The diet of many Americans consists mostly of processed and fast foods. These are foods that are mass produced and devoid of nutrition.

Processed and fast foods are loaded with chemical additives and preservatives. The meat — which is taken from animals medicated with synthetic growth hormones and antibiotics and grown in unhealthy and unnatural conditions — is often more meat by-products and fillers than real meat. The “beef” version of these meat by-products is often what the U.S. Department of Agriculture has come to term “pink slime,” which is beef trimmings and fat treated with ammonia.

A diet of processed and fast foods is highly acidic and creates a condition called acidosis. Acidosis in the body (except in the stomach, which should be highly acidic) is a cause of disease unrecognized by medical people. Symptoms of acidosis may take the form of chronic degenerative disease, which may include cancer, diabetes, arthritis, emphysema, arteriosclerosis or heart disease.

In addition to causing obesity and myriad other chronic degenerative diseases, fast foods cause a number of other health issues, according to the journal Thorax. These include asthma, rhino conjunctivitis and eczema.

Processed and fast foods should be avoided like the plague. They are a plague on the health of Americans.