these foods are also dense in things such as saturated fat (bad for heart health) and high levels of salt. So this displaces more favourable nutrients within the diet.
There’s so many additives and preservatives. That’s why you see pictures of a 2 year old McD’s cheeseburger that looks the same. You don’t want those chemicals in your body, that’s how we all end up with cancer