Mom

Happy Mothers day UHI readers! Don't forget to appreciate your mother, tell her thank you, bring her breakfast in bed, whatever you want to do. Just make sure you show your appreciation for taking care of you from your birth until now. I love you mom.

McDonalds hero?

Charles Ramsey is a hero. He saved three women and a little girl who were being held hostage in Cleveland. When questioned, he said that he did this while holding a half eaten big mac because he saved them right after going to McDonalds. In response to this major marketing opportunity, McDonalds tweeted "We salute the courage of Ohio kidnap victims & respect their privacy. Way to go Charles Ramsey - we'll be in touch." Unfortunately for Micky D's however, soon after they posted this tweet Ramseys charges for domestic violence, burglary and drug abuse, and his jail sentence back in 2003 were uncovered.

Click here, and here to see the story on CNN and CNN money.

Shrimp

Do you love shrimp? Well apparently so does the rest of America. May 10 is national shrimp day. Just eat shrimp anyway you possibly can. Boil it, fry it, grill it, whatever suits you. 

Here are some good shrimp tips to make your tastebuds dance and really celebrate this minor holiday:

1. cook the shrimp, then drizzle melted butter all over it
1. put a little piece of butter in a bowl and put the bowl in the microwave
2. cook the shrimp, then cover it in alfredo sauce
3. put your teeth right at the end of the flesh so you get as much meat as possible without any tail
4. cover the shrimp in hot sauce
5. if you put all the shrimp in a bowl after cooking it, a puddle of shrimpy juice should collect at the bottom, dip the shrimp in that puddle for extra flavor

Here is the article on CNN.

Pizza

There's a "rumor" going around the world that americans are the fattest people on the planet. I recently went on google trends and found something that cracked me up. Google trends is a function of google that tells you what the most searched items on the popular search engine. I wanted to see what the top 10 searches were in the United States in 2013 in the "Food and Drink" Category. I was amused to find that four of the items on that list were "pizza", "pizza hut", "dominos", and "papa johns" in that order. Check it out for yourself here.

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McDonald's Nutrition Round-up

McDonald's new nutrition facts are here, or at least they're now effective (even though this list was made in 2010). I won't be comparing the changes for the most part, but as of right now I can say for sure the "Big Mac", Mickey D's flagship burger, has gone up 10 calories. (I have the old Nutrition Facts archived on my desktop. Anyway here are some of the top Wackdonald's unhealthy and somehow not-so-unhealthy meals.


Big Mac

550 cal
29 grams fat (10 saturated, 1 trans)
970 mg sodium


Angus Bacon & Cheese
790 cal
39 grams fat (18 saturated, 2 trans)
1990 mg sodium


Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese++
750 cal
43 grams fat (19 saturated, 2.5 trans)
1280 mg sodium

McChicken
360 cal
16 grams fat (3 saturated)
800 mg sodium







Chicken McNuggets (4 piece) 

190 cal
12 grams fat (2 saturated)
360 sodium

I'll let you guys be the judge on the healthiness for now just the facts... for now.
                                                                          -- Jason

Caffeine

Something I will never consume in large quantities for an experiment or otherwise is highly caffeinated drinks.

Two words: cardiac arrest.

Hagerstown, Md., Oct. 22, 2012:

Aniais Fournier is dead. After drinking 48 ounces of Monster Energy her heart has stopped from “caffeine toxicity”. A lawsuit ensues. But that's not what I'm here to talk about, at least not on that level. Time.com reports that this is a growing problem. Three to five deaths from Monster Energy drinks (depending on your sources) and a few more from other brands such as Five Hour Energy, have been reported.

CNN reports some of the ingredients in the link provided.

Jason

UHI

Gatorade

Well you've probably heard about all the news about PepsiCo removing brominated vegetable oil from Gatorade which is some sort of chemical that is banned in the European Union for causing neurological damage. Welp. Not much more to say and I think that speaks for itself so c'ya.

Full artical:
Here

Fast Food poll

We are about to start our video series in which we go into various restaurants, buy their food, then take it home and examine it. We dissect it and break it open, and basically see all the stuff that the casual consumer doesn't see due to not wanting to see it. But here's the problem. There are lot's of fast food restaurants out there for us to "investigate" and we have no particular reason to go after any one. So we put the poll on the home page so YOU can decide what our first "target" is. The fate of all these restaurants lies in your hands...no pressure.

Burgers cause asthma?

The BBC recently published a news story on a study done by professor Innes Asher from the University of Aukland in New Zealand, and professor Hywel Williams from the University of Nottingham in the UK. The study was done on 500,000 children in over 50 countries on the subject of fast food. They discovered that children who eat fast food seem to suffer from allergy like symptoms. They say this is because fast foods are often rich in different fats that are known to weaken the immune system, causing the children to develop allergies that they didn't have before. They say that this can be avoided by eating fruit, because fruits are rich in antioxidants. The risk of developing allergies increased by 27% in children 6-7. The risk increased by 39% in children in their early teens. 

This story seems pretty legit. Some people have gotten cancer and diabetes from eating fast food in the past. So it's completely plausible that someone could develop an allergy from it. But don't let me be the judge. Check out the story for yourself here.

Depressing Drinks

This story that I found in the BBC's news sections is about a study that scientists recently did that suggests that there is a correlation between depressed people, and people who drink "artificially sweetened beverages". This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard. We all know those people who don't have jobs, and just sit around all day drinking soda and beer. And even if we don't personally know someone like that, we've al heard of that phenomenon. Yes, it is true, depressed people drink soda. But news flash people, so do perfectly happy people. My personal opinion is that the scientists who did this study are depressed about their lives and they want to blame it on soda.

Chicken Brain Found in Chicken Nugget at KFC

To start out this blog all about fast food "disgustingness" I'd like to talk about a, well, chicken "brain". To be honest it most likely was not a brain rather a brain-like substance. It definitely appears to be a brain in that it has that "noodle" appearance that brains have. however the piece of chicken around it does not look any thing like the infamous McChicken head from 2007. As for what it truly is I have no clue.

The story by ibtimes.co.uk tells about a Colchester student named Ibrahim Langoo who found this... thing in his chicken nugget. 

"Ibrahim Langoo, 19, has vowed never to eat at the fast-food chain ever again after discovering the 'brain-like' material inside his meal at a branch in Colchester, Essex." says the article.

To be fair KFC did apologize for what they say is a kidney ending up in Langoo's food and they have given him free vouchers so he can have more bad experiences with chicken kidneys. All joking aside KFC does have some serious explaining to do and I for one might not eat there anymore. Original story linked above.

Jason,

UHI News

Undercover Health Inspectors

Hello food eaters!

We are the Undercover Health Inspectors,

Don't let our cheesy name fool you, we mean business.

In general, our mission is to expose the disgusting truths about the fast food industry.

Very similar to the movie Supersize Me, except that we don't have any connection to Morgan Spurlock.

Anyway, we will be going to various fast food restaurants such as McDonalds, Burger King, Carl jr., and other big names. We will then post videos of ourselves dissecting the food.

In other videos, we will examine the restaurants themselves and find dirty things.

We will also be doing commentaries on various food related news stories.

The food industry has a lot of ground to cover and we hope you'll enjoy it.