Scarf and Barf?

Taco Bell's new commercial is tempting. It's their five dollar box of food. Every time it's shown on TV I have to recite the Lord's Prayer. Not the whole thing just certain parts as amended by Bob. Goes like this: Lead us not into fast food temptation but deliver us from the evil of too many calories, high amounts of saturated fat, and spoonfuls of sodium. Amen.  Not to be sacreligious but it works.

Hold on, you say? No, you hold on, I say. Did you check the nutritional analysis on this box of goodies? There's two types of box specials from Taco Bell that can be ordered. One seems to be a litte more cheesy which makes for more of everything.   Pick your poison.

So, get this:  Depending on which meal that's selected the calories for one or the other run from 1,270 to 1,380.  By the book a guy my age, height, weight should consume no more than 2,100 calories a day just to maintain the current weight.  Heck, I could eat one of these babies and still have 830 or 720 calories left for dinner . . . if I didn't have breakfast and didn't drink a couple of beers later in the day and didn't have a glass of wine or two with dinner.   

But the really big deal would be the amount of sodium in fast food.  Having blood pressure that's right on the fence - that measures  at end of good and just into slightly high, watching sodium is a good thing.  That's Bob's order of the day everyday. 

A lot of people don't know much about sodium and what it does.  High blood pressure.  And helps to harden those arteries.  Yup.  How much is enough?  The experts claim that depending on your overall health 1,500 to 2,400 milligrams of sodium is plenty. 

Compare those numbers to the amount of sodium in one of these Taco Bell meals:  2,830 to 3000 milligrams of sodium.  Yikes!!!   Whooo hoo!  Man, that rings the bell and puts anyone eating that over the top.  And we wonder why everyone is dropping dead of heart disease. 

Taco Bell is not the Lone Ranger in serving up high amounts of this and lots of that.  All the fast food outlets do it.  Anything prepared and for sale in your neighborhood grocery store is loaded with high amounts of sodium.  Next time you're shopping check the label on that can of tomatoes, chicken broth, frozen burrito . . . anything and most everything that's prepared.  They're all loaded with high amounts of sodium.

I love fast food and I think I have a game plan to keep eating it:  Scarf it.  Then barf it.  No harm, no foul.  Right?  Yeah, Yeah, I know, that would creating a whole other health problem.  Just doing it once in a while can't hurt, can it?

If I were to open a fast food chain that's what I'd name it:  Scarf and Barf.  With every meal there would be a barf bag along with it.  On a first date Scarf and Barf would be the perfect place to eat.  Why not get down to the nitty gritty right off the bat?  Find out what that date is really all about.  Eat then puke your guts out.  Following that the dinner conversation would go like this, "Honey, you've got a little snot and some cheeseburger on the end of your nose."    How romantic and certainly a story to tell once married for 30 or 40 years.  Makes for great Thanksgiving table conversation.  The kids will love it. 

Remember:  The family that scarfs together barfs together.