My local MS society news letter came out this week. They always post a research article. This one was about sodium and auto immune. It showed a large percentage of fast food dieters had more auto immune disorders. Since I did not inherit any kind of cooking gene from my Mom, we as a whole family spent most of our meals out and fast food was the cheapest since that what speaks to my husbands pocket the most. My oldest daughter had chronic fatigue and my youngest some kind of pustular skin disorder her dermatologist says is auto immune. Is this a coincidence or could it really be true????

I worked for Burger King for two years as a teenager, and then worked for McDonald's for eight years in my twenties. I ate a LOT of fast food during that time.

There might be something to that theory.

I had my first McD's when I was in my mid teens. We didn't go out to restaurants much, since we couldn't afford it, so count me out on this one...

It's probably due to some preservative they put in fast food?
I'd rather take my chances with the meat than some of those
poison preservatives.

I ate so much taco bell in college I almost turned into a burrito. But I had some symptoms even as a teen, so I'm not sure. I'm sure it didn't help.

The most fast food I'll do now is the McD grilled chicken w/no mayo (its just grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, whole grain bun). And I only eat that if I'm on the road and didn't plan ahead with my own food, which is very rare. I do like having one quick option though because I can feel really, really ill if I don't eat.

And no fries.

I think they have lower fat fries now..

I think it's BK that has the lower fat fries. They're not bad. They're crinkled and kind of crunchy. (Got some for my mom a while back. She liked them)

Those satisfries still have 11g of fat in a small. That's like a quarter of my daily swank-fat-budget. That McD grilled chicken is only 3.5g of fat (with no mayo anyway). So they're better, but not really great. And of course, that's just fat. That McD chicken sandwich still has a ton of sodium (about 700g, double what the satisfries have), so I only eat it when I don't have other options. I don't watch the sodium because of swank, but that doesn't mean I don't try to watch the sodium these days.

As a kid, I may have had fast food all of 10 times, if that. Most of our meals were home cooked meals. We rarely went out to eat, either fast food or at a regular restaurant. As a young adult, I didn't eat much fast food either. It tasted too salty to me. As an adult, I just don't eat any fast food or junk food.

I guess, like Kelly, I can be counted out as well on this one.