But you don't know how much sugar, fat, or just empty calories are being put in your food to make it just a little more presentable or appetizing. That is what you have better control over when you cook yourself.
At the risk of stating the obvious, when you eat a meal, all of it goes to the same place. So as long as the meal as a whole provides sufficient nutrition (and if you are eating a varied diet then it absolutely will do), no part of it can be described as "empty calories".
Empty calories is not a moral judgment. It is a statement of fact.
This is a massive contamination incident waiting to happen.
[0]Though I think GP and most others in this thread are defining "healthy" as matching their preferred fat/carb/salt/weight-control etc. parameters, and aren't even thinking about food poisoning.
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Actually, fast food restaurants have some of the best food practices. I'd feel much safer eating at some random McDonald's than some Mom-n-Pop diner.
I mean, even some little diner sort of has a huge incentive not to make people sick, even if they don't have a health inspector watching over them.
I've become much more conscious of this lately. I called the health inspector to report a restaurant for the first time this month, and did it again just a week ago.
While this deserves qualifications, most of the time restaurant food is simply not as hygienic as meals prepared at home. And its not some deliberate plan to make it so. Despite their best efforts, a somewhat large scale food establishment just allows a lot more opportunities for food contamination. And I say this as a person who eats out everyday (Lunch out, dinner and supper at home).
The only place I can see that really escapes from this is the high end restaurants. Usually they don't have to rely on cost saving measures, and have well developed supply chains for obtaining fresh ingredients and keeping them from contamination. But I don't think most of the people here could afford or want to eat at such a place regularly.