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Fast Food & Sodas Made to Be Addictive
by ConsumerAvenger
Did you ever wonder why, after you eat a fast food burger one day, you feel like eating at the same place again the next day? If you have a really good Greek meal, you might feel like eating Chinese the next day for variety. Why does eating one fast food meal make you feel like eating the exact same thing again? It's because those companies put addictive triggers in the food. They have food chemists formulate food ingredients and additives into something addictive. I'm not sure all of the fast food companies do that, but several do. I'm guessing that Taco Bell DOES NOT do this.
The major soda companies also formulate their products to be addictive. They go further, contriving to place visual reminders of their product everywhere. Where I live they place lighted vending machines with ads on them everywhere, indoors and out. This is against a city ordinance designed to prevent garish signs. As soon as they have to take one machine down, they put up another somewhere else. This is dishonorable.
Soda companies are now forcing soda drinkers to purchase 20 ounce bottles instead of 12 ounce cans. The standard 12 ounce cans were available in stores for all of my life until recently. Now the soda companies have contrived to substitute the 20 ounce bottle as their smallest size, in a nation that is the fattest country on earth. That is shameful.
Let the CEO's of Coke and Pepsi know that you are considering boycotting them because of their high pressure tactics. Tell them to bring back 12 ounce bans, take corn syrup and addictive formulations out of their sodas, and get out of the schools:
E. Neville Isdell
Chairman & CEO
Coca-Cola Corporation
One Coca-Cola Plaza
Atlanta, GA 30313
John Cahill
Chairman & CEO
The Pepsi Bottling Group Inc
One Pepsi Way
Somers, NY 10589
If you are addicted to soda, it might help to switch to something like sweetened iced tea. That provides caffeine and sugar but not the additional addictive triggers. From there, hopefully, you can taper off. It might also help to switch brands because you will not have become as addicted to the new brand, then taper off from there.
SUPPLEMENTS THAT MAY REDUCE ADDICTIVE CRAVINGS
From my personal experience these are some supplements that can help reduce addictive cravings: B6, B12, magnesium, C and MSM.
I'd recommend
1) Twinlabs brand for the B6, B12 and magnesium
2) Natrol Ester C powder (without bioflavinoids) for the C
3) Ultra Botanicals plain powder for the MSM, (which you should drink dissolved in a liquid).
Mega doses of these vitamins are usually not necessary, and may irritate your system. If your urine is flourescent yellow or green, cut back. This information does not constitue medical advice. Seek the advice of a practitioner if you need it. This is my personal experience with what helps addictive cravings. Others have reached similar conclusions.
I've been alive for a while, I was born in the sixties, and yes, the increased consumption of soda and fast food is making us fatter. I've seen it myself There is also much more acne now than when I was child. I believe that is linked to this too.
I noticed a marked increase in weight, both in the population and in myself personally, when they started those serve yourself soda fountains. I also noticed myself and others getting fatter when they started supersizing fast food.
It's all very well to say that people should be more self-disciplined. I look at it this way, people are a collaboration with their environment. We are porous. For most of human history we had trouble just getting enough food, especially fat and sweet foods. Those are tastes we are programmed to like. A liking for sweet tastes helps us avoid poisonous plants, which tend to be bitter. In most of human history, food consisted of what was available, which was gathered and cooked by designated, specially trained people for a larger group. The rest of us sat down and dug in. We aren't programmed to look at food as if it was poison, when we spent most of our history just trying to get enough of it. I think that reversing some societal changes would help bring down obesity more than the failed tactics we are employing right now.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED
These are some changes that would definitely help:
1) Remove the "all you can drink" soda fountains and go back to the sizes they had before.
2) No more supersizing.
3) No more promoting "value meals" or asking "if you want fries" with that.
4) Remove corn syrup from sodas. Corn syrup is an unnatural ingredient made by heating corn starch to high temperatures. It is certainly not present in nature. Corn is also a common allergen. I think that corn syrup might be more addictive than sugar. It doesn't give as good a taste as sugar. Sugar is cheap enough; corn syrup should be removed from sodas.
5) Taco Bell. In 1996 Taco Bell had a low fat menu which tasted good. They should bring it back, and substitute some of the regular ingredients with low fat version. Why not bake the taco shells, for instance? Refried beans can be made with very little oil. All the partially hydrogenated oil should be removed from Taco Bell's food, and some of the preservatives. To support these changes, write to Taco Bell's CEO:
Emil J. Brolick
President
Taco Bell
17901 Von Karman
Irvine, CA 92614
6) Burger places, switch to Cascadian Farms Organic Oven Fries. You can find these delicious oven fries in health food stores. I'd like to see this same product sold in fast food places instead of french fries. They taste almost like regular french fries and I think this could work.
7) Burger King. I'm talking to you. Where I live you've removed hot tea and decaf as drink options. Those were certainly healthier than soda and I want you to bring them back. Those little packets don't take up any room. You still have the hot water. You were having some supplier problems. Are you telling me that this giant company can't find someone to sell them packets of sanka and tea some tea bags? That's pathetic. In the meantime, customers can make hot tea by ordering coffee but filling the cup with hot water and some of the iced tea.
This recent giant breakfast sandwich at Burger King is just gross. It's only purpose can be to cater to obese or unhealthy people who stuff themselves with fattening foods. Naturally, this will make them even fatter. This has obviously crossed a line from providing fattening foods to creating a food just to make fat people fatter and pushing it on national TV. This is shameful. Burger King has an edge on other fast food places in that it uses fewer chemicals in their food, and in my opinion, the hamburger meat is fresher than the other big burger franchise. They also have at lettuce and tomato in their sandwiches which McDonald's may not. They should build on those attributes instead of racing to the bottom.
Write to the CEO of Burger King and let him know you want these changes and no trans fats in your food or you will take your business elsewhere:
Gregory D. Brenneman
Chairman & CEO
Burger King Corporation
5505 Blue Lagoon Dr.
Miami, FL 33126
Warning, the Hershey's Sunday Pie at Burger King has lots of partially hydrogenated oil in it. Partially hydrogenated oil is really bad stuff, banned for human consumption in two foreign countries. Don't eat this item. Burger King/Hershey's need to remake that product with real ingredients. It makes Hershey look bad to have their name on something like that.
Write to the CEO of Hershey's and let him know that all the trans fats in their Sundae pie are ruining their good name:
Richard Lenny
President & CEO
Hershey Foods Corp
100 Crystal A Drive
Hershey, PA 17033
7) KFC, formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken, has potentially the healthiest side dishes, like coleslaw and corn on the cob. They need to get ALL of the partially hydrogenated oil out of their foods, remove the MSG and other additives, and use a brand of chicken which has no hormones or routine use of antibiotics.
If you'd like to see healthier food at KFC, write to their CEO and tell him you're considering boycotting them if they don't ditch the trans fats and additives:
Gregg R. Dedrick
President & CEO
KFC Corporation
1441 Gardiner Ln.
Louisville, KY 40213
8) Imagine that along with a burger you got a waxed paper envelope with carrot sticks, celery sticks, a strip of red bell pepper, a pickle spear, an olive, and maybe a blanched snow pea pod? Doesn't that sound good? They could try giving it away as a promotion, then selling it later.
9) How about potato salad as an option instead of fries?
10) Another thing that goes well with burgers is non-alcoholic beer. I'm not generally a fan of non-alcoholic beer, but try it sometime instead of soda with a burger and fries. It goes well together. I'm not sure it will be popular enough for fast food, but it does taste good.
11) Add some fruit to fast food breakfast platters. Even a small portion would make a difference. Eating food with vitamins and minerals helps us feel full in the long run. When you eat only empty calories, your body is starving for real nourishment and keeps eating more and more in the vain quest to fill itself up.
12) Use RIPE tomatoes. They taste better and are better for you. Fast food companies are big enough that if they want the tomatoes left on the vines longer, they will be. I mean naturally ripe tomatoes. Burger King has a lot of unripe tomatoes in their hamburgers. They are serving hamburgers with white tomatoes. That is wrong.
When you eat food with a bad ingredients, like unripe tomatoes, you feel unsatisfied and are more likely to eat too much.
13) Eliminate Partially Hydrogenated Oil/Trans Fat
Partially Hydrogenated oil, aka trans fat, is one of the worst food ingredients out there. It is banned for human consumption in two foreign countries. Canada is moving towards banning it. On May 18, 2004, the Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a petition with the US Food & Drug Administration to ban the use of partially hydrogenated oils. For more information go to BanTransFats.com
Fast food companies in the US use it to fry your french fries, and other fried foods. Partially hydrogenated oil has been altered to have a grease-like texture. The problem is that it has a plastic like chemical structure and cannot be used as a healthy fat by your body. It tends to lodge in the heart, skin or lymph nodes. It can make acne worse. It very bad for heart conditions. One thing fast food companies can do right away to make their food healthier is to eliminate the use of partially hydrogenated oils. The US government should ban paritally hydrogenated oil for use in food as other countries have.
14) Ban fast foods and soda in the schools. Stop pimping our kids to corporations.
15) Ban addictive formulations.
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