While doing my research for gluten free foods, I stumbled upon some very interesting articles about ingredients in fast foods. I would not necessarily label myself as "granola", but I am definitely above the average mark for attempts at providing my family with healthy meals and snacks. We do have our occasional fried chicken, but I am from the South, so you are going to have to work with me on that one. :)

McDonald's: I've never been a huge of of Mcd's, but I do enjoy their steak bagels and sweet tea. (Of course, who doesn't like their tea? You'd have to be some sort of weirdo to not enjoy it. I've mentioned before that I think they put small amounts of crack in it.) Here is the general run down of their ingredient list and I'll try to not be too scientific:

• The fried chicken has sodium phosphates. Yes, sodium phosphate is a foaming agent. Then they also add an ingredient which minimizes the foaming. Odd. I guess you'd have to find this ingredient hovering around the soap at the grocery store. Or Lowe's. I know, let's all go to Lowe's next time we want quality ingredients for our kids. They even have a military discount.
  
• Several of the salads have glazes that contain an ingredient used to trap ground beetles. This ingredient is considered safe for human consumption, but not legal for use in cat food because it hasn't been declared safe just yet. Is PETA warning people not to feed their pets salads from here? I think they should seriously look in to it since it could turn in to a real problem for our feline friends.

Burger King: It's a good thing we never eat here.

• The salad itself is basically okay, but the dressings contain titanium dioxide. Yes, that's the same stuff in your sunscreen. Is it particularly sunny inside a BK? Or better yet, are they really doing an experiment for the gov't on the potential affects of ingesting sunscreen and decreased sun damage? I'm doubting it.
  
• Most of their food contains MSG and they hide it in their ingredient list by disguising it as other ingredients. Pretty typical of fast food restaurants.
  

Taco Bell: Warren loves this place. There is not much to be said that isn't known to the general public already. You get what you get with this place. You don't go there expecting good food. Most of their food contains MSG as well.

Wendy's:

• The chili contains silicone dioxide, which is used to prevent caking. The base of this chemical is silica, which is a form of sand or powdered glass. Yummy.
• Again with the salad dressings containing sunscreen and MSG.

So, to recap, if you want a little sunscreen in your diet, your best bet would be to eat some salads. Or better yet, if you want some really great sand, check out Wendy's because I hear it's simply delicious there. Oh, and the best one, if beetles are eating your roses this summer, just stop by your McDonald's and pick up a salad and just use it like mulch.

Saved by Grace

This was never posted for some reason... guess I forgot to post it. :) Update: Warren is now at his new command, crappy eval in tow and no award. The lion's den was escaped though.


Warren was saved by grace... Very interesting story, actually. The whole ordeal that was hugely blown out of proportion is coming to an end next week. Warren does have to go and see his boss, but isn't as bad as it could have been. He simply gets a letter that says he made a mistake and that he should have known better. Mistakes do happen, we're all human.

The interesting part of the story involves the people sent to investigate and help Warren. The helper was actually a retired Catholic Bishop (not sure why he's retired, but nonetheless...) who trained Warren and his guys on how to operate a particular program on their ship. (And just for the record, the mistakes that happened centered around poor training to begin with.) He was there for a week and calmed Warren's nerves during this extremely stressful time. You could say that they are now "shipshape", if you want an actual nautical term. The second interesting man would be the investigator they sent over. This man was crucial in determining if Warren would be in serious trouble. Warren knew he really had to impress him with his "mad skills". (Mad skills are the equivalent of really good skills. It's slang, I know.) The day of the meeting, Warren was speaking with the new chief's mate, which is like the XO on a Navy ship and apparently he knew the investigator, so he wanted to talk with him before the investigation began. By the time he sat down with Warren, it was all basically smoothed over. This was a HUGE blessing for Warren because he was seriously sweating this interview.