Gay rights aside, fast food chicken unhealthy
For the past week I have witnessed a growing tension concerning the fast-food giant Chick-fil-A and the issue of marriage rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens. Recent comments from the company's president, Dan Cathy, and Chick-fil-A's history of funding "anti-gay" causes, have become focal points for online arguments that cover everything from religion to civil rights. As momentum builds within the LGBT movement, both internationally and domestically, it's time that America starts to have a real conversation about issues like equal marriage rights. Comically enough, Chick-fil-A may finally be that opportunity.
What I find most interesting about the whole conversation are all the claims to boycott Chick-fil-A. After a bit of consideration, I realized that I had been "boycotting" Chick-fil-A for quite some time now, though not because of their stance on LGBT issues — which I had known about before Cathy's interview — but because most of their products were (and still are) harmful to my health.
In a blog post featured on The Huffington Post, Conor Gaughan wrote that "We are not arguing over chicken." My answer would be: Why aren't we arguing over chicken? The fact remains that fast food, along with processed, industrialized meat products, is going to be the single biggest health challenge to this nation in the coming decades. We're already starting to see the signs: More than one-third of Americans are obese, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and health costs related to increased weight cover nearly 10 percent of Americans' medical expenses. The big culprit behind these numbers remains the insanely high consumption of calories, carbohydrates and sodium that figures so prominently in the American diet — a diet fueled by fast food products, like those sold at Chick-fil-A.
Take a typical Chick-fil-A meal: A regular chicken sandwich, a medium side of waffle potato fries and a medium Coca-Cola. The meal contains 1,000 calories, half of the suggested daily intake, 53 grams of sugar and a whopping 1,565 milligrams of sodium. That's 60 percent of the maximum daily limit of sodium. But what's a few thousand milligrams when Americans are consuming, on average, 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day — and increasing their risk of heart disease with every bite.
Many people have told me that giving up this food is just too hard. But if you have the courage and tenacity to stand up for what you believe, you certainly have the willpower to refuse a food product that is actively contributing to your body's decay and malnourishment. Many of our ideals like equality and religious liberty make life worth living, but it's important to pay attention to the operations that make life possible.
Our food has always been political, even before Cathy opened his big mouth. The question remains whether or not Americans are finally going to do anything about it — or if they will hypocritically raise one hand to support a cause only to stuff their faces with the other.