Yowie wrote:

But who does it hurt when we eat a Big Mac??!

Who does it hurt? Your employer when you have more days off sick, your
family & friends who have to look after you when you are sick and who are
distracted when they worry about you, and of course there's the cost to the
government providing extra medical care to unhealthy, obese and malnourished
people who are too sick to hold a regular job, and the extra cost to make
everything bigger to accomodate those who are too large to sit in regular
seats, use regular toilets, etc etc.

The inherant problem is that fast food is often far cheaper than fresh
veggies, fruit & meat, and that anyone juggling two or three minimum wage
jobs just to get by is unlikely to feel the urge to shop, store and cook
from scratch each day, and thus poor people turn to fast food that at least
fills them up, is cheap, quick, and easy to get. I am guilty of falling into
the same trap. Buying a meal at the local chicken shop isn't that much more
expensive than I can prepare myself, and if we hadn't been shopping for a
while, becomes quite attractive *especially* when its my turn tocook and I'm
exhausted from work.

GMTA, Yowie! (My post on this said essentially the same things.)

Banning fast food outlets won't work. What would work is encouraging fast
food outlets to sell healthy food at the same price as the junk.

And/or banning certain ingredients used in cooking or preparation. Which
might be where they're going with the trans-fat ban that was also discussed.

Subway is hardly junk food (its healthy, and was designed to be
that way) but bythe defintion given in the article above, it would be
banned too.

Hmm, I've heard (but I can't cite the source, so I won't bet my life on
this) that Subway food has as much fat in it as McD's. (I do think that
Subway tastes a lot better, though.)

I'm a fan of Quizno's (another US chain - I don't know if there are any
outside the country, though). They're not exactly known for health foods,
but it sure is yummy. I also don't know if it would qualify as fast food,
exactly. The food is made to order. (But isn't that true at Subway, too?)

--
Joyce ^..^

(To email me, remove the X's from my user name.)