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Fast Food Meals Still Unhealthy

Fast Food Meals Still UnhealthyFast Food meals are still unhealthy and in particular kid’s meals are also still unhealthy. Despite all of the advertising to the contrary most fast food restaurants are still loading up their fast food meals with lots of carbs, calories and salt. They tend to be filled with fat calories, fat, sugar, and sodium in kids’ meals and menu items. The salt content will give anyone high blood pressure if you eat these meals long enough.

More and more families are opting to eat out or grab something quick to feed their families. With both parents working, getting home late and with kids activities to get to many parents end up at one of the fast food restaurants for supper or even breakfast on the weekends. The choices are not great in terms of healthy meals and even if you are able to select a healthy main course, the french fries and soft drinks up the sodium and calories well beyond acceptable levels for healthy eating.

Fast Food Meals Still Unhealthy

Sodium is the silent killer in adults, elevating blood pressure and hypertension, so much so that doctors are beginning to see the same symptoms in young adults and teenagers. Imagine being in your teens and having high blood pressure! With all of the advertising these days on TV and on the internet, there are more and more ads aimed at young children and of course as parents we know what that means when we get to the restaurants.

Even if the ads are good ads, advertising healthy choices, there is the old “Bait and Switch”, approach to ordering food in fast food restaurants. You may see healthy choices advertised, however the kids meals come with a toy or some other gimmick that draws them into the less healthy choices. Some cities have gone as far as banning toys from being included with meals unless the meal fits a healthy definition.

So what can a parent do with all of this un-healthy advertising?

There is no easy answer when you are bombarded with advertising all of the time. You are short on time. The alternative is to be super organized. Have frozen meals ready for supper in advance which you prepared on the weekends. At least meals that you prepare yourself can be healthy and you can manage the amount of sodium that finds its way into both ourselves as well as our children.

It is all about choices that we make every day, what we eat, what we chose to do with our time and so on. We also have to be aware of the kinds of food that our families are eating as well.  Even fast food from the grocery store in the frozen dinner section is not a good choice. Pick up any frozen dinner, pizza or even canned food and read the ingredients.

Chances are that the sodium levels will be one third to as much as 50% of the daily intake of salt that most adults are supposed to have. With children’s smaller bodies this level will be even higher than it is for adults. Reading labels in our family has become a regular activity so that we can manage our salt intake both for ourselves and our kids.

Avoid Soft Drinks

Avoid soft drinks which is a major component of any fast food meal  to cut down on calories. Children will demand a soft drink with every meal if they can get  away with it. There are hundreds of calories in every drink. A lot of sugar which is contributing to an early onset of sugar diabetes.

When we go to a fast food outlet these days, I order a glass of water. Which not only cuts down on the calories, which is my prime objective. It also saves money as well since the drinks are really were the profit is for many of these restaurants. The kids are not so excited about drinking a glass of water. However it is better for them and they can have as much as they wish!

If you have ideas about how to avoid fast food restaurants please leave your comments on our blog. We would love to hear about our readers choices and help our readers at the same time. Spam comments will be deleted.

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