Justin Timberlake may be “lovin it,” and Beyonce may be praising Pepsi (for $50 million), but take those celebrity endorsements with a grain of salt: they’re nearly always bad for you (surprise, surprise), according to a new study.

The study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, was carried out by a team of NYU researchers. They found that of 163 of the most popular music industry celebrities (a group they designated by examining Billboard’s 2013 and 2014 “Hot 100” lists) 65 had endorsed food and non-alcoholic beverages, most of which were fast foods, sugary drinks, and desserts: will.i.am and Doritos, Jessie J and Pop Tarts, Pitbull and Sheets Energy Strips, and Carrie Underwood and Hershey, are just some of many celebrity endorsements that made the list.

Of the 26 food products endorsed in the study, 81 percent were deemed “nutrient poor,” and 71 percent of the 69 beverages were high in sugar. Only one food on the list – pistachios, which were endorsed by Korean star Psy and late night talk show host Stephen Colbert – was deemed healthy.

The study’s lead researcher, Marie Bragg, compared these endorsements to old-school tobacco marketing, according to the Washington Post, highlighting the prominence that advertising has long given unhealthy habits.

While the study didn’t analyze how endorsements influence consumption, one anecdote illustrates what seems obvious to most who see this information.

“When Dr. Pepper asked Pitbull to endorse, they got 4.6 million advertising impressions, and sales went up 1.7 percent [among Latinos] — despite declining sales in the overall soft drink category,” Bragg told NPR. Other studies have shown that teens and young adults who liked hit songs that referenced alcohol brands were more likely to drink than those who didn’t; the link is there, and it is strong.

“We hope that this study will start a discussion about shifting this marketing away from unhealthy products,” Bragg said following the publication of these results.

Currently, however, the money is in unhealthy foods, and it’s making all the difference when it comes to America’s obesity epidemic.

“The popularity of music celebrities among adolescents makes them uniquely poised to serve as positive role models,” said one of the researchers, Alysa N. Miller. “Celebrities should be aware that their endorsements could exacerbate society’s struggle with obesity – and they should endorse healthy products instead.”

Some efforts have been made to this effect, especially with the trend of cleaner food and more transparency in the industry. Celebs like Cam Newton, Kristen Bell, and Jessica Alba have endorsed the Partnership for a Healthier America — at quite a pay cut as compared to their fast-food-loving colleagues –, and Venus Williams and DJ Khaled were recently seen in an endorsement for Silk plant-based milks.

Let’s hope that despite the millions that are up for grabs in celebrity endorsements for unhealthy foods, this healthy endorsement trend continues, and that celebs posing with cans of sugary soda or fatty snacks will soon be as distant a memory as doctors vouching for their favorite cigarette brands.

Related on EcoSalon
10 Haikus About Real Food: Foodie Underground
Organic Foodies Duped into Eating McDonald’s… and They’re Loving It
Snackpockalypse? Snack Foods Kill and There’s a Video to Prove It: Foodie Underground

Beyonce image via Shutterstock

The post Celebrity Endorsements are a Huge Part of America’s Obesity Problem appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnMcDonald’s does not have your best interest at heart.

I saw a video last week from a new McDonald’s advertising and marketing campaign. It irked me. No, it pissed me off. Not because the video showed some super sized glossy burger with comments like “vegetarians, foodies, and gastronauts kindly avert your eyes” and “you can’t get juiciness like this from soy or quinoa.”

I couldn’t care less that McDonald’s is coyly trying to offend me. Making fun of foodies isn’t evil in any sense of the word, even if you spat out your chia seed smoothie in disgust.

No, what pissed me off is that McDonald’s gets to continue serving up terrible food that keeps workers underpaid, continue to contribute to a host of environmental and health problems and continue to ensure that millions and millions of people keep consuming junk that’s getting worse and worse for them without having to pay any consequences.

The video in question is an attempt at reminding eaters that McDonald’s is not some pretentious, foodie haven. That the fast food chain is in some way the “people’s” restaurant. It takes a crack at what the world of good food has become: elitist.

But if there ever were a restaurant that had the good of the general people in mind, it certainly isn’t McDonald’s. While the burgers may be cheap, the company is as much out to make a profit as anyone making kale chips. It’s not out of kindness or charity that it hawks its  Dollar Menu. It’s to bring in more customers to build its global empire.

How a company is allowed to continue in this way, when we know all the harm that it does to our health, is beyond me.

As one blogger wrote, “For those of us brave enough to continue watching, we’re treated to extreme close-ups of a perfectly styled burger, and I gotta hand it to them, it made me want that decidedly not vegetarian, not foodie-endorsed Big Mac.”

I mean, really? Knowing what you know, you still want that burger? If that’s the case, then McDonald’s advertising really is effective. I watch that video and feel dirty afterwards. We all should. This isn’t about real food. It’s about food products that make us sick.

Liking kale, or Brussels sprouts, or cauliflower, or whatever else the Internet determines is the food of the moment doesn’t make you pretentious. It makes you a person who eats real food.

But we also need more restaurants and people in the food world that can help do democratize real food, so that McDonald’s doesn’t keep getting away with what it does. Good food doesn’t have to be expensive, and no, it doesn’t need to be infused with anything. Want proof? Try this Real Food for the Broke, a meal plan comes out at $.95 per person per meal. And it doesn’t come with a side of diabetes or heart disease.

Let’s all get back to basics. Let’s cook more, and use more real ingredients. Let’s make sure that McDonald’s and all its nasty counterparts don’t continue to get away with all the harm that they do.

Related on Foodie Underground:

Fight for 15, Poverty and Our Broke Food and Economic Systems: Foodie Underground

10 Fast Food Chains to Steer Clear Of

Fast Food, Fast Fashion, It’s All About Choice: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Mike Mozart

The post McDonald’s New Advertising Proves the Fast Food Chain Really is Evil (And Not Because It Hates Kale): Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

This is totally effed up but also pretty hilarious. Watch these foodies get fooled into thinking McDonald’s is a healthy and tasty alternative…to McDonald’s? Yep. 

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Related on EcoSalon

His Name is Moby and He Speaks for the Bees [Video]

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Snackpocalypse? Snack Foods Kill and There’s a Video to Prove It: Foodie Underground

The post Organic Foodies Duped Into Eating McDonald’s…and They’re Loving It appeared first on EcoSalon.

 ColumnHow sustainable can fast food really be?

If you hadn’t heard the news, McDonald’s is having a go at sustainable beef. Quite frankly, those two things in the same sentence sounds… well… wrong. But that is exactly what McDonald’s is trying to do, vowing to begin purchasing “sustainable” beef in 2016.

But wait, is there such a thing as sustainable beef? In terms of a certification, no, there is not. So McDonald’s is looking to a wide group to help come up with that definition.

“Sustainable beef is not going to be defined by McDonald’s. The key here is to get sustainable beef defined by a wide stakeholder group and coalition. We needed a bigger critical mass,” Bob Langert, McDonald’s vice president, global sustainability told GreenBiz in an in-depth interview (which if you’re interested in the topic, I highly recommend checking out).

And this brings us to the question of sustainability and corporate responsibility.

We commend big business only because we live in a world of big business.

What I mean by this is that if a small, local restaurant had the same practices as McDonald’s – low employee wages, shitty food, wasteful packaging, plastic toys, meat from god-knows-where – we would never go there. In fact, we would immediately throw up our hands in an outrage and criticize them for being a negative impact on the community. And yet, because it’s a huge business, we say to ourselves “they are so big, it’s good they’re changing how they do business because it will really have an impact.”

You know what would really have an impact? If we didn’t give the McDonald’s and Burger Kings of the world our business in the first place. (Hello, this is the business that told their underpaid employees that they should “sing away their stress” after all, and if you don’t care about sustainability and health, the least you could care about is people making a decent wage.)

No matter what your definition of sustainability it is, we can all agree on the fact that it’s difficult, if not nearly impossible, to implement on a large scale. We live in a world with big business, and while it’s certainly better for us and the environment for those businesses to act in a more sustainable manner, we’re kidding ourselves if we give them kudos (and continue to frequent their locations) for doing it. Especially when it’s a big business with a pretty horrendous track record.

Which raises yet another question: when it comes to corporate responsibility, in my opinion, propping the public full of high fructose corn syrup, addictive additives and calories is probably on the more irresponsible side of things. Sure, responsible for business – you sell more burgers after all and that makes the CEO happy – but irresponsible in regards to public health.

I will tell you what’s sustainable:

Not eating at large fast food chains.

Supporting local, independent farmers.

Because if McDonald’s is looking to sell more “sustainable” beef, they know that doing so is a good business move. It’s not because they truly care about the planet and the environment – they just want to sell more burgers. The business move says that the market is demanding more sustainably produced products, and if the market demand is there, that implies that the consumer is educated, making choices about where their food comes from and we should have no problem switching to something else entirely. As consumers, that would be our responsible choice.

Why? Because the words sustainable and fast food don’t go together, no matter how many layers of greenwashing you paint the billboards with.

Related on EcoSalon

15 Reasons to Never Let Anyone You Love Near a McDonald’s

Fast Food, Fast Fashion… It’s All About Choice

Why We Have to Live Without Fast Food: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: brykmantra

The post Hey McDonald’s, Sustainable Meat Doesn’t Make You Responsible: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

 ColumnWe know fast food is bad for us, yet we keep eating it. It’s time to stop.

Is it possible to live without fast food?

The answer to that question is simple. You don’t need burgers, fries and milkshakes on a regular basis. But in today’s economy with easy accessibility to fast food chains almost no matter where you are, the question becomes more complex than that: are we willing to choose to live without fast food?

Unfortunately, many of us are not. We are addicted. And even if we choose not to eat fast food, large chains are so commonplace around the world that it’s no surprise that hamburgers and the like are just a part of our subconscious. For example, in France, McDonald’s recently launched an “unbranded” advertising campaign; no text, no logos, just photos of McDonald’s menu items that are so iconic that they are recognizable just by looking at them. Even if you are not a regular McDonald’s consumer, the photos are identifiable, proof that the fast food chain has made its way into our everyday lives, whether we want it or not.

Fortunately, while McDonald’s makes two-thirds of their revenue outside of the U.S., there are 105 countries around the world that don’t have a McDonald’s.  Those countries may have their own homegrown fast food chains, but at least there are still places in the world where you can get away from the Golden Arches.

But if it’s not McDonald’s, it’s something else. In the United States, it’s not strange to live within closer proximity to a fast food restaurant than to a grocery store; consuming fast food is most often the easy and economical choice. Why drive five miles to buy a head of broccoli that you will then have to cook than going one and getting an entire meal for under $5?

In my bubble, I am always shocked to find that people are still eating fast food. “Didn’t you read “Fast Food Nation” or watch “Supersize Me”??” “Fast Food Nation” may have been published more than decade ago, and we may have come a long way in terms of talking about food and what we eat, but if you think we’re doing well in regards to what we eat on average as a society, you are living in a Happy Meal.

We know all the harm that fast food does. We know it makes us sick, we know it’s bad for the environment, we know that it’s addictive and we know that it’s a major contributor to the global problem of obesity. And yet, we sit back and watch it take over. We let it happen.

Example? Breakfast. Nowadays, the average American eats a takeout breakfast in their car about eight times a year. That may not sound like a lot. But it’s eight times more than necessary. The business response is of course to tackle the breakfast market. Taco Bell just launched new breakfast offerings, which include a waffle that resembles a taco and a “breakfast drink” that consists of 5 percent orange juice and 95 percent Mountain Dew. Eat that for breakfast every day for a week and let me know how you feel.

Seriously, no one in their right mind would ever tell you that a waffle taco and a sweetened drink that’s mostly soda is part of a complete breakfast. But people will eat it anyway. Because we’re seduced by marketing and we’ll gladly take the easy choice. Bowl of oatmeal that needs to be prepared at home or drive-thru breakfast that we can eat in the peaceful solitude of our cars? At some point we made a very wrong turn, and unless we stand up for real food we’re about to drive society off the proverbial cliff.

But until we as a society say no to fast food, we’ll continue to live in a system that’s dictated by the food that they serve. And don’t even think about playing the “some people can only afford fast food” card. The richer you are, the more likely you are to consume fast food. A Gallup poll regarding fast food consumption shows that more than half of people earning $75,000 annually or more eat fast food at least weekly, whereas only 39 percent of those earning under $20,000 do. What’s worse? Only 22 percent of Americans think that fast food has some nutritional value to it, but eight out of Americans admit to eating fast food at least once a month.

Time for a reality check people. Living without fast food is perfectly doable; and it’s not just healthy, but a necessity. It’s easy: you say no. Every single time. Even when you have a craving. There’s always a good veggie burger to be made at home after all.

Most importantly, there’s simply no excuse for eating industrialized fast food, because there’s no replacement for real food, and a waffle taco will never constitute breakfast. Ever.

Related on EcoSalon:

15 Reasons Never to Let Anyone You Love Near a McDonald’s

10 Fast Food Chains to Steer Clear Of

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: ebruli 

The post Why We Have to Live Without Fast Food: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Hamburgers visualized.

There are a lot of fast food chains in the United States.

Stephen Von Worley – a master at data visualization – put together this “Beefspace” map, taking information from AggData and mapped out various fast food chains according to location. The points are color coded, black is McDonald’s, red Burger King, yellow Wendy’s, magenta Jack In The Box, periwinkle Sonic, cream Dairy Queen, green Carl’s Jr., and cyan Hardee’s.

A close-up of East Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana

What is clearly an overwhelming amount of fast food chains in a country that is facing a serious obesity problem, the result is visually stunning and mind boggling all at the same time..

See more close-ups of the map here.

The post What Does Our Fast Food Consumption Actually Look Like? appeared first on EcoSalon.

When thinking of a healthy french fry, think zucchini. When thinking of eating this at a McDonalds, wait for pigs to fly.

French fries seem easy enough – just a matter of potatoes and frying oil, right? Wrong. The kind of fast-food fries we’re used to aren’t as straightforward as they seem. McDonald’s French Fries contain the likes of natural beef flavor (wheat and milk derivatives), citric acid, dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate, hydrogenated oils, stabilizer tertiary butylhydroquinone, and anti-foaming agent dimethylopolysiloxane. Many of these artificial ingredients are dangerous in large quantities and overall toxic in your body.

One medium serving (117 grams) of McDonald’s French Fries packs 380 calories, 19 grams of fat, 270 milligrams of sodium, and 48 grams of carbohydrates. With one serving accounting for nearly 30 percent of your daily value of fat, the 5 grams of dietary fiber and vitamin C calcium, and iron quantities, albeit scant to begin with, are vastly overshadowed. The carbohydrate count isn’t doing any favors to your waistline either.

With these stats, there is room for a serious makeover. To lower the fat, this recipe requires baking the fries, which are lightly coated with olive oil. I also used zucchini as the base to slash the carbohydrate load. Zucchini won’t crisp quite like a potato when baked, but it will firm slightly and taste absolutely crave-worthy. The corn flour helps to achieve a crispy brown coating, but if you want a firmer fry, replace the zucchini with a sweet potato or white potato. Regardless of how you alter the base vegetable or ratio of spices, you are bound to end up with a healthier alternative to the Micky D’s classic.

Spicy Zucchini Fries

Serves 1-2

Ingredients:

• 1 large zucchini
• 1/4 cup corn flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/8 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut off both ends of the zucchini and slice it along its length into 1/2-inch pieces.

Set aside one of the rounded edge slices and turn zucchini onto its side so it is lying flat. Again, slice lengthwise into 1/2-inch thick pieces to create French fries shapes.

In a medium bowl, toss zucchini strips with corn flour, salt, pepper, turmeric, oregano, red pepper flakes, and olive oil until each fry is evenly coated with the spices and oil.

Lay fries out on a baking sheet so each has its own place.

Bake for 45 minutes or until browned and slightly crisped. Serve with herbs and ketchup!

Bon Appetit!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Nutritional Breakdown: Revamping the McDonald’s French Fry appeared first on EcoSalon.

Stroke and heart-attack inducing portions of unhealthy fats, serious hygiene issues and animal cruelty should be enough to keep you away from these 10 fast food chains.

Given that the nature of fast food requires it to be quite literally thrown together by low-paid employees using low-quality ingredients, it’s hard to find reasons to ever get food there in the first place. But let’s say you sometimes get a hankering for a certain type of fried chicken sandwich and some piping hot fries, and you just can’t resist hitting up the drive-through on the way home from work or in the midst of a long car trip. You might appreciate knowing, first, that certain chains will turn around and use your money to fight against gay marriage, while others base their branding on sexist stereotypes. And let’s be real: most of them are just plain gross. Here are 10 of the absolute worst.

Chik-fil-A: Anti-Gay, Anti-Kale, Egregious Misspeller

If Chik-fil-A was aiming to offend as many people as possible and make themselves out to be a comic book-worthy villain, they’ve succeeded, between anti-gay sentiments and trying to destroy a guy who just really loves kale. Chik-fil-A has long funded anti-gay groups and propositions including “ex-gay therapy.” Then, in 2011, it sued a Vermont-based folk artist for selling t-shirts and bumper stickers that say “Eat More Kale,” alleging that the phrase might  get mixed up with their own advertising tagline, “Eat Mor Chik’n.” Because it’s so easy to confuse family-farmed kale with factory-farmed fried chicken.

If you do get a hankering for a fried chicken sandwich, Chik-fil-A style, you don’t have to resort to slinking guiltily through one of their fast-food drive-thrus (closed on Sundays, because they’re extra-godly.) Make yourself a “Chik-fil-Gay sandwich with the help of YouTube chef Hilah Johnson. It’s bound to be better than the real thing.

McDonald’s: Global Disseminator of High-Fat, Low-Nutrition Junk

It’s hard to even call the slop that McDonald’s serves by the billions around the world food when a burger they made in 1996 still looks exactly the same 16 years later. McDonald’s meals are loaded with fat, calories and sodium, with so little nutrition that your pets’ food might actually be a healthier choice. The fast-food kingpin processes almost a million cows per year into hamburgers, making it a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and supports the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. And have you ever wondered what’s in that secret sauce, anyway? 33 ingredients, including something called propylene glycol aginate.

Burger King: Dirtiest of All Fast Food Chains

Mmm – boot-flavored lettuce. We can’t lie to ourselves – the sort of thing that was documented in a photograph at an Ohio Burger King happens everywhere, including behind the closed doors of fine-dining restaurant kitchens. But recent headline-grabbing incidents aside, Burger King has repeatedly been deemed the dirtiest fast food chain of them all. A Dateline NBC investigation identified 241 critical health violations at 100 locations including employees not washing their hands, uncovered food in the fridge and grime and debris in the ice shoot. Furthermore, activists revealed in 2008 that Burger King has engaged in some tricky tactics to discredit efforts to improve horrific conditions suffered by migrant workers in Florida tomato fields.

Taco Bell: Low Quality Food, Racist Ads

This slinger of faux Mexican food actually came in last in the aforementioned Dateline NBC investigation with the least health violations out of 10 fast food chains, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean. Among the 91 violations discovered at 100 locations were dirty counters and rodent droppings. In November and December 2006, over 70 people in five states were sickened by bacteria-infested onions at Taco Bell restaurants. The chain is pushing a “fresh, healthy” angle with its new Cantina line, which attempts to mimic the higher quality food at the higher-end Chipotle chain. But while Chipotle uses hormone-free meats and organic produce when possible, Taco Bell skimps, and customers can tell: it consistently gets low quality food scores in customer surveys. Granted, the Cantina line hasn’t debuted just yet, but the same employees who toss around sloppy refried bean and nacho cheez Gorditas are going to be putting together those higher-end meals.

One thing Taco Bell has proven itself proficient at, other than convincing people that they want to eat tacos made out of Doritos: packing as many racial stereotypes into its advertising as possible.

KFC: Culinary Abominations Galore

Two words: Double Down. This disgusting monstrosity of a sandwich is now the very definition of fast food gluttony – a bacon and cheese sandwich encased in two hunks of fried chicken in lieu of bread. Its announcement on April Fool’s Day made it seem like a joke, but the sandwich was launched in the U.S. less than two weeks later. KFC is also responsible for the gastronomic abomination that is the Cheesy Bacon Bowl. In April, KFC had to pay out $8.3 million to the family of a little girl who was brain-damaged after contracting salmonella at one of its Australian branches. And of course, KFC has been the focus of a long-running PETA campaign called “Kentucky Fried Cruelty,” and for good reason: employees at a KFC supplier were filmed kicking chickens and throwing them against a wall.

Arby’s: High Calories, Not so Clean

Does one human finger in a sandwich – proven not to be a planted hoax by a money-hungry customer with a lawsuit gleaming in his eye – reflect on an entire restaurant chain? It does when that chain has hundreds of critical health and sanitation violations under its belt. So not only do Arby’s employees fail to wash their hands, they also fail to retrieve pieces of said hands when they’re accidentally removed by the meat slicer. More than 70 people were sickened with salmonella after eating at a Georgia Arby’s in 2007.

Arby’s is home to some of the most calorific fast food items in the nation, including the 740-calorie Beef N’ Cheddar with Pepper Bacon sandwich, which has both cheese sauce and something called “red ranch sauce.”

Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s: Monster Calorie Burgers, Sexist Ads

Carl’s Jr. has distinguished itself by trying to make grease and messy, dripping chemical-laden sauces sexy with ad campaigns featuring women like Paris Hilton and Sports Illustrated cover model Kate Upton, wherein the women are seen as something to be devoured, too. Sister restaurant Hardee’s has had its own sexist ads, like one that says “Guys don’t bake.” Both brands rely on marketing themselves as “manly,”associating masculinity with massive stacks of low-quality meat.

While Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are the first fast food chains in the nation to offer turkey burgers, that’s hardly enough to make up for three of the unhealthiest fast food sandwiches in America: the Hardee’s Monster Thickburger (1420 calories), the Hardee’s Double Bacon Cheese Thickburger (1300 calories) and the Carl’s Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger (1520 calories.)

Wendy’s: Not as Healthy As You Think

With the help of a cute pigtailed mascot and a reputation that still hinges on a perception of old-fashioned quality after all these decades, Wendy’s is often considered to be one of the healthier fast food options. The truth is, Wendy’s is hardly healthier than its most-maligned competitor, McDonald’s, and it’s not even as clean. You might imagine that Wendy’s natural-cut sea salt fries sound like a refreshingly less-processed alternative to other fast food fries, but they actually have way more sodium at 630 milligrams in a large-sized serving. That’ll blow a huge hole in your recommended maximum daily intake of 2400 milligrams. The Triple Burger with Everything and Cheese is a more obviously unhealthy choice with 970 calories and 60 grams of fat, but you might not expect the Southwest Taco Salad to be as heart-attack-inducing as it is, with 645 calories, 38.5 grams of fat and 1565 milligrams of sodium.

Wendy’s came in at number three on Dateline NBC’s list of unsanitary fast food restaurants with 206 critical violations in 100 restaurants, including mice droppings on shelves and bare hands in contact with food.

Pizza Hut: More Unholy Food Combinations

Can’t decide between a fatty cheeseburger and a greasy slice of pizza? You’re in luck! At least, you are if you live in the Middle East, where Pizza Hut is offering a cheeseburger-stuffed pizza. British diners have access to an unholy pizza/hot dog mashup. But the Pizza Huts here in the states have plenty of their own unhealthy options, like the Triple Meat Italiano Pizza, which has 1,280 calories and 23 grams of fat.

And though it’s not on this list, Pizza Hut’s competitor Dominos deserves a mention thanks to its Chicken Carbonara Breadbowl Pasta, a giant wad of pizza dough topped with penne pasta, cream and cheese. It’s got 1,480 calories, 56 grams of fat and an amazing 2,220 milligrams of sodium – and yes, it’s meant for one person.

Jack in the Box: Marry Bacon. Or Don’t.

This chain was the setting for one of the most infamous fast-food-poisoning incidents of all time, an outbreak of E. coli that killed four children and sickened hundreds of people in 1993. Jack in the Box has upped its safety measures since then, implementing new testing mechanisms for the bacteria and increasing meat-cooking temperatures. But that doesn’t mean they’ve cleaned up their act altogether. They came in at number 6 on Dateline NBC’s list with 164 critical health and sanitation violations including several complaints of food-borne illness.

Jack in the Box isn’t trying to hide behind a facade of health at least. Ad Week called the chain’s “Marry Bacon” TV commercial” a love song to pig shavings, and that’s probably a nice way of putting it. In 2008, the nonprofit Cancer Project crowned Jack in the Box’s Junior Bacon Cheeseburger “the most unhealthful” menu item available at fast food restaurants in America. It’s got 23 grams of fat, 860 milligrams of sodium and a whole lot of bacon – which, the dietitians behind the list note, is associated with increased colorectal cancer risk.

Long John Silver’s: Stroke in a Cardboard Container

If there’s any food item that should really, really be as fresh as possible when you eat it, it’s probably fish. After all, just a few days past its prime, fish starts to get awfully stinky. So the idea of a fast food restaurant serving fried fish is bad enough as it is – but it might also give you a stroke. A 2010 study linked high rates of fried fish consumption to the stroke belt in the South, where the death rate from strokes is abnormally high. There’s no doubt that fish can be good for you, but not when it’s covered in oily breading. And like many fast food restaurants, Long John Silver’s still uses trans fats to fry its greasy foods. Their food is almost oily enough to make you believe that this satirical story about the chain buying already-oiled fish from the Gulf of Mexico after the BP spill is true.

Photo: keoni101

The post 10 Fast Food Chains to Steer Clear Of appeared first on EcoSalon.

T-minus 32 days.

With little more than a month until opening ceremonies, it’s clear that Olympics mania has swept Great Britain, if not the entire world. That’s why it wasn’t a surprise to find dozens upon dozens of infographics exploring every single aspect of London 2012, from the games’ economic impact to the rise in ticket prices to random facts and figures (did you know that Londontown is now home to the biggest McDonald’s ever?). If you just can’t take the anticipation for this year’s games to kick off, here are ten fun infographics to whet your appetite.

Olympic Evolution: A look at how the Olympic Games have grown from 14 participating nations to more than 200.

Triple Host City: London is the first city to host the Olympic Games three times, in 1908, 1948, and this year. See how the city has changed in that time.

By The Numbers: A round-up of facts and figures.

Time Out’s London 2012 Infographic: More numbers, care of Time Out London.

The Optimization of the Olympic Games: Find out why London 2012 has been dubbed the “Techlympics” and see how we got there.

Team GB: Our Greatest Team: Team Great Britain’s infographical version of a smackdown.

London 2012 Olympics: A creatively designed graphic depicting the opinions of UK citizens toward the games.

The Economic Impact of the 2012 London Olympics: These games mean business (literally).

2012 London Olympic Games Ticket Prices: A graphical guide to finding the best bargains.

Avoiding the Olympics: And if you just can’t take all of the Olympic mania, here’s how you can avoid it all together.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

10 Earth Day Infographics

10 Food Infographics That Have Us Consciously Consuming

10 Travel Infographics To Spark Your Wanderlust

Check out more infographics here.

Image: Matthew Kenwrick

The post 10 Infographics on the London 2012 Olympics appeared first on EcoSalon.

Big Macs aren’t good for you. You’d think the world would know this by now, but more often than not we witness McDonalds drive-thru traffic jams that our own friends and family are in. It’s one thing to hear, to know better, to understand; and it’s another thing to internalize, accept, and react accordingly. So let me say this again: Big Macs aren’t good for you and here are some reasons why.

An Icon is Born

In 1967, McDonald’s franchisee Jim Delligatti began to serve double-decker cheeseburgers on a double-cut bun in an effort to find a way to structure the messiness caused by the company’s token “special sauce.” Expanding from its humble beginnings in Uniontown, PA to locations across the nation as soon as the next year, the new burger was labeled the “Big Attraction” with its two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and sesame-seed bun. Today, the Big Mac has come to be a symbol of everything stereotypically American – capitalism, commercialism, and gluttony.

The original sales price of the iconic Big Mac was 45 cents, compared to the current $3.00, and today McDonald’s sells as many as 550 million Big Macs per year in the U.S., with a scope of some 120 countries.

The Fat Facts

Let’s talk about the one of the Big Mac’s biggest offenses: fat. A Big Mac is by no means a stranger to it. Each serving packs 550 calories, 260 calories of which come from fat. That’s nearly half of the entire burger’s calories and 45 percent of your daily balance! And of this whopping 29 grams of fat, 10 grams are saturated and 1.5 grams are trans. A Big Mac also contains 75 mg cholesterol, which is 25 percent of your daily allowance. And similarly alarming is the Big Mac’s sodium content. Each serving contains 1,070 milligrams.

Now, if you’ve done some of your own research, don’t be fooled by the Big Mac’s apparent virtuous side. According to the nutritional profile made available by McDonalds itself, each serving contains 3 grams of dietary fiber, 25 grams of protein and offers 6, 2, and 25 percent of our daily vitamin A, C and calcium requirements. Sounds positive, right?

It is important to keep in mind that not all nutrients are the same across the board, and this supposed uplifting aspect to the Big Mac is shadowed by its downsides as well as the quality of its ingredients. For example, the protein you get from animal products differs substantially from the protein you receive from plants, in terms of quality, assimilation, and overall health benefits. The fiber, protein and vitamins in a Big Mac are frankly not that compelling.

If You Can’t Pronounce It, Don’t Eat It

Given the stats, it doesn’t take a wild guess to know the Big Mac is compromising big time in the ingredients department.

Among the many ingredients that make up the Big Mac bun, for example, are high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, calcium silicate, wheat gluten, emulsifier (mono- and diglycerides, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of fatty acids, ethanol, sorbitol, polysorbate 20, potassium propionate), sodium stearoyl lactylate, dough conditioner (corn starch, ammonium chloride, ammonium sulfate, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, enzymes), and calcium propionate (preservative).

That’s a mouthful.

Aside from the fact that most of those are nearly impossible to pronounce at first go, many of these ingredients are dangerous. Azodicarbonamide is even banned in some countries around the world because it is a respiratory sensitizer and may harm people with asthma or those prone to allergies – to say nothing of the obvious culprits in the list, such as high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.

The “special sauce” is indeed special – for its creepy add-ins, that is. The sauce includes high fructose corn syrup, sugar, the preservatives propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate, and hydrolyzed (corn gluten and wheat) proteins.

And if you knew what any of that actually meant, you’d realize “hydrolyzed proteins” is just a fancy way of spelling out monosodium glutamate, or the infamous MSG. The flavor enhancer, MSG, has been picking up a lot of heat these days, because it is reported to cause headaches, flushing, sweating, numbness, a rapid heart beat, chest pain, nausea, and weakness, among other things. The sauce also contains the fertility-damaging polysorbate 80 and its preservatives are known to inhibit nutrient absorption – if, of course, there were any particularly beneficial nutrients to speak of in the Big Mac to begin with.

Best of the Worst

On a positive note, the only time you should eat a Big Mac is by association. A Whopper contains 760 calories and 47 grams of fat, a Wendy’s quarter-pound single with cheese has 500 calories and 26 grams of fat, a Hardee’s Thickburger comprises 910 calories and 64 grams of fat, a Sonic Cheeseburger with mayo packs 700 calories and 42 grams of fat, and a 10-sack of White Castle sliders has 1,700 calories and 90 grams of fat. But that’s the only health list a Big Mac will top.

So, instead of rolling through the drive-thru, consider making a homemade, “real” version of a burger.

Vegan Chickpea Burger

Serves 5

Ingredients:

• 1 can chickpeas, mashed
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large white onion
• 2 hot peppers (or 1 jalapeno)
• 2 scallions
• 2 garlic gloves
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1.5 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 3 tbsp ground oats
• Buns, avocado, tomato, red onion, and lettuce for garnish

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

Image: Leo Almighty

The post The Breakdown: Looking at the Nutrional Value of a Big Mac appeared first on EcoSalon.