The Fast-food Guide: What's Good, What's Bad, and how to Tell the Difference

The Fast-food Guide: What's Good, What's Bad, and how to Tell the Difference
ISBN-10
0894803514
ISBN-13
9780894803512
Category
Health & Fitness / General
Pages
225
Language
English
Published
1986
Publisher
Workman Pub.
Authors
Michael F. Jacobson, Sarah Fritschner

Description

"Fast food is certainly the eating phenomenon of the mid-twentieth century. Good-bye home-cooked meal ; hello hamburger heaven. While tens of millions of people pass through the portals of fast-food restaurants every day, they have had little guidance other than their taste buds to help them with their menu choices. Ingredients and nutrients are not listed on wrappers or on wall charts. Instead, it's pay your money, gulp it down, and hope for the best. With Americans spending some $50 billion a year on fast foods, and with a growing number of people deeply concerned about the quality of their own diets and their kids' diets, we believe that anyone considering a visit to a fast-food restaurant should have comparative information about the products. This book gives that and much more. We have obtained every bit of information that we could possibly cajole out of the major companies, we got some more from occasional cooperative clerks, we commissioned laboratory studies on the fat content of hamburgers and french fries, we calculated the approximate sugar content of foods, and we even searched through a few trash bins to obtain ingredient information listed on bulk packaging. You can use this book to identify the most nutritious choices at your favorite restaurant. Or you can compare similar foods produced by different restaurant chains. And, in some cases, you can peruse ingredient information to see if foods contain something to which you're allergic. Unfortunately, this book is not as complete as we'd like it to be for the simple reason that some companies refuse to disclose information about their products. Some companies have never even conducted nutritional analyses of their products. You should be forewarned that ingredient and nutrition information supplied by companies may contain errors or be out-of-date, that companies may change their recipes from time to time, and that individual outlets sometimes have a choice of several ingredient options for a particular product. Consequently the food that you purchase may not be precisely what is indicated here. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is urging companies to provide more information and at the same time advocating legislation that would require ingredient information to be printed right on the fast-food packaging. We also urge readers to help turn on the lights in the fast-food world. First, use this book. Customer preferences guide restaurants to produce either nutritious or nonnutritious foods. Our buying dollars can spur the spread of salad bars, low-fat baked chicken and fish, and other healthful products. Second, ask for skim milk, whole-wheat buns, fresh fruit, and other nutritious foods that seem to be verboten in fast-food restaurants. Third, urge your senators and representatives to support legislation that would require fast-food restaurants to disclose the ingredient and nutrition composition of their products."--adapted from Before You Eat Your Next Burger and Fries, pages 9-10.

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