We regularly lie about three things: sex, money, and what we eat.

We lie most about what we eat. Because we desperately want to believe we eat a healthy diet; we comfort ourselves with lies and food myths. We believe we eat better than most of the world!

Americans are fatter than the rest of the world, but that doesn’t mean that we eat better. We can afford to eat out a lot and statistics show that people eat out at least 4 times a week. Nearly half of our food budget, that’s 46 percent, is spent on eating out-most of that at fast food restaurants. Even picky eaters will eat fast food, in fact junk foods are usually the picky eaters favorite. Depending on where you eat, eating out can be twice as expensive as cooking at home. In addition, cooking has changed from preparing whole foods to heating up or assembling processed foods.

Our eating habits are costing families more than dollars. It’s not only cheaper, but healthier to do your own cooking. You have no control of what’s in the food you purchase out. Foods in fancy restaurants and fast food restaurants have a commonality: Trans fat, sugar, and MSG.

Pictured: Zach, Angel & Joshy eating an ice cream treat.

Morgan Spurlock, producer, director, and guinea pig of Super-Size Me, shocked America by documenting his month-long fast-food binge. I had no desire to watch his movie…until last week. I thought the premise was preposterous, after all, who wouldn’t expect to gain weight after eating exclusively at McDonalds?

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Supersize-Me, actually shed light on the not-so-obvious perils of regularly eating fast foods. Spurlock became a fast-food lab rat for one month. He calls it his “month in Hell.”

A team of health advisers documented his experiment. By day 18, his whole body was in a meltdown: headaches, body aches, and lack of energy. No surprise, his cholesterol and tryglycerides skyrocketed. What’s worse, his liver began to fail. Despite this, he found himself craving the foods that he was consuming! Morgan’s health team neglected to make a couple of significant connections. They were at a loss for the cause of his headaches.

MSG is a hidden ingredient in much of McDonalds’ food, including fries. MSG is an excitotoxin, which over-stimulate brain cells to the point that they die. Many people experience headaches when this occurs. It seems likely that MSG was the cause of Morgan’s headaches. It’s a shame that Morgan’s health team missed this important connection.

They were also at a loss as to why Morgan’s liver began to fail after only eighteen days. They concluded it was because of the saturated fat he was ingesting. It was a red herring! They neglected to isolate Trans Fat from natural saturated fats. Trans Fat is manmade and can’t be properly metabolized into your body. Fast foods (as are all restaurant fried foods) are loaded with trans fat.

The government recommends that we, and especially children, don’t eat any trans fat. Since 2006, it became mandatory to list trans fat on nutrition labels. In fact, McDonalds website lists the trans fat in their foods. A small fry has 3½ grams; medium 5 grams, and a large fry 8 grams. Happy Meals, purchased for small children, fall somewhere between 4 and 5 grams of trans fat.

Trans fat can be found in most of McDonalds foods: salads, shakes, hamburgers, all fried foods including chicken McNuggets, sandwiches, cookies, biscuits, burritos, and of course their fries. Morgan was ingesting trans fat in just about every bite of food. No wonder his liver began to fail!

Most of us don’t eat exclusively at McDonalds,  but you should be able to eat at ANY restaurant for a month without your health failing —even if you put on a few pounds.

It DOES matter what we eat! Desperate parents often give in to their picky eaters, who willingly eat junk foods. CLICK HERE for Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater. The cost of eating well is measured in not only dollars, but health.

CLICK HERE for the Podcast.