This weekend when I went to the March Madness of Central Washington - the State 1A/2A Basketball Tournaments in Yakima - you know that city that reminds you of District 9? I was obviously at the mercy with what was available for food on the run in between games. Naturally I could have gone to a super market and buy like sandwich material, but who does that? The Amish?
The result, much to the chagrin of my conscious, is that I ate a lot of fast food. In fact, the only thing I ate was fast food. The workers there recognized me by the second day and by the third day they called me "Mr. Hansen" and had my order up before I asked for it.
My choices? The holy trifecta of suck - Seven Eleven, Dairy Queen and Taco Bell. In other words, had I stayed a week longer, I would have weighed like 300 pounds.
Now lately I've been that insufferable healthy eating douche that goes for veggies and soup, low-calorie options that allow me not to turn into Jabba the Hutt. Before going to Yakima, I had cut out fast food almost entirely out of my diet. I also became a Buddhist, was looking to campaign for world peace and turned into a hippie. Because that's what people that don't eat fast food do.
Remember "Super Size Me." I always thought that movie was a load of bull, but I had my own personal experience with what is feeding America's fat problem.
I'm not joking, not trying to get on a soapbox. It was just seriously shocking to me and my body, as to just how crappy our fast food is. It's like the Washington Wizards of a dining experience. Now my body wasn't exactly use to high grease, high calorie servings I was stuffing in my face, but that's no excuse for it making me physically sick after eating. Food from the supermarket doesn't do that. Here's some things I've noticed...
1. When you first walk into the fast food joint, a wave of grease hits you - Ahhh America. You can feel your arteries just hardening when you walk in the door. You've got to walk past the desert pie tray and stand in line because the place is packed - because everybody eats fast food now. You kind of don't want to touch anything because it's greasy to the touch, even the other customers. Also note, you don't see thin people at a fast food restaurant. Look around. They're not there. They're at the gym.
2. Those poor, poor fast food workers - They get paid minimum wage and they have to deal with 400 pounders getting angry when they don't put tomatoes on their triple-decker cheeseburger. You know, cause that tomato was totally going to offset the 6,500 calories they were about to consume. Its seriously a terrible, thankless job. And what happens if one of the people falls out of their scooters? You'll need a crane to get them back into it.
3. Kids, everywhere - Glad to see the future of America getting a nice dose of fast food that will no doubt give them a wonderful case of childhood obesity. Also note that parents are at least 10 times ruder when they have kids. They don't come up to the counter when their number is called because they're too busy pulling their kids off an exposed electrical outlet. They push you out of the way to get their 40 items they got for their 8 kids. Oh, and the world doesn't have an overpopulation problem. It made me want to get snipped and trust me, guys don't want to get snipped.
4. The food is disappointing - Does anyone ever feel happy about diving into two cheeseburgers and a large fry. I look at it like "oh boy, this is gonna be gross. I am a failure as a human being." Remember when we were hunter gatherers and we like gave thanks to the gods for providing us a great elk or bear that we had to kill with our own hands? Boy have the mighty fallen.
5. The aftermath - I had a food coma for the first time in a year, and wasn't exactly spry on my feet for the state tournament games. Lets just say I didn't stand up a whole lot.
Its pretty evident that fast food is just not for me anymore. I believe I'm going to go full-on hippie, eat tree bark and lentil beans, and probably live up in a Redwood.
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Here's a book on how you can eat healthier
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