Any self-respecting parent who cares about his or her child should restrict fast food. As in less than once per quarter.
Some of you may think this is a little harsh (and it’s likely going to be the ones who hit the drive thru at little more often than monthly), but I stand by that statement. The quality of fast food is abhorrent and is in no way, shape or form part of a healthy diet and is a contributor to the childhood obesity statistics we see in this country.
There are some acceptable “fast food” restaurants you can choose instead, Chipotle has some good options for kids. There are some sandwich shops that aren’t too toxic (Subway or Quizno’s are possible, but you’re going to have to put some veggies on the sandwich to bring it up to par). Maybe Taco Bell.
Ok..so maybe not Taco Bell…
But you always get your child chicken nuggets, and they’re chicken, so they can’t be that bad, right?
Wow, are you wrong. This particular study looked at what actually made up “chicken” nuggets from 2 national fast food chains (while the study did not identify the chains, you can make some guesses). Here’s what they found:
- Striated muscle (chicken meat) was not the predominate component in the nuggets.
- Fat was present in equal or greater quantities.
- Also present were cells from the epithelium (skin), bone, nerve, and connective tissue.
While this may not come as a shocker, I guess we’d expect “chicken” nuggets to be made up of mostly chicken. According to this study, that’s not even close to true. Worse, you can bet the chicken meat is not of the organic, free range variety.
If you still choose to buy your children chicken nuggets after knowing this little tidbit, I don’t really know what to say. (As a side note, I had Keegan, 7 1/2, read this article and his response was that it was just “wrong…”)
Alternatively, Costco (Kirkland brand) sells a natural chicken nugget with whole grain breading in Mickey Mouse head shapes that taste fantastic…