I like fast food. In fact, strike that: I love fast food. It’s flippin’ tasty. I don’t care what’s in it, Gillian McKeith, whether it’s eyelids, trotters or tail: the fact of the matter is it tastes good in my mouth.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t eat it all the time; purely because it costs money. But when I do have a Mac and Fries, I like it. Very much.

“But Ben!” I hear you cry. “I’ve been on the McDonalds website and worked out how many calories and fat particles you’re eating! It’s disgusting!”

True, that is a lot of calories, and a fair few globules of fat. But here’s my argument. As an average male (arguable), my recommended daily allowance of calories is 3000; my RDA for saturated fats is 20g. Let’s say I’ve scoffed my Mac and Fries. Allow me to demonstrate this to you in a couple of handy pie charts.

According to this, I have 68% of my RDA of calories left, and 40% of sat fats. That’s enough for about two more loads of Mac and Fries, or something like that. So shove off and leave me alone – and, for goodness’ sake, cover your package up, running man. No-one wants to see that.

Another help in the direction of self-education is keeping a diet diary. Doing this in any notebook or scratch-pad for a period of at least two weeks will give you more of an idea of what you really eat than just memory will ever do. To be of the most help, such a diary should be kept closely, itemizing what was eaten at each meal and for each snack. Addition of those items not put down during the day can be done at night. Then, when the study of your eating habits for that length of time is completed, each item can be checked for nutritional value and calorie count by using any of a number of nutrition or cook books. Of even more value would be the discussion of such a diary with a nutritionist or physician.

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