The only thing making a quarter pounder safer than the worst of all foods is a simple slice of cheese

Cut out the cheese, and the improvement is hardly worth the dietary denial. A quarter pounder without the cheese is the number-two most toxic fast food, according to the Food and Drug Administration Total Diet Study. Those 44 samples of a quarter pounder without the cheese had 372 chemical residues plus plenty of synthetic hormones measured in the parts per billion, just enough to mess with kids’ developing bodies.

In the United States, anabolic sex steroids are administered to cattle for growth promotion 60 to 90 days before slaughter. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and three synthetic hormones (zeranol, melengestrol acetate, and trenbolone acetate) are the main hormones used for this purpose. Levels of hormone residues in edible tissues are higher in treated than in non-treated animals, notes a study in 2001 in Human Reproduction Update.

There is concern that hormonal residues in edible tissues, particularly those of synthetic hormones, may result in adverse reproductive consequences among beef eaters. Because of this, the European Union banned this practice in 1989.

“Higher red meat intake frequency during childhood is associated with an earlier age at menarche,” say University of Michigan researchers in the April 2015 issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

“In girls, DDT has been linked to earlier menarche,” notes lead author Jonathan R. Roy of the Department of Biology, Adelphi University, Garden City, New York in the May 2009 Medical Science Monitor.

Effects of DDT, with proven estrogenic effect, and its metabolite DDE on pubertal development have been investigated in several additional studies.

University of Michigan researchers reported in July 2004 in Human Reproduction that menarche occurred 1 year earlier in girls exposed to high amounts of DDT/DDE in the intrauterine period.

“A possible relationship between transient exposure to endocrine disrupters and sexual precocity is suggested, and deserves further studies in immigrant children with non-advanced puberty,” say researchers who found the pesticide DDE was significantly higher in daughters of immigrants than compared to native Belgians, according to a 2001 study in Human Repoduction.

An association between serum DDT/DDE concentrations and early menarche was reported in a study conducted in Chinese textile workers, report scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health in the October 2005 Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Most samples contained another powerful endocrine disruptor, also banned, but persistent in the environment, called dieldrin. Some 32 off 44 samples contained dieldrin.

Forty of 44 samples were positive for malathion, a pesticide probably coming from the bun. Malathion works differently than DDE and dieldrin. Instead of disrupting hormonal patterns, it interferes with cholinesterase, the enzyme involved in neuronal transmissions. At low levels of exposures, malathion is linked with increased risk of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children, reports the June 2010 issue of Pediatrics.