I rather call such arguments against fast food, quite simply, BS. They are the same food you will find anywhere else, in a ratio that has been found customers rather enjoy. The meat is still meat, the fries are still potatoes, the toppings are exactly the same. Now, quality may be a valid argument. The beef in your big mac isn't as high as the 27+ fancy burger in some expensive restaurants. The buns maybe have a few extra preservatives, but probably no more then any other mass produced bun/bread that isn't specifically marketed as low/no preservative.
But nutrition? Nope. Simply no appreciable different between eating out anywhere else. You can find healthy food at home. You can find healthy food and specialty restaurants. You can find relatively healthy food specially marked on the menu, at both sit down and fast food restaurants.
Take a look at some of the nutritional info from larger sit down restaurants. Let's look at...Applebee's just for the sake of comparison.
Grilled Shrimp and Spinach salad. Sounds healthy right? I mean. It's grilled shrimp, not fried. That's good right? Spinach! Everyone knows spinach is great for you. Salads, salads are healthy food options when you eat out.
Lets also take a look at a pretty standard Mcdonalds meal...say a big mac and a large fry. Mmm greasy, low quality fatty meat. Deep fried potatoes. Cheap toppings. Heart attack in a sack man!
So if I told you we were talking about 1050 calories, 72 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 2530 mg of sodium...would you think we we're talking about a grilled shrimp and spinach salad or a big mac value meal?
If you guessed the big mac, you'd be wrong. Those are the stats from Applebee's website nutrition guide for their grilled shrimp and spinach salad. For the record and sake of comparison the big mac and large fries is 1040 calories 54 grams of fat 14 grams of sat fat and 1390mg of sodium. Based on the numbers people tend to ZOMG EVIL BAD FOOD FOR YOU......THE BIG MAC AND LARGE FRY IS BETTER FOR YOU THEN A GRILLED SHRIMP AND SPINACH SALAD. The AB's grilled oriental chicken salad? Even worse for you. 1310 calories 93 grams of fat 15 grams of sat fat 2.5 grams of trans fat (big mac meal above rings in at 1.5) and 1470mg of sodium. Now we're beating the big mac and large fry in every. single. category. WITH A FREAKING SALAD. Something specifically on the menu to make people feel good about themselves when they go out to eat. A big mac and salad w/ranch dressing is only 730 calories 44 grams of fat 13 grams of saturated fat and 1580mg of sodium, now we're talking some comparatively healthy eats!
Point isn't that AB's are a bunch of lying *expletive deleted*che bags, the stats are similar to anyone else. And it certainly isn't to say woofing down a big mac and large fry on a nightly basis is a good idea. Point is that eating out, unless you are very selective and stick very closely to the "healthy" options, isn't all that healthy anywhere. And even then it is relatively unhealthy to what you can do at home. And I find picking on fast food establishments to be ridiculous. If anything your average fast food restaurant is fairly honest and open that their food isn't the healthiest thing on the face of the planet, much more so than your average sit down chain. If anything, I'd call the sit down chain more dishonest for loading down healthy looking things like a salad to the point they are literally worse for you then a big mac value meal. Wanna talk psychological sales tricks? Any idiot knows a big mac value meal is bad for you. Put a salad in front of most anyone though and the healthy meter goes off.
