Read 'n' Seed: Second Quarter of Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America

For the second quarter of the book I covered four more chapters, pages 59-129. The basic overviews of these chapters were about the effect McDonald's has in this world, fat and sugar content in our food, food processing and physical activity.

After the 1973 opening of the first McDonald's in New York City, there are now over 31,000 chains worldwide. This in turn feeds 46 million people a day, 1 in 4 being Americans. The fast food industry has gotten so out of hand that it has become detrimental to our health. Not only is McDonald's deteriorating America, but it has taken over the world. Countries everywhere are now suffering the effects of the American diet, including increased obesity, blood pressure and diabetes. "The fast-food companies are starting to take over the world. They are globalizing the American way of eating, which is a way of death, really." John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America.

"Fast food is fat food". I think that these words from Morgan Spurlock, the author of this book, describe fast food perfectly. All of the food we consume through the drive-through is loaded with fats and added sugars. " These are basically added to make up for the lack of taste since they lack the crucial vitamin and mineral content that our body actually needs. "Some scientists believe that high-fat, high-sugar food is actually physiologically addictive, like a form of drug." When our bodies consume these diets that are loaded in fat and sugar it inhibits the brain so that it doesn't signal us to stop eating. This in turn leads to overconsumption, then weight gain and finally obesity.

The next segment of this quarter had to do with food processing. "The USDA says we Americans eat 1 million animals an hour." Now I don't know how you feel about this, but that's alot of meat! It makes me think about the eye opener we had to complete about the negative effect that consuming processed meat has on our environment. In addition, I was also given some pretty disturbing facts about the factory farms that I never wanted to know. "The cattle industry buys millions of dead cats and dogs from animal shelters every year, then feeds them to the cattle who end up in your burger." YUCK! They not only do this but have also fed their dead cows to chickens, vice versa and also have scrapped up roadkill. Not what I was hoping to hear about food that I ONCE consumed and never will again.

The final chapter in this quarter had to do with the decline in physical activity. Truth is, Americans don't walk anymore, we drive. We take escalators instead of stairs. When golfing we use golf carts instead of walking the course. We have become an overall lazy country.

Well, I hope you have gotten a little more insight on the wonderful world of the fast food industry. All of the quotations and statistics are taken directly from Don't Eat This Book.

Eye Opener:CSPI

The first activity that I completed was called Score Your Diet. My overall score ended up being a 71, which is classified as excellent. I score the highest in the health catergory with a 134 because I eat alot of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. I also eat fat-free dairy and low-fat cheese, which are both better for my health than the full-fat versions. I scored the lowest in the environment column with a -32. This is mostly because of eating processed foods like cheese and beef/meat products. I also eat alot of eggs which can attribute to the environmental health problem. By consuming all of these animal products I am causing the air and water pollution from manure, overuse of fertilizer, cattle belching and the unnecessary use of land to produce feed grains and soil erosion. One thing that I can start doing is buying more organic and locally produced food. This would include grass fed beef and free range eggs. I can also cut back on the processed meat that I consume daily and substitute it with more vegetables and other sources of protein.

After completing this eye opener I have realized that I consume more processed food than I thought I did. Even though I have a healthy diet filled with alot of fruits and vegetables, I sitll consume packaged meat products. This not only effects my health, but also the environmental health due to the way they were produced, packaged and shipped to the local supermarket. The next time that I am grocery shopping, my goal is to buy different protein sources other than processed meat, buy free range eggs and make sure my purchases are made from local farmers rather than the big corporations.