# Fast food....What the Heck?



## 23470 (Apr 18, 2005)

I've suffered from IBS symptoms of some sort for many years, beginning as a child with C...and now diagnosed with IBS-D as an adult (28y/o). I had increasing issues after I took my recent job, which piled on the stress. My current state of IBS began about 9 months ago with the onset of a particularly heavy period of anxiety related to work. I also had been dining out on more fast food, which only increased because my stress increased....it became a safety blanket. I kept on eating it (Wendy's) because of this and the fact that it started to seem like it was the only food that wouldn't bother me. I would eat it, my stomach would grumble....then nothing...unless I ate other foods that contained my "triggers" like milk, sugar, high fiber, etc. I continued on this path eating out at Wendy's more and more, eating lunch there everyday for a couple of months. I began to worry about everything else other than what I was eating there, and because of the D I've lost about 6-10lbs over the past 9 months. I became addicted. Then, after eating it for that long, I had two horrible bouts of D within 30 minutes of eating Wendy's for two days in a row. The first day I tried to chalk it up to something else. The second day I decided it had to be the burger and fries I had come to love. I stayed home that Wednesday to recover. After that day I didn't eat ANY fast food for about 3 weeks......LO AND BEHOLD.....NO D!!!! I loved it, all except for my fissure, which was having problems now that it was more firm now and regular. Then, I began to venture out, and tried Quizno's...because I'm a fool. I had only meat and lettuce on it...and I did fine. I got more brave and had it a second time, which was for lunch today. I decided to get the Au Jus with it. It all went down fine, until I got home at 8pm and within an hour I began the bout of D that I'm currently still in....3 horrible visits and counting. The only thing I can figure is one or all of the following:1) ALL FAST FOOD IS ####2) It was the "Au Jus" (aka "the hot greasy meat juice" to dip your sammich in)3) It was the small bowl of Lucky Charms I had after the sandwich for dinner (as the sandwich was only safe foods)If it is indeed the fast food I want to know a couple of things:1) What the H*LL do they put in Wendy's that makes you addicted and allergic to real food?2) What do they put in it that makes you ill? It's meat, cheese, and bread...allegedly3) Why did I all of a sudden become sensitive to it and how long does it take my body to recover...weeks, months?If anyone out there has any insight into this, please let me know. I'm not a ignorant person, I know fast food isn't nutritious OR good for you...like many people, I chose to ignore it and because of it's sinister effects, didn't add it all up until now.


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## Cherrie (Sep 1, 2006)

HiSorry about your continuing stress and problems with food.Fast food in general has more fat (and trans fat) than home cooked healthy food. And fat bothers a lot of IBSers. If one needs to know if one is allergic to certain foods, one should go to see a dr and take a test to know for sure -- trigger food may or may not be allergy causing foods.I also suspect that accumulated stress is playing a role in both your "addiction" to fast food and your IBS flare ups.Many people find eating, esp eating fatty junk food, a way (although not so healthy way) to relieve stress. I did it before and many of my friends did it, too, when we were in grad school. When stress level is high, eating (or wating TV mindlessly) can be "addictive" because it is generally perceived by the body as a pleasurable behavior unless or until it causes repeated pain (in terms of amount and/or fatty content in the food). I'm not sure Wendy's put stuff in their food to make people addicted -- I'm suspecting that stress is the culprit. If you had C before your stress caused you to eat junk food, it may take a longer while for those junk foods to cause you D... Since this has already happened, I'd suggest that you quit eating at fast food restaurants -- and when you crave for fatty food, some cholate maybe if it doesn't bother you or you could choose to eat food with healthy fat (i.e., non-saturated fat, such as all nuts and avocado provided they are not your trigger food).Cherrie


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

I can only offer observations from my own experience; but there are points where our bad habits lead to an organic, rather than just qualitative, change in how our bodies operate. I smoked, I ate fatty foods--both indicators for heart and digestive problems--and both functions became impaired. There was a point back there, I am sure, when changing both of those habits would have allowed my body to repair itself. Sadly, I was doing something else when that bus went by. So I got gall stones developing, a reflection of my diet. Then I had some kind of horrible gastric attack when far away from a doctor--gastritus, a pre-cursor to an ulcer, it was suggested when I finally got to see my doctor. While I continued to smoke, I did finally make some changes to my diet, along with dramatically reducing the amount of coffee I drank. Daily D developed. Finally, I was able to quit smoking, but chronic indigestion and reflux still developed and the diarrhea continued unabated. Even though it has been almost 15 years of not smoking and more than that of limited fast/fried/fatty foods, if I stop the supplement that keeps all of this at bay, the symptoms will return. The damage has been done.As Cherrie has said, a lot of the bowel and digestive problems are due to the high fat in the fast food diet. There is also a sugar component in the condiments and the buns. I spent a few years working for a submarine sandwich franchiser. They had developed their own bread for their sandwiches with a higher sugar component to provide more food for the yeast for a softer loaf. I know that they were not trying to create a chemical addiction, but fat and sugar have some kind of chemical reactions in our bodies, at least for some of us. (Just watch the crowd around the dessert table the next time you are at a buffet.) Since you have figured out the relationship between what you eat and how it makes you feel, you might just want to look at all restaurant food, with the exception of the alternative types, as something to be generally avoided. There are lots of good low fat (and meatless) substitutes for the products we have been raised on. For me, that has certainly turned out to be a good way to go. Since you have probably been depriving your body of much of the nutrients it needs, you might also consider a good vitamin and mineral supplement along with the home cooking. I was stupid...you don't need to be.Mark


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

The fat alone (even the natural fat) in a fast food meal can be enough to trigger D in people.High fat meals can trigger D in any IBS-D type and restaurant food especially fast food often has more fat per serving than the same thing when home made. The fat makes it tasty so they lay that on.Fast food is also heavily processed. Everything has a lot of artificial flavors, preservatives, and other industrializd food products that would not be in your home cooked burger, bread and fries.The Omnivore's Dilemma does the natural history of a fast food meal as well as other meals.You probably got IBS independant of this food (food usually doesn't seem to cause it initially even though it can trigger symptoms after you have it).I'm not sure the additives make it more addictive or troublesome than other foods (unless you have problem with a specific one) but you can learn to like the taste of overly salted, overly flavor enhanced food and then real stuff doesn't seem as good.They did a test once where they gave people the artificial flavor and a naturally derived flavor and most people eat so much processed stuff that the artificial stuff tastes more real than the real stuff.K.


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## Cherrie (Sep 1, 2006)

> They did a test once where they gave people the artificial flavor and a naturally derived flavor and most people eat so much processed stuff that the artificial stuff tastes more real than the real stuff.


Great point, Kathleen! It was one plus years into my decision to make lifestyle changes (in my case it is becoming a vegetarian) that I was able to genuinely appreciate the beautiful flavor of what food naturally taste like without being overly processed with artificial stuff. And to this day I have difficulty explaining to my friendds or making them believe that natural foods actually taste good without all the artificial additives. It does take some real efforts to get back to good food choices, but like Mark said, it _can _happen and please make it happen as soon as you've realized it.And what Mark said also reminds me of one more thing about fast food -- the coke that they serve has so much acid in it that they can, not only destroy one's teeth, but also add too much extra acid in the astomach and the bowels -- really not good esp when one already has GI problems... Cherrie


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## sazzy (Nov 27, 2006)

whether you have ibs or not, fast food is absolutely rubbish for you. If you saw how any fast food is processed you wouldn't enter into a fast food restaurant again, if you take all the additive based sauces off the burger it'd taste like cardboard. Honestly i'd ditch the fast food entirely, even if it helps your ibs imagine what that ####'s doing to the rest of your body?


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## Slyvia (Dec 2, 2007)

I'd like to add that I used to have horrible reactions to fast food meals. I have pretty much eliminated fast food, but I have to also be careful with regular restaurant meals. I can tell which restaurants use processed, pre-packaged, pre-fab meals based on how I react to the food. Places with fresh ingredients cause no problems for me (though I have to stay away from home-cooked fatty foods too). fat, MSG, other preservatives, or a large meal = disaster for meAlso, I notice a cumulative effect - a tiny burger may not do it, but if I eat out a couple of days in a row, even if it's not "fast food", I'm in trouble.


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