Fast Food is Killing Us

As I plan the meals for next week I am again faced with the challenge of providing my family ... and myself ... with the what I know they need. I am often shocked at number of people cruising through a local drive-thru and calling it dinner (or breakfast and lunch for that matter!). "Cruising" the Internet may be a better option for a lot of reasons. I found The Nourish Network website where they compared a Taco Bell burrito and a homemade burrito. The results were not surprising to me, but when I mentioned the site to an obese friend who takes many medications to thwart high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes, she shrugged her shoulder, humphed and said, "Fast food is easier." No argument there, but what are you giving up by swinging through a drive-thru instead of cooking at home? Let's start with the link to Nourish Network's take on the Taco Bell vs homemade.

My variation to the burrito listed on the above site isn't really better or worse, it's just different. Maybe it isn't a burrito at all but that's what we call it. Here's my family's favorite:

The SimplyWyse Burrito

• Whole Wheat wrap, flour tortilla, etc.
• A can of low fat or vegetarian refried beans
• A can of tomatoes wth chiles (like Ro-Tel)
• Some cooked brown rice
• A little bit of cheddar cheese or cheese of choice
• Diced fresh tomatoes
• Diced fresh avocado
• Fresh spinach leaves or mix greens, or head lettuce, if you must
• Sour cream
• Black olives
• Lime wedges

Heat the refried beans on medium heat; add the can of tomatoes with chiles, and about a cup of cooked brown rice. Lay the tortilla on a flat surface, spoon the bean/tomato-chiles/rice mix on tortilla and spread around; add the cheese and let your family build their own by adding sour cream, tomatoes, spinach, avocado, sour cream, black olives and squeeze a bit of lime juice over all. Roll and enjoy.

Another family favorite is homemade chicken nuggets. Britain's ownJamie Oliver is striving to educate the world about healthier eating and recently (well, last year) tried to educate some young American children about chicken nuggets. His experiment failed ... seriously failed. If you haven't seen the video ... well, a picture is worth a thousand words. Click HERE . Sad, don't you think?

Imagine my surprise when I showed my grandson the video, which totally grossed him out, then actually heard him say he wanted chicken nuggets from you know who! Ah, no ... but thanks for asking! Why don't we make our own chicken nuggets, I asked. He was delighted to help and loved our homemade nuggets. Need a recipe? OK ... check out another website I found called Kids Fitness Central whose website offered a great chicken nugget recipe.

As a society of over-indulged are we really ready to make a change? Do commercials really need to remind us to eat at the dinner table? To "eat 5 a day" or remind us to get up and move? Have we become so simple-minded that we've forgotten how to think for ourselves? Do we really need doctors to tell us what to do? Don't we already know?