Criticism of fast food

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This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Criticism of fast food

Answer 1

Criticism of fast food

Criticism of fast food includes claimed negative health effects, alleged animal cruelty, cases of worker exploitation, and claims of cultural degradation via shifts in people's eating patterns away from traditional foods. Fast food chains have come under fire from consumer groups, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a longtime fast food critic over issues such as caloric content, trans fats and portion sizes. Social scientists have highlighted how the prominence of fast food narratives in popular urban legends suggests that modern consumers have an ambivalent relationship (characterized by guilt) with fast food, particularly in relation to children.

Some of these concerns have helped give rise to the slow food and local food movements. These movements seek to promote local cuisines and ingredients, and directly oppose laws and habits that encourage fast food choices. Proponents of the slow food movement try to educate consumers about what its members consider the environmental, nutritional, and taste benefits of fresh, local foods.

Many fast foods are rich in calories as they include considerable amounts of mayonnaise, cheese, salt, fried meat, and oil, thus containing high fat content (Schlosser). Excessive consumption of fatty ingredients such as these results in unbalanced diet. Proteins and vitamins are generally recommended for daily consumption rather than large quantities of carbohydrates or fat. Due to their fat content, fast foods are implicated in poor health and various serious health issues such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Additionally, there is strong empirical evidence showing that fast foods are also detrimental to appetite, respiratory system function, and central nervous system function (Schlosser).

According to the Massachusetts Medical Society Committee on Nutrition, fast foods are commonly high in fat content, and studies have found associations between fast food intake and increased body mass index (BMI) and weight gain. In particular many fast foods are high in saturated fats which are widely held to be a risk factor in heart disease. In 2010, heart disease was the number 1 ranking cause of death. A 2006 study fed monkeys a diet consisting of a similar level of trans fats as what a person who ate fast food regularly would consume. Both diets contained the same overall number of calories. It was found that the monkeys who consumed higher levels of trans fat developed more abdominal fat than those fed a diet rich in unsaturated fats. They also developed signs of insulin resistance, an early indicator of diabetes. After six years on the diet, the trans fat fed monkeys had gained 7.2% of their body weight, compared to just 1.8% in the unsaturated fat group. The American Heart Association recommends consumption of about 16 grams of saturated fats a day.

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Answer 2

Chew on This

Chew On This: Everything You Don't Want to Know about Fast Food, first published in 2005, is an adaptation of Fast Food Nation for younger readers by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson.

This book follows the general plot structure of Fast Food Nation but simplifies its predecessor's original content to make it more readable for younger children. The book is mainly a critique of the fast food industry. It tends to focus on McDonald's but covers all fast food in general. It goes on to mention production, labor conditions, and the negative health effects of some fast food, production, and labor conditions. This book also retells the history of fast food, from the man who invented the first hamburgers to the creation of fast food companies. It covers such content as the way chickens die at a slaughterhouse; how meatpacking has become more dangerous than it was back in the times of the , cutting approximately 400 cattle an hour; and how the average child sees approximately 40,000 advertisements a year, half of which are for fast food, candy, breakfast cereals, and soda.

The book has been published twice: once in hardcover, and once in paperback; including a new foreword. The paperback version of the book was first published in 2006 by Penguin Books. It has 318 pages.

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Answer 3

Fast food advertising

Along with automobiles, insurance, retail outlets, and consumer electronics, fast food is among the most heavily advertised sectors of the United States economy; spending over 4.6 billion dollars on advertising in 2012. A 2013 Ad Age compilation of the 25 largest U.S. advertisers ranked McDonald's as the fourth-largest advertiser (spending US$957,000,000 on measurable advertisements in 2012) and Subway as the nineteenth largest (US$516,000,000).

Fast food advertising campaigns have changed their intent over time. After hearing years of criticism of fast food diet's harmful effects, many modern campaigns stress the availability of healthy options. The rise in awareness of proper nutrition and obesity has decreased the income of these establishments, and their marketing campaigns attempt to rectify this. Even with Fast food companies, "change," in healthy meals and ingredients, many of the goods that are claimed and served are not what exclaimed when advertised.

Fast food restaurants often aim some of their advertising directly at the youth population.McDonald's Happy Meals, which include a toy often tied in with a newly released family film, is a significant example. Ronald McDonald, a clown advertising mascot introduced in 1963 and designed to appeal to young children, is another. In addition, in 1987 McDonald's incorporated a Play Place in their restaurants to further advertise to children,making their restaurants a more appealing environment for children. Additionally, from 1996 to 2006, Disney was an exclusive partner with McDonald's, linking their products together. They announced the end of this deal in May 2006, with some reports saying that Disney was worried about childhood obesity. Other than Disney, McDonald's has also been partnered with Nintendo since 1985, when the Nintendo Entertainment System was first introduced. In 1987, McDonald's also created a Nintendo play land in their restaurants where kids could play on Nintendo consoles while waiting for their food. During 2007, McDonald's began to provide WiFi from the Nintendo consoles; giving children the ability to play where ever they were. With also a target audience of children releasing these new films and incorporating toys, it uses the kids to reach out to their parents pockets because of their large investments in their children lives.

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Answer 4

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (2001) is a book by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser that examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry.

First serialized by Rolling Stone in 1999, the book has drawn comparisons to Upton Sinclair's classic muckraking novel The Jungle (1906). The book was adapted into a 2006 film of the same name, directed by Richard Linklater.

The book is divided into two sections: "The American Way", which interrogates the beginnings of the Fast Food Nation within the context of post-World War II America; and "Meat and Potatoes", which examines the specific mechanisms of the fast-food industry, including the chemical flavoring of the food, the production of cattle and chickens, the working conditions in the beef industry, the dangers of eating meat, and the global context of fast food as an American cultural export.

Fast Food Nation opens with a discussion of Carl N. Karcher and the McDonalds brothers, examining their roles as pioneers of the fast-food industry in southern California. This discussion is followed by an examination of Ray Kroc and Walt Disney's complicated relationship, as well as each man's rise to fame. This chapter also considers the intricate, profitable methods of advertising to children. Next, Schlosser visits Colorado Springs, CO and investigates the life and working conditions of the typical fast-food industry employee: fast-food restaurants have among the highest employee turnover rates and pay minimum wage to a higher proportion of their employees than any other American industry.

The second section of the text begins with a discussion of the chemical components that make the food taste so good. Schlosser follows this with a discussion of the life of a typical rancher, considering the difficulties presented to the agricultural world in a new economy. Schlosser is perhaps most provocative when he critiques the meatpacking industry, which he tags as the most dangerous job in America. Moreover, the meat produced by slaughterhouses has become exponentially more hazardous since the centralization of the industry: the way cattle are raised, slaughtered, and processed provides an ideal setting for E coli to spread. Additionally, working conditions continue to grow worse. In the final chapter, Schlosser considers how fast food has matured as an American cultural export following the Cold War: the collapse of Soviet Communism has allowed the mass spread of American goods and services, especially fast food. As a result, the rest of the world is catching up with America's rising obesity rates.

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Answer 5

Fast Food Nation (film)

Fast Food Nation (film)

Fast Food Nation is a 2006 American-British comedy-drama film directed by Richard Linklater. The screenplay was written by Linklater and Eric Schlosser, loosely based on the latter's bestselling 2001 non-fiction book of the same name.

Don Anderson is the Mickey's hamburger chain marketing director who helped develop the "Big One", its most popular menu item. When he learns that independent research has discovered a considerable presence of fecal matter in the meat, he travels to the fictitious town of Cody, Colorado to determine if the local Uni-Globe meatpacking processing plant, Mickey's main meat supplier, is guilty of sloppy production. Don's tour shows him only the pristine work areas and most efficient procedures, assuring him that everything the company produces is immaculate.

Suspicious of the facade he's been shown, Don meets rancher Rudy Martin, who used to supply cattle to the Uni-Globe plant. Rudy and his Chicana housekeeper both assure him that because of the plant's production level, several safety regulations are ignored or worked against; workers have no time to make sure that the manure coming from the intestines stays away from the meat. Don later meets with Harry Rydell, executive VP of Mickey's, who admits being aware of the issue, but is not concerned.

Amber is a young, upbeat employee of Mickey's, studying for college and living with her mother Cindy. While her life seems to be set, she continually faces the contrast between her current career and her own ambition, emphasized by her two lazy co-workers, Brian and Andrew, who, having heard of armed robberies at fast food restaurants in the area, start planning their own.

Amber and Cindy are visited by Cindy's brother Pete, who encourages Amber to leave town and start a real career. Amber eventually meets a group of young activists, Andrew, Alice, and Paco, who plan to liberate cattle from Uni-Globe as their first act of rebellion. They proceed to sneak up to a holding pen at the plant, but after breaking down the fence, they are shocked that the cattle make no attempt to leave. Upon hearing the police, they retreat and contemplate why the cattle decided to stay in confinement.

Raul, his love interest Sylvia, and Sylvia's sister Coco are illegal immigrants from Mexico, trying to make it in Colorado. They all go to Uni-Globe in hopes of finding a job - Raul becomes a cleaner, while Coco works on a meat processing conveyor belt. Sylvia, however, cannot take the environment, and instead finds a job as a hotel maid. Coco develops a drug habit, and begins an affair with her exploitative superior, Mike.

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Answer 6

Fast food worker strikes

The Fight for $15 an hour involves child care, home healthcare, airport, gas station, convenience store, and fast food workers striking for increased pay and the right to form a union with their employers.

On November 29, 2012, over 100 fast-food workers from McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Domino's, Papa John's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut walked off their jobs in New York City, New York in strike for higher wages, better working conditions and the right to form a union without retaliation from their managers. Many workers were making the minimum wage at the time. However, many allegedly were making, and are currently making, less than the minimum wage due to wage theft on the part of their employers. This was the largest strike in the history of the fast-food industry. Earning less than a living wage has forced many fast-food workers to have multiple jobs, obtain food stamps and other forms of government assistance, in order to afford basic food, shelter and clothing. This rate is declared to be below what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology considers to be a "living wage" (based on cost of living and necessary expenses) for all five boroughs of New York City.Time described this initial effort as seizing on the public's concern with economic inequality in the United States as stimulated by the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 and 2012.

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Answer 7

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is a 2010 American documentary film which follows the 60-day journey of Australian Joe Cross across the United States as he follows a juice fast to regain his health under the care of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Nutrition Research Foundation's Director of Research. Cross and Robert Mac, co-creators of the film, both serve on the Nutrition Research Foundation's Advisory Board. Following his fast and the adoption of a plant-based diet, Cross states in a press release that he lost 100 pounds and discontinued all medications. During his road-trip Cross meets Phil Staples, a morbidly obese truck driver from Sheldon, Iowa, in a truck stop in Arizona and inspires him to try juice fasting. A sequel to the first film, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2, was released in 2014.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead won the Turning Point Award and shared the Audience Choice Award – Documentary Film at the 2010 Sonoma International Film Festival.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead was the winner in 2010 of the Iowa Independent Film Festival in the Best Documentary Feature category.

The film has received mixed reviews with review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes giving it a rating of 67% "fresh" and Metacritic having an average score of 45 out of 100, based on 5 reviews. The Hollywood Reporter called it an "infomercial passing itself off a documentary "The New York Times stated that the film is "no great shakes as a movie, but as an ad for Mr. Cross's wellness program its now-healthy heart is in the right place".

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Answer 8

The Hundred Year Lie

The Hundred Year Lie: How Food And Medicine Are Destroying Your Health (2006) is a book by investigative journalist Randall Fitzgerald that examines the rise of the local and global influence of the United States food and chemical industries, and argues that they have, over the last century, altered, affected and damaged the lives of millions of people in the United States by introducing synthetic chemicals into the mainstream food chain.

The book covers a wide range of topics related to the central issue. It starts by describing the myths that the public believes, that toxicity health issues are 'someone else's problem', and then goes on to talk about what is known to the scientific and chemical communities, and charts the history of the cover-up of chemicals in relation to human health, and the level of business made from this by the chemical companies.

The book then goes on in detail about the dangers of food additives, the toxic threats of the processed food humans and animals currently eat, and how this chemical contamination has now affected the water that people drink, and how this has brought on increased biological changes, genetic mutations and newly discovered and increasing illnesses and diseases, in both human and animals.

The book ends with a discussion on Western and Eastern medical approaches and philosophies, a focus on alternative medicine and eating healthily, avoiding synthetic foods, and a practical guide on how to detoxify one's body.

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Answer 9

Junk food

Junk food is a pejorative term for cheap food containing high levels of calories from sugar or fat with little fiber, protein, vitamins or minerals. Junk food can also refer to high protein food like meat prepared with saturated fat - which some believe may be unhealthy, although some studies have shown no correlation between saturated fat and cardiovascular diseases. Many hamburger outlets, fried chicken outlets and the like supply food considered as junk food.

Despite being labeled as "junk", such foods usually do not pose any immediate health concerns and are generally safe when integrated into a well balanced diet. However, concerns about the negative health effects resulting from the consumption of a "junk food"-heavy diet, especially obesity, have resulted in public health awareness campaigns, and restrictions on advertising and sale in several countries.

The term junk food dates back at least to the early 1950s, although it has been reported that it was coined in 1972 by Michael F. Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In 1952, it appeared in a headline in the Lima, Ohio, News, "Candy, Cake, 'Junk Foods' Cause Serious Malnutrition", for a reprint of a 1948 article from the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner, originally headlined, "Dr. Brady’s Health Column: More Junk Than Food". In it, Dr. Brady writes, "What Mrs. H calls 'junk' I call cheat food. That is anything made principally of (1) white flour and or (2) refined white sugar or syrup. For example, white bread, crackers, cake, candy, ice cream soda, chocolate malted, sundaes, sweetened carbonated beverages." The term cheat food can be traced back in newspaper mentions to at least 1916.

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Answer 10

Kentucky Fried Cruelty

Kentucky Fried Cruelty is a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign that began in 2001, and seeks to change KFC's (also known as "Kentucky Fried Chicken") treatment of the chickens that are raised for its restaurants. According to PETA, since the launch of the campaign in 2003, more than 12,000 protests against KFC have occurred. KFC is the fourth fast food restaurant chain targeted by PETA, following campaigns against McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's.

"KentuckyFriedCruelty.com" was the legal name of Christopher Garnett, a youth outreach worker for PETA, after he changed his name to protest the treatment of chickens by KFC. At the time of his name change, Garnett was the street team coordinator of peta2, PETA's youth division.

The PETA website showed a copy of KentuckyFriedCruelty.com's drivers license bearing what was his legal name. PETA member Pamela Anderson expressed her support for the name change, as did his parents, although they continued to call him "Chris". Garnett explained in a January 2006 interview:

Pretty much everyone still calls me Chris, some of the people at the office call me Ken or Tuck. But the funny thing about the name change is, regardless of what people call me, every time I go to pay for something, I show someone my ID, I'm able to tell them about how KFC is, you know, cutting the beaks off baby birds and how their workers are slamming chickens in a wall, kicking them like footballs and laughing about it. And people are pretty shocked to hear about this sort of thing.

Garnett promised his mother he would revert the name change after KFC ceased its "worst abuses" against its chickens; however, following Garnett's official return to his birth name in August 2006, he explained that difficulties encountered when applying for a passport and credit card were the .

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