Arby’s Angus Three Cheese & Bacon Toasted Sub
[source]

April Fools? 660 calories, 33g fat (13 saturated), 0.5g trans fat, 1810mg sodium, 2g fiber, 3g sugars, 47g protein

Highlights of Joy:

• A load of calories and fat coming from processed meat, bread and cheese. Your body will not metabolize these as efficiently as less processed food calories [see here].
• Processed red meat, which is linked to cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, since it’s got those lovely sodium nitrates. See here and here.
• Trans fat (from the bread) is pretty unanimously considered a bad fat (it’s synthetically produced). Trans fat is shown to increase bad cholesterol and reduce good cholesterol, which increases risk for heart disease. You know a food has trans fat not just from the nutrition label (since, technically, if a food has less than .5g trans fat/serving, the product can list “0g trans fat”), but also from the ingredients list as “partially hydrogenated __ <insert type of oil here>.” The World Health Organization recommends zero consumption/daily.
• More sodium than is recommended in a day for about half of the U.S. population. Consider that the USDA’s 2010 dietary recommendations (published 2011) included reducing daily sodium intake to < than 2,300 milligrams (mg) and decreasing intake to 1,500 mg for persons 51+ and those of any age who are African American or who have hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease [via Fooducate here].
• Azodicarbonamide. Say that with me three times. According to Fooducate, it’s a dough conditioner found in bread products that also bleaches the flour. Unfortunately: “It’s considered safe in the US at up to 45 parts per million, but is banned from use in Europe because studies showed it could cause asthma or allergic reactions” [via Fooducate's "5 Bread Ingredients to Avoid" here]. If Europe bans it, I consider it banned here.
• DATEM. No, this isn’t an abbreviated command to “date him,” it’s an acronym for Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Monoglycerides found in the bread. According to Fooducate: it’s a dough conditioner that is “considered safe by the FDA, but a study in 2002, on rats, showed ‘heart muscle fibrosis and adrenal overgrowth.’” [via Fooducate's "The Top 20 Ingredients Used in Bread" here].
• High Fructose Corn Syrup in the Parmesan ranch sauce. Though it’s still considered safe by the FDA, the jury’s still out on just how safe this chemically altered sugar is.
• “Caramel coloring” (in the meat) is linked to cancer [here].

And, honestly there’s even more to investigate. What’s propylene glycol alginate (in the Parmesan sauce) or natamycin (in the cheddar) or L-cysteine (in the bread)? It would take me a day of research to unravel the many “good mood”-inducing horrors of this toasted sub. And I’m tired. And cranky. And I have a full day of more good-mood-inducing research tomorrow, though this time on Jack Kerouac, On the Road & ecocriticism. Fun times

Are you feeling that good mood yet?

<3,

The Cranky One

Watch the commercial here:

Call us sick, but my twin Chris and I *love* to stroll down candy memory lane and reminisce about our poor eating habits. Weird, right? It’s just an interesting experiment in behavior modification and lifestyle change to look at the past and see how what passed for “normal” back then is completely outrageous in our vision today. So, for fun (at least for me!), I thought I would give you a glimpse into what would have been my eating habits about 10 years ago:

Breakfast

Source

• Costco Double Chocolate Muffin – 690 calories, 38 g fat, 3 g fiber, 10 g protein

Lunch
Source

• McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets – 185 calories, 11.7 g fat, 0 g fiber, 9.7 g protein

Source

• McDonald’s French Fries (small) – 231 calories, 11.5 g fat, 2.8 g fiber, 2.8 g protein

Lunch #2

• Reesesticks (King-Sized) — 460 calories, 26 g fat, 2 g fiber, 8 g protein

Source
• Hot Cheetos (2 servings) — 340 calories, 22 g fat, 1 g fiber, 4 g protein

Dinner

• Arby’s Curly Fries (large) — 604 calories, 36 g fat, 7 g fiber, 8 g protein

Dessert

TOTAL STATS FOR FOOD CONSUMED IN ONE DAY: 3,590 calories, 195.20 g fat, 21.8 g fiber, 84.5 g protein
What’s even sadder is that I’m pretty sure this wasn’t as bad a day as I typically had.  I didn’t even include all the soda I used to drink!

What do you guys think? Can any of you “boast” having similarly awful eating habits in the past? What amazes me so much is not how much or what I ate, but that I even survived without getting diabetes or something else awful. I think I may have pulled a 180 just in the knick of time. These days, I don’t eat fast food, am extremely cautious of any processed or packaged foods I eat, and don’t eat meat. Moral of the story: we can drastically change, re-educate ourselves, decondition out of bad habits and get to a point of seeing no other way but the healthy way!

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