Warning: Healthy Hamburgers ~ No Fun or Frills
by Shannon Harrison, managing editor

     (Part 4 in a series on the great American hamburger)

     Many people around the world love to eat hamburgers every day.

     The burger fulfills all the requirements for an American meal: tasty, economical, convenient and nutritious. Hamburgers rank among the top contenders for the most frequently ordered menu item.

     However, even though these tasty morsels are popular, there is a downside to eating them.

     For instance, a Whopper from Burger King has 640 calories and 39 grams of total fat with a serving size of 270 grams.

     McDonald’s Quarter Pounder has 430 calories with its total fat count at 21 grams while Jack in the Box’s Jumbo Jack has 590 calories with 30 grams of fat.

     This is a lot of calories for just a burger; one can only imagine how many more are added with side items and fries.

     Dr. Michael Mogadam, a professor of medicine specializing in nutrition and cholesterol at Georgetown University, believes every fast food meal should be slapped with a warning label.

     Mogadam believes that physicians are not as open about the many dangers linked to burgers as they are with cigarettes and alcohol.

     He thinks that the long-term effects of frequent feasting on fast food will take its toll on one’s body, especially the heart.

     “There will be more deaths and disabilities this year from cardiovascular disease than 10 to 20 years ago,” he said. “One million people will die this year, and another one million will become disabled.”

     Mogadam points a finger at fast food places littering every street corner.

     Mogadam has developed a 20-risk factor diet (TRF). His formula ranks foods from most to least healthy.

     Foods contain nine major ingredients, and the TRF score of a given food or snack is the sum of all nine ingredients—the lower the score the better, according to Mogadam.

     A healthy TRF score is 30 and below. A double whopper with cheese from Burger King tallies 57, almost double the TRF score a person should have for two days.

     Mogadam stresses that a single fast food meal here and there will not kill someone. However, when a person eats fast food day in and day out, the amount of calor

ies, salt and trans fatty acids a person consumes is astounding.
     In the long run, eliminating fast food from one’s diet can help ward off cardiovascular disease, diabetes and high cholesterol.