(NaturalNews) While most people are

(NaturalNews) While most people are aware that fast food is not the healthiest food around, they often choose to ignore it in favor of the convenience, taste or cost. However, fast food is far worse than most people are even remotely aware. In fact it's so bad, that it's simply not fit for human or even animal consumption. This is true not only because of the fat or sodium content, but because the animals themselves are often sick from malnutrition, diseased, cancer ridden or worse.
In 2002, author Eric Schlosser, a correspondent for the Atlantic Herald, came out with a ground breaking book called Fast Food Nation which takes us through a sordid maze of deception, cover up, lies, fraud and both animal and human cruelty that has unfortunately become all too common in the meat packing industry today. This was even turned into a 2006 movie release of the same name.
The fast food industry came out in strong protest against his book saying that they don't agree with his conclusions. At the same time when asked if there were any errors in the book, they said "no" that they could not find any errors in the book at all.
Animal cruelty
With the terrible and inhumane way in which the animals themselves are treated which causes the meat to lose any of its health benefits, coupled with the contamination of the meat itself during processing, you now have a situation where this meat is not only providing very little nutrition or bio-energy, but it can be quite dangerous and deadly.
"Every day in the United States, roughly 200,000 people are sickened by a food borne disease, 900 are hospitalized and 14 die. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), more than a quarter of the American population suffers a bout of food poisoning each year. Most of these cases are never reported to authorities or properly diagnosed" - Fast Food Nation, page 195
How science is used to deceive
The meat and other foods sold at fast food restaurants bears little to no resemblance to actual freshly cut meat. Food scientists employ a number of very deceptive and clever techniques to fool the senses into thinking that such foods are tasty and healthy. Science has discovered many chemicals that can exactly emulate the smells of fresh foods found in nature.
For example; Ethyl-2-methyl butyrate smells just like an apple. Adding methyl-2-peridylketone makes something taste like popcorn. Ethyl-3- hydroxybutanoate makes something taste like marshmallow. On and on these combinations go and it can all be done without effecting the appearance or nutritional value of the processed foods. These ingredients can be listed as "natural flavors" on the labels, even on foods that are listed as "organic."
What color is the food?
Aroma is not the only tweaking that goes into fast foods. The color of food also has a lot to do with its perception of flavor. This is by design because we know that color often indicates whether a food is ripe or rancid. In the early 1970s an experiment was done where people were given an "oddly tinted" meal of steak and French fries that appeared normal under the colored lights they were subjected to. Everyone thought that the food tasted fine that is until the lighting was changed.