Eating regularly at McDonald’s over the past nine months, I have managed to lose 50lbs and ten inches off my waist, and I’m still counting. Yes, you read that correctly. Like many Americans, I have been trying to lose weight to no avail. I completely changed my diet, eating only vegetables, apples and microwavable, low-calorie, diet meals. And again, like many Americans, after months and years of discipline, restricting my portion sizes and eating like a rabbit, the scales wouldn’t budge.
I had made so little progress that I had given up trying. Dieting is expensive and time-consuming and I didn’t realistically have the time or the money to do it, especially if I wasn’t seeing results. I work very odd hours and don’t have time to meal prep or cook. So I gave up trying.
The US and Europe have different philosophies when it comes to regulating their food supplies
Yet it’s at the point where I had given up, and given in to frequent stops at the world-famous golden arches, that I began to finally lose weight. And I wasn’t just eating salads. I ate cheeseburgers and fries, sometimes twice a week. How is this possible? The primary reason is that the McDonald’s I was eating at just happened not to be in America, but in Budapest, Hungary.
When it comes to fast food in the United States, McDonald’s has always had a reputation as one of the least healthy options. The truth of the matter is that McDonald’s isn’t inherently unhealthy, especially when compared to its competitors. Instead, in the US, it operates alongside every other food and restaurant chain in arguably the world’s most harmful and chemically intensive food system in the developed world.
The US and Europe have entirely different philosophies when it comes to regulating their food supplies. Simply put, America’s FDA operates on a philosophy that allows additives in food until they are proven harmful. In contrast, in Europe, nothing supplementary is allowed in the food until it is proven safe for consumption.
The FDA operates on a “generally recognized as safe” or “GRAS” policy, which, under sections 201 and 409 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, allows food additives to skip the FDA approval process as long as experts recognize the additives as safe. Just who are these experts? In many cases, they are employees of the very corporations that produce the additives they are reviewing. According to a study conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association, out of 451 GRAS notifications that were submitted to the FDA between 1997 and 2012, not one was made by a third party – all of them were made either directly by the producers of the additives, consulting firms they employ, or a panel organized by the manufacturers or their consultants.
The result? Americans consume large amounts of additives daily. Most experts are unsure of their long-term effects on humans. Why? Because GRAS only requires that a substance be known not to be toxic for anticipated intake levels. The long-term effects of consumption, such as their effect on human metabolic rates, or their links to obesity and diabetes, aren’t necessary when legally considering if a substance is safe for consumption by humans. The GRAS framework does not require long-term metabolic or endocrine studies and, in a system driven by speed and cost, few incentives exist to conduct them voluntarily. According to a study by the Environmental Working Group last July, since 2000, nearly 99 percent of newly produced food additives and chemicals have been allowed into the American food supply without any federal safety reviews.
Supporters of the GRAS framework in the US will be quick to point out that no studies have proven the long-term adverse effects of the additives and emulsifiers they are adding to our food supply. That is true, but it is also the problem. The current regulatory structure provides little to no incentive to conduct long-term studies on the effects of these chemicals in humans.
While we don’t have studies on the direct effects of each chemical and emulsifier on humans, we do have studies on their effect on animals – and the results have been concerning. Studies have shown that when animals are regularly fed foods containing artificial chemicals and emulsifiers, most tend to experience significant weight gain and increased inflammation. There is even evidence of an increase in cases of colorectal cancer.
While studies on animals can’t be directly correlated to humans, they raise credible questions. Especially when those same substances are consumed daily by tens of millions of Americans.
It is hard to ignore the possibility that Americans maybe doomed from the start
And while there have been little to no official studies on each individual chemical and their effects on humans when consumed, when we examine the obesity rates in the United States, which allows these substances, and Europe, which bans them, the results speak for themselves. According to the CDC, the current obesity rate for Americans over 20 is 41.9 percent –in the EU, it’s around 16.5 percent.
Correlation is not causation, and there are many more factors to consider when looking at the obesity epidemic in the US, such as portion size, lifestyle and physical activity. But it is hard to ignore the possibility that Americans may be doomed from the start. Living in a food system that incentivizes the use of ultraprocessed ingredients and additives, Americans may be left at a serious disadvantage when trying to lose weight.
When I first moved to Hungary last April, European friends warned me that Hungary was known as a “20kg” country, where most people gain that amount (roughly 44lbs) after living there for a year. And that shouldn’t be surprising, given that pork and bread are primary staples of the Hungarian diet. However, as an American, I’ve found Hungary to be a place to lose weight, not gain it. The reason could very well be that, even while eating unhealthily, I have consumed much better-quality food than in America.
If you live in or run any kind of food-related business in the US, additives are impossible to avoid. No restaurant or grocery store is safe. The fact is, the building blocks of all our favorite foods are ultraprocessed and pumped with additives and sweeteners before places like McDonald’s get their hands on them. Even something as simple as the buns for McDonald’s cheeseburgers are radically different in the US and Europe.
It’s time to stop scapegoating individual American businesses for the obesity crisis and instead focus on the system in which they operate. I have been eating regularly at McDonald’s, arguably one of the most successful American franchises of all time, and have been able to lose weight and get healthier because I wasn’t in America. It’s time to bring common sense to the US – and to end the GRAS policy.
If I can lose 50lbs while still eating large amounts of fast food in Europe, just how much of the current US obesity crisis can be ended by changing one policy?
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s January 19, 2026 World edition.
Comments