Potatoes are the fourth largest crop in the world behind rice, wheat, and corn, they comprise nearly three percent of all calories consumed by U.S. adults (National Potato Council 2012), and one third of them are used to produce just one product: frozen french fries. There are three sides to this staple food that now so pervades our fast food restaurants: the market, utilization, and regulation. First, the market.
In any market there are four possible models to follow: perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and pure monopoly. Potatoes fall into the category of perfect competition. Why? In order for perfect competition to exist you need many firms, standardized products, market controlled price, low barriers to entry, and no non-price competition. Potatoes meet this criteria. As organic produce, there is differentiation between one species and another, however consumers generally view one brand as a perfect substitute for any other. In terms of price, a single potato producer has little choice in the matter if they wish to turn a profit. If they were to raise prices, there are any number of other perfectly good substitutes at a lower price. If they were to raise prices, they would only lose revenue given that they could sell a theoretically unlimited amount at the market price. What about barriers to entry? Certainly the costs of farm equipment must be large. While equipment costs may be high, “no significant legal, technological, financial, or other obstacles prohibit new firms from selling their output…” (p.165 McConnell et. al 2012). Essentially, the ‘science’ of potato production isn’t held in just a few hands. Finally, non-price competition. Given that there is only small distinctions from one potato to anot...
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...nced by politics, much of it in the dance between sugar and corn taxes and subsidies which have riddled our food with sugar substitutes like high fructose corn syrup. It finds its way into everything, including many products sold at fast food restaurants. Personally, I tend to lean in the direction of less regulation, however when so much of the government is run by lobbyists dealing in the currency of influence, you have to wonder if anything can be changed without participating in the same system. I think a lot of America’s problems can be solved with better and further reaching education. When a relatively unhealthy, full meal at McDonald’s or a similar fast food place can be bought for the same price as a small amount of healthy fruits or vegetables we put the uneducated and poor in a difficult position when it comes to choosing where to get their daily calories.
Fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society. Everywhere you turn you can see a fast food restaurant. An industry that modestly began with very few hot dog and hamburger vendors now has become a multi-international industry selling its products to paying customers. Fast food can be found anywhere imaginable. Fast food is now served at restaurants and drive-through, at stadiums, airports, schools all over the nation. Surprisingly fast food can even be found at hospital cafeterias. In the past, people in the United States used to eat healthier and prepared food with their families. Today, many young people prefer to eat fast food such as high fat hamburgers, French-fries, fried chicken, or pizza in fast
The obesity problem in this country has gotten worse, a lot worse, and the surge in obesity can be tied directly to fast food. I was appalled by the fact that since 1980 the number of people either fat of obese has doubled, and in that time frame there are twice as many overweight children and three times as many overweight adolescents. Looking strictly at the numbers, it is very easy to find a direct correlation between the number of overweight or obese individuals and the number of fast food establishments. However these fast food outlets are not created in a vacuum, they are servicing a demand. Each day one in four Americans visits a fast food restaurant. Our culture has evolved to one of immediate gratification, we want it convenient, and we want it now. The fast food industry has simply seized that cultural demand and has taken advantage of it all the way to the bank. I think we have a cultural weakness that looks for someone to blame for our problems and McDonalds certainly makes a nice target.
The Great Famine of 1845 With 3 million either gone or dead from the island of Ireland, 1845 was possibly the most painful year in its history. It was also obvious that something was afflicting Ireland, with the smell and sight of the crops. Death rates grew high, and immigration even higher during this time period of the famine. The Great Potato Famine of 1845 had a massive effect on Ireland in population decrease, the reactions of the people, and effects it had on the future of Ireland. One of the biggest, and nastiest, effects of the famine was population decrease.
Like the vast majority of Americans, I’ve eaten at a fast food restaurant before. Maybe the tables were sticky, or chicken was suspiciously white, but the fries tasted great, so I’d overlook the less enjoyable aspects of my experience. After reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, I understand that isn’t an option anymore. In ways both big and small, the fast food industry exerts a ridiculous amount of power over the American consumer, and it’s imperative that this be understood, should any impactful changes be made. As it stands now, the fast food industry is in dire need of reform, as it poses innumerable health and societal risks to the country and the world.
In the book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser writes about the fast food industry. Schlosser tells the story of J.R. Simplot, the man behind McDonald’s source for potatoes. He started his own business right out of the eighth grade, after dropping out. He started out small but eventually became one of the riches men in America. He owned then 160 acres of land to start off this business. He sold his potatoes to companies at first all natural. But he soon discovered that if you dry out the food it will keep for longer, more companies then bought from him. Then in the 1950's he found out about freezing them, and the method of frozen food. McDonald’s started buying and selling Simplot fries. The customers seemed to like it, they didn't mind the change or even realize it. As a result though from freezing the potatoes, they lost a lot of the natural flavors. Companies began cooking their food in a high percentage of animal fat to capture that flavor, but soon they switched. They traded beef fat for more chemicals. The fries flavor all depends on the chemicals, it is all fake, and there is even more saturated fat from their fries than in their burgers.
Potatoes have become a staple to the diet of humans.They have become so popular since they come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and tastes. They are also cheap and easy to grow, and they taste delicious! Potatoes have changed the course of history in several ways. Who knew that potatoes, just a starchy vegetable, could have helped shape the world in so many ways. First, the Irish Potato Famine killed a million people and caused another million to move out of Ireland. Second, soldiers in the United States army were able to eat potatoes throughout the war. Third, they prevented a famine from occurring in England after there was not a sufficient amount of crops going to sustain the country's cries for food. Many people wonder if potatoes have
These three companies have all but either acquired or eliminated their smaller competitors. The giants compete for the leading fast food chain’s contracts, in turn only benefitting the restaurants and increasing their profits (Schlosser 116). The potato industry has become an, “oligopsony- a market in which a small number of buyers exerts power over a large number of sellers,” (Schlosser 117). The potato farmers of Idaho face as Schlosser recounts, “pressure to either get bigger- or get out if the business,” (Schlosser 117). “Over the past twenty-five years, Idaho has lost about half of its potato farmers.
The fast food has a negative impact on the American people. The fast food industry can be compared to that of a drug dealer pushing their product down the throats of suspecting, but ever willing customers. The community is doing nothing to stop this going industry and yet encouraging them to continue to impact the health of its customers.
Domesticated potatoes were once all belong to one botanical species, Solanum tuberosum; it included thousands of varieties that had diversity in size, shape, color and other characteristics. The potato was first domesticated in the South America Andes, then the Puritans who took Mayflower arrived the land and the First Nations taught them about potatoes. Then the sailors went back to Europe and people started to plant potatoes in Spain, England, France, and many other countries in Europe. Later, potatoes were spread into Africa by the colonists. The crop was once believe to be poisonous by the local farmers who refused to plant them. However, the colonists persuaded the farmers and introduced potatoes as a low-price and high-production crop in substitute of wheat and rice.
Take a second to understand why fast food firms choose to sell products that are unhealthy. Their unhealthy products are in a high demand in the food market; in fact, they are simply giving us what we demand for. Most firms have started putting food labels on their menus so there is no room for excuse when making the right food choices. Nobody is forcing us to eat a whole box of Krispy crème donuts or a super-size meal at McDonalds. I believe that we are always looking for shortcuts in life and now we can anticipate there is a shortcut in what we put into our bodies. So we are consistently after things that are cheap, fast and affordable. Who better to attend to our needs than the fast food industry?
America is one of the most obese countries in the world, and the reasons are quite obvious. Take a look around. Fast food chains on every block, more and more technology to make our lives easier, and high amount of stress are just a few factors to weight gain in our country. There are many different views on obesity and how the people think it should be resolved, whether it's government making the change or the people taking care of themselves. Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years. Are we doing enough to bring these statistics down? No. In the last 40 years, there has been a growth to more than 160,000 fast food restaurants in America (“Adolescent and School Health”). Restaurants (such as Wendy's, McDonald's etc.) serve more than 50 million people per day, generating about 65 million in sales annually. Only since obesity has become a national epidemic have fast food restaurants changed their ways. But we need to do more than just change the kind of oil the french fries are fried in. Better yet, why don't we remove, or intensely decrease the number of the unhealthy fast food chains, and spread more healthy fast food chains, such as Subway? Is it something government could take act in? Should the United States government take measures to fight the rise of obesity in the country, or are choices concerning diet and nutrition better left to the individuals, free of government interference?
For the preparation of Part 1, pieces were cut from the potato and were blended. The prepared suspensions were broken cells of the potato used as the extraction. The process of the suspension was the homogenization of the organism and later was centrifuged so that some of the substances reached the bottom (insoluble particles) and used the liquid as the enzyme(Schultz, 2006). The enzyme was brown colored known as the catechol oxidase, and that product can be used to measure the reaction rate using a spectrometer (Schultz, 2006). We started with twice the volume of the stock, so for the case of Part 1 was to begin with 6 ml of full strength enzyme. Two test tubes were used for the dilution. The first contained 5ml of buffered catechol and the
Fast food is a big problem in the united states, and It causes many people to become obese. But there are some fast food places that offer and sell some healthy stuff such as apples, and salad. We face many problems, not only with fast food but with the food we make at home can also makes with making people obese.
...ng sugar and fats. The junk food companies know this, but they don’t care, because it makes them rich. In summary, this is why by law, all fast-food companies should have forced limitations on distribution which has lead to the rise of obesity in America.