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by ggm 265 days ago
> When was the last time you heard somebody (including yourself) say they feel better after eating fast food?

These foods are designed to push the yum button with a carefully chosen mix of fat, salt, carbs, umami components, sugar, protein.

It's not spaced out the way it would be eating the same ingredients slowly as a Greek salad with lamb, pita and feta, but the ingredient lists are not dissimilar, lamb for beef. The point is that ultra processed food inputs mainline all of the positive experience into a remarkably brief period of time.

Fred Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth wrote about this in "the space merchants" in 1952. I don't think they expected it to come true inside their decade, but the seeds were laid by Ray Kroc and others across that time.

I don't deny your reasoning but I kind of say you're arriving at a rejection of the yum impact a long way after you've been hooked in.

1 comments

"We all know the answer to this question: never"

Absolute nonsense, I feel amazing after eating fast food. I generally just get a chicken sandwich or burger or snack wrap, no soda or fries, maybe a milkshake - why would I not feel great after eating protein and fat? Dairy feels great for me too. This has to be utter nocebo on part of anyone who's convinced fast food is killing them, there's no way the food itself has that effect. The demonization of fast food is nonsensical in general - a burger made at McDonald's is not nutritionally different in any significant way from one made at home.

The hamburger bun has sugar, dextrose and maltodextrin, etc in it. When I bake bread at home, I don't add those things. The ketchup has corn syrup. These things might be small but maybe they add up.

https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/hamburger.html#ac...

You bake your own burger buns?
Not OP but when I make burgers at home I bake my own potato buns (not necessarily on the same day). No bakery around me makes soft savory buns and the prepacked store-bought ones have this weird synthetic and stale flavor.
I've baked boules, baguettes and pretzels, but not buns (yet). I use Jim Lahey's no-knead bread recipe. Easy and delicious.
Given a choice between eating fast food and a home cooked meal I’ll take the latter every time. But to each their own, I’m not here to judge.