Fast Food In America

1185 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Are fast food restaurants really to blame for obesity

McDonald’s Golden French Fries, KFC’s Tender Chicken, Subway’s Scrumptious Subs, Taco Bell’s Mouth-Watering Tacos, all of which and more Americans devour on a regular basis. Though food items such as Tacos and Hamburgers were introduced in the late 19th century- early 20th century, fast-food restaurants however did not come into existence till’ early 1920’s. The first fast-food chain was opened in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. They opened up selling burgers, fries and cola all for a mere price of 5 cents. Fast-food restaurants however did not become popular until after World War 2, when America officially becomes a fast-food nation. White Castle’s founder Walter Anderson’s business model was to have limited amount of choices in immense volume at a low cost. On top of this, the new hamburger restaurants were to serve their customers at lightning quick speed. All of which that creates the business models of fast food franchises, all over the world today. On the other hand the McDonald brothers introduced the method of making food at a low production cost. Making the food the customer eat low quality but still be giving costumers mouths tastes of heaven. Millions of Americans everyday munch on fast-food; although a vast number of Americans detests the fast food industry argue it has led to obesity and frailty in America. On the other hand numerous Americans argue saying that the Fast-food chains have boosted the unstable American Economy and continues to produce jobs compared to many America corporations who outsource their jobs. This brings up the question, is the fast food industry a devil or angel to this fast food nation?
Today, there is more than 160,000 fast- food restaurants that feed more than 50 million America...

... middle of paper ...

... Treatment of Animals (PETA) released a documentary showing the cruelty chickens are facing. As a result KentuckyFriedCruelty.com was created an initiative to stop animal cruelty. Though the fast food restaurants do bolster America’s economy, they also hurt it by counts of cruelty to its employee, animals, in addition to the environment.
Fast food industries are not devils nor are they angels, but simply large corporations that are taking over the food industry of America. They don’t care about animals, environment, and certainly not people getting obese; corporations are made to make profit and not humanity. The government may see them as angels sent from heaven, Americans may see them as devils from hell, but at the end of the day a quarter of America will be eating at a fast-food restaurant today, and government will be receiving billions of tax dollars.

Show More
Related

  • The Maze Runner and Fast Food Nation

    3333 Words  | 7 Pages

    Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Print.

    Read More

  • hgk

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    Section 1: Typically, we need a well-balanced meal to give us the energy to do day-to-day tasks and sometimes we aren’t able to get home cooked meals that are healthy and nutritious on a daily basis, due to the reasons of perhaps low income or your mom not being able to have the time to cook. People rely on fast food, because it’s quicker and always very convenient for full-time workers or anyone in general who just want a quick meal. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation argues that Americans should change their nutritional behaviors. In his book, Schlosser inspects the social and economic penalties of the processes of one specific section of the American food system: the fast food industry. Schlosser details the stages of the fast food production process, like the farms, the slaughterhouse and processing plant, and the fast food franchise itself. Schlosser uses his skill as a journalist to bring together appropriate historical developments and trends, illustrative statistics, and telling stories about the lives of industry participants. Schlosser is troubled by our nation’s fast-food habit and the reasons Schlosser sees fast food as a national plague have more to do with the pure presence of the stuff — the way it has penetrated almost every feature of our culture, altering “not only the American food, but also our landscape, economy, staff, and popular culture. This book is about fast food, the values it represents, and the world it has made," writes Eric Schlosser in the introduction of his book. His argument against fast food is based on the evidence that "the real price never appears on the menu." The "real price," according to Schlosser, varieties from destroying small business, scattering pathogenic germs, abusing wor...

    Read More

  • Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side Of Fast Food

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    Over the last 50 years, the fast food industry did not only sold hamburgers and french fries. It has been a key factor for vast social changes throughout America. It has been responsible for breaking traditional American values and reinstating new social standards that specifically aims to benefit the industry’s growth. These social standards have inevitably changed the way the American youth respond to education and self-responsibility. Eric Schlosser, an author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, excellently uses logic to present the tactics used by the fast food industry to cheapen and promote labor along with the social changes that occurred in the American youth as a result. Schlosser aims to dismantle and dissect

    Read More

  • Fast Food Nation: The "Inconvenient Truth" of Fast Food

    576 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser goes beyond the facts that left many people’s eye wide opened. Throughout the book, Schlosser discusses several different topics including food-borne disease, near global obesity, animal abuse, political corruption, worksite danger. The book explains the origin of the all issues and how they have affected the American society in a certain way. This book started out by introducing the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station beside the Colorado Springs, one of the fastest growing metropolitan economies in America. This part presents the whole book of facts on fast food industry. It talks about how Americans spend more money on fast food than any other personal consumption. To promote mass production and profits, industries like MacDonald, keep their labor and materials costs low. Average US worker get the lowest income paid by fast food restaurants, and these franchise chains produces about 90% of the nation’s new jobs. In the first chapter, he interviewed Carl N. Karcher, one of the fast food industry’s leade...

    Read More

  • Reform Fast Food Nation

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Chew On This Summary

    567 Words  | 2 Pages

    Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson’s Chew On This explores the dark secrets of fast food. The authors first describe the background of fast food and their tactics with customers, and then elaborate on the impact of fast food on society today. Their view on fast food is a negative one: through describing various aspects of fast food, the authors ultimately reveal how the greediness of businessmen has caused the loss of individuality and the growth in power of corporations. They explain the effects of fast food on health, traditions, and animals, clearly showing fast food’s negative impact.

    Read More

  • Fast Food and the Increase in Obesity in America

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every month, at least ninety percent of Americans visit a fast food restaurant and about forty- five percent of them make it a weekly occurrence. These statistics make it safe to say Americans are obsessed with fast food, but why are Americans addicted to these restaurants? Is it the low prices, quick service or the taste of the food? According to Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side off the All-American Meal, he believes “It’s easy, it's filling, and it's convenient and inexpensive.” Therefore, the consumption of fast food is now directly correlated to the obesity epidemic in America. Consequently, the recent obesity increase in the United States has labeled America the fattest country.

    Read More

  • Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Destruction of American Values

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book Fast Food Nation: The Darks Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser claims that fast food impacts more than our eating habits, it impacts “…our economy, our culture, and our values”(3) . At the heart of Schlosser’s argument is that the entrepreneurial spirit —defined by hard work, innovation, and taking extraordinary risks— has nothing to do with the rise of the fast food empire and all its subsidiaries. In reality, the success of a fast food restaurant is contingent upon obtaining taxpayer money, avoiding government restraints, and indoctrinating its target audience from as young as possible. The resulting affordable, good-tasting, nostalgic, and addictive foods make it difficult to be reasonable about food choices, specifically in a fast food industry chiefly built by greedy executives.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    The New York Times bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is one of the most riveting books to come out about fast food restaurants to date (Schlosser, 2004). Fast food consumption has become a way of life for many in the United States as well as many other countries in the world. The author Eric Schlosser an investigative reporter whose impeccable researching and bold interviewing captures the true essence of the immense impact that fast food restaurants are having in America (2004). Beginning with McDonald’s, the first fast food restaurant, which opened on April 15, 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois to current trends of making fast food a global realization McDonald’s has paved the way for many fast food restaurants following the same basic ideal that is tasty foods served fast at a minimal cost (2011). Schlosser explains how fast food restaurants have gained substantial market share of the consumers; he also shows that by marketing to children and offering less unhealthful fare, that are purchased from mega-companies which are often camouflaged with added ingredients and cooked unhealthful ways, that these companies are indeed causing irreparable harm to our country (2004).

    Read More

  • what we eat

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser

    1927 Words  | 4 Pages

    Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Print.

    Read More

  • Fast Food and Childhood Obesity

    682 Words  | 2 Pages

    Remember how happy you were when your parents bought you a happy meal as a child. It came in that cool little red box with some fries and chicken nuggets. Oh, and best of all it always came with a toy; your parents would tell you not to open it until you finished your food but that never happened. Or the time you forgot money at home but still managed to scrap up a dollar and sixteen cents from your car for an iced sweet tea. Fast food always comes in the clutch, but what is really behind the happy meals and sweet teas. We all know fast food is not good for you, but who’s to blame. Is it fair that we blame fast-food chains or are we just to afraid to blame ourselves?

    Read More

  • Fast Food: A Revolutionary Force In American Society

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    The greatest proliferation of fast food has received in America. The history of American fast food started in 1912, when the company Horn & Hardart opened the first diner of fast food under the name "Automatic" in New York. This way of eating has become wildly popular and revolutionized the field of nutrition. Fast food as an industry emerged in the 1920s in America. A pioneer in this field was the company “White Castle”, which opened in 1921 in Kansas. Specialty of this company was the burgers, which at that time Americans were a rarity. Potential buyers were especially happy with stable price for food. Despite the Great Depression, the Second World War and inflation the company until 1946 sold their hamburgers for five cents. When some visitors began to think about how harmful such foods can be, the owner of a network, Billy Ingram, invented a clever move. He hired several young people who for a small fee daily came in White castle in white coats, and they ordered hamburgers. Visitors mistook them for doctors and calmed down. If even doctors eat hamburgers, it means that it is really safe for health.

    Read More

  • Fast Food Industry

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is not a surprise that fast food has become a way of life in America. Every day about a quarter of the adult population n United States visits the fast food restaurant. Every month about 90 percent of children aged 3-9 visit McDonald's. According to Schlosser, Americans spent more than $110 billion a year on the fast food. In his book "Fast Food Nation" Eric Schlosser is not chiefly interested in the consumption of fast food, but his primary objective is to explore manufacturing starting with the unemployment. His book deals with United States politics and raises many social issues.

    Read More

  • The Negative Impact of Low Wage Jobs

    2777 Words  | 6 Pages

    Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. N. pag. Print.

    Read More

More about Fast Food In America

Open Document