The world has become so fast paced that everything is rushed. Almost every aspect of life has become industrialized. Food and the way it is prepared is no exception to this world that always appears to be in fast forward. The fast food industry has revolutionized how and what people eat. The public has begun to consume more fast food and the problem is that people do not know what they are eating. If the concept of a nutritious meal is thrown out the window for the convenience of fast food then the health risks will outnumber any pros in favor of that cheeseburger. A new time period requires new methods to keep up with the demand. The way food is produced today has basically been reinvented and is made more for convenience than ever before. People have learned to keep up with the hustle and bustle by purchasing the easy, convenient, and inexpensive fast food that is readily available (Schlosser). Every day about one quarter of the U.S. population eats some type of fast food (Schlosser). The food that available through a speedy drive-thru is indeed filling, however it is high in calories and the human immune system is just not built to accept such vast amounts (Schlosser). The normal meal prepared at home may contain 400 to 600 calories, but fast food is at least 200 additional calories that the body does not even use (Top 10 Things). People sometimes ignore those extra calories because of the affordable prices, but what is the consumer actually paying for? The sacrifice of healthy calories for affordable prices is a huge deal and it is occurring more. There is a huge difference between good calories and bad calories. Good calories are used for energy and muscle development, while bad calories will stick around in unwanted place... ... middle of paper ... .... Food Inc. dir. Robert Kenner. Perf. Michael Pollan. Magnolia, 2008. DVD. Haris, Nadia. Healthy Eating . Demand Media, 2013. Web. 4 Dec. 2013 Haws, Kelly L., and Karen Page Winterich. "When Value Trumps Health In A Supersized World." Journal Of Marketing 77.3 (2013): 48-64. Business Source Complete. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Orciari, Megan. Yale News. Yale University, 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. Schlosser, Eric. Interview. "Americans Are Obsessed with Fast Food: T." CBS News. CBS. 31 Jan. 2002. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. Sessions, Karen. Critical Bench. Ed. Mike Westerdal. Critical Bench, 2011. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. Stender, S., J. Dyerberg, and A. Astrup. "Fast Food: Unfriendly and Unhealthy." International Journal of Obesity 31.6 (2007): 887-890. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. Top 10 Things Why Fast Foods Are Unhealthy. World Actuality, 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
In David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” Zinczenko explains that during his childhood, which was in the mid 1980’s, his parents split up and he lived with his mom. Her income was barely enough to pay the bills, so they lived paycheck to paycheck. Under this circumstance, fast food was the only foods that they could afford to buy in large quantities because it is generally cheaper than most other restaurants. Due to eating fast food for both lunch and dinner on a daily basis for his entire childhood, when he was 15 years old, Zinczenko weighed 212 pounds. He explains how Type 2 diabetes and the money spent to treat it has dramatically increased over the years, but takes most of the blame of the consumers by saying some fast food restaurants inaccurately or does not provide caloric labels and information. Zinczenko brought up the interesting points of financial hardships, fast food restaurants not providing nutritional information, and the fact that fast food restaurants can be found pretty much anywhere.
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...
Fast food nation is divided into two sections: "The American Way", which brings forth the beginnings of the Fast Food Nation within the context of after World War Two America; and "Meat and Potatoes", which examines the specific mechanizations of the fast-food industry, including the chemical flavoring of the food, the production of cattle and chickens, the working conditions of the beef industry, the dangers of eating this kind of meat, and the international prospect of fast food as an American cultural export to the rest of the world. Chapter 1 opens with a discussion of Carl N. Karcher, one of fast food’s pioneers. Carl was born in 1917 in Ohio. He quit school after eighth grade and spent long hours farming with his father. When he was twenty years old, his uncle offered him a job at his Feed and Seed store in Anaheim, CA.
This is stated by David Zinczenko when he says in his article “Don’t Blame the Eater”, “Drive down any thoroughfare in America, and I guarantee you 'll see one of our country 's more than 13,000 McDonald 's restaurants. Now, drive back up the block and try to find someplace to buy a grapefruit”. He is right when he says this, because the fast food restaurants in America and around the world are becoming greater in number. Than a local grocery store because of this, people would rather take a quick trip to the nearest fast food restaurant instead of searching for a grocery store. (This is an important piece of information that tells what could occur in the future and where America and the rest of the world could be heading.) What could occur in the future is the fast food chains taking over and forcing the local grocery stores to shut down. This would result in fewer grocery stores, and people that actually do try to eat healthy would either be forced to start eating at fast food restaurants like everyone else; perhaps they would have to go through obstacles just to get fruits or vegetables. Fast food restaurants being in greater supply would also mean that America and the rest of the world would become obese and have many health issues that could have easily been avoided. This shows how hard it is to get something healthy instead of only eating fast food. (Although there are also reasons as to why fast food is sometimes chosen above healthy
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...
Fast Food Nation, published in 2001 by Eric Schlosser, is a book that exposes the problems in the fast food industry. The book has two sections, The American Way which discusses the economy in America before World War II and Meat and Potatoes which gives indepth details of the problems inside fastfood and also globally.
Buchholz, Todd. "Are Fast-Food Establishments Making Americans Fat?." Journal of Controversial Medical Claims 10.4 (2003): 1-10. Print. 1 Feb 2011.
As our society lives a rushed life, our food options are rushed as well. Humankind wants fast, affordable and available. If you own a business that has all three of these, I can only imagine how successful you are. If a healthier lifestyle was promoted as much as possible, we would be disgusted by now about the true facts of unhealthy foods. Though, there is no easy way to get society away from the rush, we can make an effort to get them away from supporting fast food. Coming from “Don’t Blame The Eater”, there is a large amount of fast food options compared to healthy ones. “If you drive down any thoroughfare in America,…you’ll see one of our country’s stores and more than 13,000 McDonald 's restaurants. Now drive back up the block and try to find someplace to buy a grapefruit.” (They Say, I Say, pg.392). Fast food is so convenient it is unavoidable for the society. Over a span of my parents and I’s life we have discovered that there are multiple healthy options where we live in Nova Scotia compared to many other places. Saying that there is a growth in more healthy fast food options today such as Panera, Chipotle, Subway, etc. I do not blame the eater when it comes to fast alternatives to choose fast food being as it is everywhere and it 's all we see as options. Being so convenient it is hurting our diets and causing overweight and obese people in today 's
This is because fast food meals typically contain high levels of calories, saturated fat, sugar. Despite the health risks that come with fast food consumption, people continue to eat it because many people have no time to select and prepare food at home, and the price is affordable through most fast food places having deals such as dollar menus, lunch specials, and promotion deals. This is what a modern day family would need, fast, easy, and affordable. In addition, home cooked meals generally take more time to prepare and require you to have cooking skills. On the other hand, the taste of home cooked meals is generally better, because you are able to select fresh ingredients. You are also able to ensure the ingredients that go into your food are clean and free of contaminants. The pros and cons are a never ending list, but to parent in a rush to feed their kids, cheap and timeless sounds like a plan. By counting on fast food to get the job done, many families are losing the fact that they are losing quality family time like the traditional family-sit-down dinner. Although, America’s traditions and cultures are always changing and so are the ideas of a “modern family”. Fast food dinners and pre-prepared meals seem to be adapting into the lifestyles of everyday American
“Out of every $1.50 spent on a large order of fries at fast food restaurant, perhaps 2 cents goes to the farmer that grew the potatoes,” (Schlosser 117). Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser brings to light these realities in his bestselling book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Schlosser, a Princeton and Oxford graduate, is known for his inspective pieces for Atlantic Monthly. While working on article, for Rolling Stone Magazine, about immigrant workers in a strawberry field he acquired his inspiration for the aforementioned book, Fast Food Nation:
The fast food industry spent $4.6 billion to advertise mostly unhealthy products, and children and teens remained key audiences for that advertising, according to a new report by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. The food industry has developed different marketing tactics to target children and teens. They are able to advertise through the use of TV, the Internet, social media, and mobile devices. I wanted to address how online advertisements affects teens and children throughout the use of social media. Many companies today communicate and interact with their customers throughout the use of social media, the fast-food industry is no different. Many teens today spend most of their time online, where they are exposed to many types
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?
Over the last three decades, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society and has become nothing less than a revolutionary force in American life. Fast food has gained a great popularity among different age groups in different parts of the globe, becoming a favorite delicacy of both adults and children.
While fast-food is a major part of American culture the industry does not have the customer’s health as their main concern. The only way for America to become healthier is to become educated on calorie consumption and stay away from the unhealthy persuasion of fast-food chains.
Stender, S., J. Dyerberg, and A. Astrup. "Fast Food: Unfriendly And Unhealthy." International Journal Of Obesity 31.6 (2007): 887-890.Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.