what makes eating out /fast food more bad than cooking at home?

Question

i mean i gotta also use oil and such to cook here aswell.

Answer 1

True, you do have to use oil at home. But - you get to choose what type of oil. I use extra light olive oil and real butter.

Mainly - fast food and restaurant food contain massive amounts of salt and solid fats - in spite of the current paranoia about transfatty acids. Regardless, they are still pervasive in the restaurant business in ways you'd probably not guess.

If you cook at home, you can avoid a lot of this but if you buy frozen pizzas and hot pockets, and tv dinners, you'll end up in the same situation with fats and salt that you did from restaurants. To benefit from cooking at home, you need to use fresh vegetables and meats, basic spices, and herbs so that you KNOW for a fact what is in them.

For the record, I know all this and still eat out alot. Life is short. I don't have time to cook every day, and clean up the mess for one person. I could sweat about my food every day for 20 years then get hit by a car. I also like to cook. I use healthy ingredients where it makes sense, but I won't lower the flavor quality of the food just for the sake of healthiness in a meal. Fortunately, if you know how, you don't really have to, and I'm not talking about molly mcbutter and fake salt and soy milk. (that stuff is gross)

- Kevin

Answer 2

You lose control over ingredients and portion sizes. When YOU cook, you can substitute artificial sweetener, skim milk, low fat cheese, olive oil, or whatever. When you eat fast food, you eat whatever they make for you. Even if you say "no salt on the fries," they're going to come up out of the fryer and get dumped into a bin that has been salted all day. Also, the size of a portion has been geratly inflated. In the movie, Supersize Me," the filmmaker talks about how what now is called a medium coke used to be a large, but with people pushing the limits upwards with Big Gulps and Super Big Gulps, all of the sizes under those got bigger and bigger. A portion of meat should be about the size of your fist, not 2/3 of a pound of beef with 3 slices of bacon, 4 slices of cheese, and a bun!

Answer 3

The answers you have so far hit it on the mark...the sodium, chemicals, etc. The public has become more health conscious so the fast-food market has had to change their thinking, too, by offering healthy foods, foods cooked in oils with no transfat and making caloric values available. The big difference in eating fast-foods when I was a kid and kids today is the activity level. My entertainment was the swingset, tag and riding my bike. (oops...age slipping out). Entertainment for kids today are video games...not much physical activity there! And not much chance to work off the extra calories they ingest.

Answer 4

most fast foods are processed so they have been chemically altered by man so they are less nutritious. most are also very high in saturated fats and sodium as compared to the equivalent meal being cooked at home. basically a deadly combination when consumed in excess and over an extended period of time.

the human body was designed to ingest whole foods grown in the soil or the flesh from various animals, fish, etc. not foods "made" by this company or that company loaded with preservatives and additives that make them tastier and last longer on the shelf.

Answer 5

We shouldn't forget to mention all the MSG in fast food which leads to overeating and obesity. MSG is deadly and should be avoided by everyone. Otherwise I think everything else is covered by the other posts.

At home you can prepare real food, if you don't, if you are preparing "junk" at home, over processed, high fat, low nutritional foods at home then the only difference might be the price.

Answer 6

The onus is on you to include good and healthy ingredients.
If you are buying take/away, you don't know whats in the meal, or if good hygiene methods were put into place.

Answer 7

How long it sits out.. and how its not as fresh as the food you would buy at a atore

Answer 8

if you eat the same food at home as in fastfood then not much difference

Answer 9

transfat