What are ten good reasons to never eat fast food ever again?

Hi Scott, here's 10:

1. Disgusting animal conditions
You've seen those horrible movies about how poorly animals are kept when they're being led to slaughter, and they aren't showing you those heart-wrenching photos just for the ratings. Many of these factory-farmed animals are kept in such a small space that they are forced to stand in their own feces, have osteoporosis and joint pain because of their confinement, and some chickens get their beaks cut off so they don't go nuts and attack one another because of the small corridors. To keep the animals from getting sick in these conditions, they are pumped full of antibiotics, which often end up in our food. That's not only making us want to stop eating fast food, it's making us want to be vegan.

2. Weird ingredients
I'm sorry, what is in my food? According to the Matador Network, some fast food's chicken nuggets contain a chemical preservative called tertiary butylhydroquinone, which is derived from a petroleum. Yep, the stuff you put into your car. That's not all either. Some chicken products are mechanically separated, which means those scraps that would normally go to waste are ending up in your nuggets. Plus, if you were even to study the ingredients in your favorite meals, you'd be shocked to see how many of them are chemical preservatives, artificial coloring, monosodium glutamate and more.

3. Low food quality
It doesn't take an expert to see that most fast-food chains don't use the highest quality of ingredients. You can tell by the rubbery patty, the wilted lettuce leaves and the extra-chewy chicken. They use the cheapest parts to make the products, so when you're eating your hamburger, you have no darn clue what part of the cow it came from — or heck, if it's even cow you're eating! Here's an idea: Spend the extra few bucks, and make your own burger from meat you bought yourself.

4. Food safety
Sad to say, many of the employees hired on to do the cooking, food handling and prep don't have the necessary training or food safety education they need to do it right. Not their fault — the companies often don't offer training because these restaurants have such a high turnover rate. On any given day, you could have someone preparing your hamburger who didn't wash their hands or who was playing with frozen raw meat right before they manhandled your bun. Save yourself the food poisoning.

5. Food preparation (or lack thereof)
It's called fast food for a reason, friends. Most of the meals you get aren't cooked with thought or love; they actually aren't even cooked on a stove. Many are unwrapped from their frozen containers and thrown into a dirty microwave. This saves the managers the time and money it would take to teach the cooks how to prepare the food properly and not worry about cross-contamination. It saves their butts but doesn't make yours look any prettier.

6. Trans fats
You haven't heard that word in a while, probably because it was banned from a few restaurants. Why? It can raise your LDL cholesterol, or bad cholesterol, leading to a heart attack or cardiac arrest. However, not all fast-food restaurants are required to list trans fat content on menus, so it's possible the food you're eating may still have it, and lots of it. Fast-food items particularly high in trans fats include french fries, fried fish filet sandwiches and fried chicken, for example.

7. Slime
Now, you've heard all about the pink slime, and fortunately it's not something many of the restaurants use anymore to preserve their meats. But that's not the only slime you may find at these fast-food joints. In fact, a few fast-food restaurants in Wrigley Field were shut down because they had black slime on their ice machines! Before you take a slurp of that Diet Coke, make sure you aren't drinking bacteria-infested slime instead.

8. Environmental hazards
Fast food isn't just hurting your ability to fit into skinny jeans — it's actually killing the environment. According to the Matador Network, there have been so many pollutants added to the Mississippi River from factory farms that it has a "dead" zone the size of New Jersey, meaning no fish or creature can live there. Oh, but that's not all. Methane, a gas produced by factory-herded cows, is 23 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide is, which is a large factor of global warming. Each time you buy a Big Mac, you're not only killing yourself, but you're killing the polar bears too. Hard to take that first bite knowing that, right?

9. High fat, low nutritional value
This one's a no-brainer, clearly. The food is loaded with preservatives, the preferred cooking method is deep-fried, and even the "healthy" options aren't all that good for you. In fact, the McDonald's crispy chicken salad has more than 18 grams of fat. Add the dressing, and you're at 36 grams. Many of the desserts contain fake sweeteners, which have been linked to obesity. Plus the chicken, which is one of the leanest cuts of protein you can have, is breaded and deep-fried, which takes away almost all of the redeeming qualities it had going for it, not to mention gets rid of its health benefits.

10. Obesity
Fast food isn't the cause of obesity, certainly not, but it's not helping our nation fight it either. In fact, a study published by CBS News found that children who regularly eat fast food gain up to 6 pounds more a year than those who don't. With the obestiy rate so high and only growing (more than 15 percent of American children are obese), those 6 pounds are quickly adding up. Luckily, due to many lawsuits, many fast-food restaurants are required to offer apple slices and milk with their kids' meals. If you still don't believe me, watch Super Size Me.

Hope this helps!

The Fast Food employees never clean the soda/milkshake machines because it's hard so they just leave all the germs, grimy bacteria to rot in there.

The French fries contain pig fat and well that's just gross.

The burger patties/meat are just nasty. I mean how can you trust someone with your food??! Not this chick!

Access to other food, seeing or hearing something traumatizing, it being kinda expensive (Always costed me like $7.50 per meal)...

Those are all I can think of. I don't think fast food is the scourge of America.

I see overweight people eating trays and trays of cheap cookies, and them ain't from fast food restaurants.