In 1940, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a small hot dog restaurant in downtown San Bernardino aimed at busy workers looking for a quick meal in their car. Could the brothers have imagined any of what was to come? Today, McDonald’s is worth billions of dollars, a blockbuster movie about the brothers’ story was made, and the company has just introduced meat-free hamburgers. The growth of the fast food industry was a decisive trend not only for the restaurant industry but also for American culture as a whole. In honor of National Fast Food Day on November 16, we’re giving you a brief overview of how the industry got started, where it is today, and what it’s likely to be in the future
.
Fast food is associated with a higher body mass index, less successful weight loss maintenance, and weight gain. Fast food impairs the quality of nutrition and offers unhealthy alternatives to children and adolescents in particular, increasing their risk of obesity. I won’t go into the history of the development of fast food, but I’ll refer to the Devoured and Fast Food books for an insight. The main drawbacks of this venture were the lack of variety in the fast food diet and the inconvenience of driving to buy fast food instead of making a quick meal at home.
While fast food is often cheap and easy, its potentially harmful effects on the human body should not be overlooked. What the McDonald brothers captured and exploited Kroc was a culture of convenience and a desire for quick living among a people who preferred their time over other cultural aspects of food. The economic clout of the fast food industry has not only enabled it to radically change the country’s eating habits (and eating habits all over the world), but it has also fundamentally changed the way food is produced. We’ve enshrined the temptation of a quick-made and undeniably delicious hamburger in American consciousness, and even when those burgers are made without meat or by machine, fast food is here
to stay.
Fast food has a bad reputation, but it still has a large customer base among the American population and continues to spread all over the world, particularly in urban shopping areas populated by tourists. However, even infrequent consumption of fast food can aggravate gastroenterological problems and lead to a condition such as GERD. Mobile ordering and a focus on new service technologies that focus on speed are just the first steps in getting food to customers faster than ever before. Fast food is therefore part of the problem of the disappearance of regional cuisines, but inauthentic restaurant food is also
partly responsible for this.
Restaurants can offer tourists and travelers a cultural experience, but restaurants are rarely the source of a cuisine. This information is consistent with the findings of the Food Empowerment Project report “Shining a Light on the Valley of Heart’s Delight.”