I’ve been learning about Fast Food the last few days and yes, it’s pretty scary! These are some of the things I have learnt and they are pretty shocking.
#1. The first Big shock (although maybe it shouldn’t be) is that it is quite easy to eat one day’s calorie allowance (typically between 2,000 and 2,500 Calories) in one meal.
That is mad!
To remind me of the fast food I used to love, I looked back at the classic documentary of 2004, Super Size Me, which was a reminder of the power of fast food.
In the film, Morgan Spurlock, (unfortunately in the news again recently for not so good reasons) eats only McDondald’s food for 30 days to show how it impacts his body. Given that McDonald’s were making health food claims, he clearly wanted to show that their food was far from healthy.
He would typically eat 5000 Calories per day. He gained 11 kilos (around 25 lbs), suffered from headaches, mood swings and indigestion.
Although McDonald’s did stop their SuperSize offer shortly after the film was released, you have to ask yourself, what the film is trying to prove. As far as I know, Mc Donald’s has never claimed their food is a one-stop shop for your whole diet. I think if you ate out at a mixture of restaurants for every meal for 30 days, you would notice bad effects due to all the sugar, salt, and fat that restaurants put into their food.
I am not defending fast food, I rarely go there now I know what is in it, but I do think this is about educating people so they know what is in food, and then we have to be responsible for our own choices.
I would say, the biggest challenge with McDonald’s is the addiction to its sweet taste and texture. Whilst food environments have a role to play, and I praise the attempts to limit the location of fast food outlets near schools (happening in the US as well as UK), I am not sure it will help, unless we educate kids about food, being responsible and supporting them in their choices.
#2. Years ago, hamburgers from Mc Donald’s contained the leftovers from the cow (that the butchers throw away) that were so rubbish they had to be washed with ammonia to kill the bacteria.
Chef and food activist, Jamie Oliver, managed to convince McDonald’s (in the USA) to change the way it made hamburgers, after exposing and educating people about the ‘pink slime’ it was using in its hamburgers (this was back in 2013).
Surprising, but also great that he had such influence. I was nearly sick when I watched the videos and realised what I have been eating in the past.
This was debated widely on the internet, for example here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSoJzuUgO6c
The debate in this video turns from why do we still eat these hamburgers when we know what is in them, to the issue that poor people (in USA) have few choices because they don’t have access to healthy food. They choose McDonald’s even though they know it is low quality, because it is so cheap (80 cents for a burger). Is this really about price rather than personal choice? I mean surely rice and local vegetables are not that more expensive.
I am sure this is not as simple as it may seem, I know there are many reasons choices about food are made, including price, and there is also environment, habit, addiction, and social reasons to name a few.
Changing the food we eat, is clearly nowhere as easy as you may think.
#3. Globally, McDonald’s feeds almost 70 million people a day, that’s similar to the population of the UK!
In the USA, about 25% of Americans visit a fast food outlet on any given day.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/schlosser-fast.html
It is one of the most recognised logos in the world. It clearly fills a purpose beyond nourishment!
#4. When fast food outlets like McDonald’s and KFC started out in China back in the 1990’s and even when I went to live in China in 2002, they were frequented by the affluent, well-off people.
Going to KFC was seen as a sign of being international, being able to afford a foreign lifestyle. Little did they know what they were letting themselves in for!
On the same side of the world, the Japanese see KFC as a great place to go for Christmas dinner – it’s known as ‘Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii’ or Kentucky for Christmas!
Find out more below
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161216-why-japan-celebrates-christmas-with-kfc
#5. You may know that most soft drinks contain a lot of sugar (often 9 to12 teaspoons worth of sugar), but Coca Cola contains something so acidic it can clean….toilets, rust from coins or tools, milk stains from clothes, windows and much more!
Find out more by watching here!