My children have never eaten fast food….except…
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Food Babe.com
I’ve lived under this false sense of truth for quite some time. My children have never eaten McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy’s and whatever other fast food is popular (I honestly don’t even know). They have honestly never even had a bite of food from these fast food chains.
But we did eat Chick-fil-A. And we loved it. The whole family loved it. All 6 of us. And we could eat for under $25.00. And it was easy and convenient, especially on those long summer days. We were probably eating it about once a month. Maybe twice.
Oh no. It confirmed all my worst fears (which I already kinda knew, but chose not to believe). I read the ingredient list. Yuck, yuck, yuck. There are 100 ingredients in the Chick-fil-A sandwhich alone. 18 of them are preservatives.
How can I honestly say we don’t eat food with preservatives, if I’m feeding my kids chicken sandwiches that are stocked full of preservatives? And food coloring, and refined grains, MSG, GMO corn. No, no, no. Stop. I didn’t want to read anymore.
The Food Babe had some really great articles going into the details of Chick-fil-A ingredients: ”Chick-Fil-A or Chemical-Fil-A”?
“For example, let’s take TBHQ which stands for “Tertiary Butylhydroquinone” – an ingredient that is listed twice, once in the chicken and once in the bun. TBHQ is a chemical made from butane (a very toxic gas) and can only be used at a rate of 0.02 percent of the total oil in a product. Why is there a limit to this? Maybe because eating only 1 gram of this toxic preservative has been shown to cause all sorts of issues, from ADHD in children, to asthma, allergies and dermatitis to dizziness and even has caused stomach cancer in laboratory animals. Limiting TBHQ to a certain percentage, is the same logic the FDA made when allowing a product to still contain 0.5 grams of transfat and be labeled “transfat free.” If you are consuming processed foods, eating at fast food restaurants or chains that use processed foods you are consuming an overload of preservatives and other chemicals. The high dosage is a huge factor contributing to increased auto immune disorders, rising health care and cancer in America”
It wasn’t the easiest thing to give up. I felt like it was my last easy go-to-food-choice for those long hard days when you couldn’t possibly think about cooking.
But I’ve always said, “When you know better. You do better.”
I cannot consciously feed my young children food that will harm their bodies. I believe everything we put into our bodies gives us life or gives us death. I choose life for me & my children.
I will continue to learn and grow and change and give things up. There is a price we pay for convenience. The convenience of Chick-fil-A is not worth our health. So bye-bye Chick-fil-A.
It’s been about 2 months now. I honestly don’t even miss it, now that I’ve properly researched the ingredients. We still haven’t told the kids yet that we won’t be eating in anymore. Haha! We will wait until they ask for it, and surprisingly they haven’t asked for it yet. Which makes me wonder, how much of what we feed our children are things they don’t even want or ask for?
Oh and the good news, here’s the Homemade organic version of the Chick-fil-A sandwhich that you can make at home. And from what I hear, it tastes very close to the real thing. Pretty cool huh?