Fast food joints: Eat here at your own risk

It's sort of the way ski lodges operate: ski at your own risk, we're not responsible. But in this case, it's "Eat at your own risk. We're not responsible for the diseases." At one level, they're right: only consumers are responsible for putting food in their mouths. At the same time, however, fast food restaurants have been living what I call the Big Lie of convenience foods: that such foods can be "part of a healthy balanced diet." In reality, they can't. Every cheeseburger takes you one step closer to diabetes, heart disease and obesity. There is no place in a balanced diet for a single cheeseburger. And, yes, these restaurant foods do cause chronic disease due to their use of toxic ingredients (like sodium nitrite, hydrogenated oils, and refined white flour) and extremely poor nutrition.

• Americans who order fast food would have to hold the lawsuits under a bill passed by the House yesterday.
• Only a few lawsuits against fast-food giants have been brought so far, and none has been successful.
• But some plaintiffs' lawyers say juries soon may be ready to hold an industry that peddles fattening products through ubiquitous advertising -- often aimed at children -- at least partly liable for the rise in obesity and obesity-related diseases.
• Nearly two-thirds of adults and 15 percent of children in the United States are overweight, and Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight-loss products and services, according to federal statistics.