Fast food – everyone knows the chains. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, KFC, Taco Bell, the list could go on and on. These places are great aren’t they? Fast food is convenient, is typically cheap to purchase, and usually tastes pretty good. However, what these chains and corporations don’t tell you is what goes on behind the scenes of making and producing these burgers, breakfast sandwiches, and whatever you find most appealing when you’re on the go and hungry. American’s consumption of fast food rates has very quickly escalated over the last few decades. In 1970, the fast food industries were making about six billion dollars a year. Today, this number has multiplied over 28 times, suggesting that the fast food industries now make about one hundred and seventy billion dollars a year. (foodispower.org) So what’s the catch? People clearly seem to enjoy fast food, what could be so bad about it then?
The fast food industry has “engendered a wide range of negative social impacts – including rapidly rising diet-related disease rates, worker exploitation, systematic animal abuse, and environmental degradation” (foodispower.org). The “meats” that fast food joints usually use, is usually more chemicals and preservatives than meat itself. Many studies have found that they are a lead causal factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. They also found that people that often consume fast food is consuming more “empty calories” even though they are typically consuming more calories than someone that does not eat fast food. This is because the food products that these places use doesn’t contain all the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, etc. that the human body needs to have a sufficient caloric intake. In regards to worker exploitation, these big corporate fast food restaurants don’t typically care too much about their employees. There is a fast overturn rate in fast food employment, due to this lack of care and understanding, and lack of benefits. Animal abuse is a touchy subject for many, which is why I am sure that the fast food industries keep this out of the eye of the public for that reason. More often than not, animals that are raised on to produce fast food encounter lives full of pain and suffering on the factory farms because these places view them as production units that are only there to be used to make a profit, not be an animal. These animals can often be fed steroids and other things to make them produce more food, more often; which can cause them a great deal of pain. Lastly, fast food chains are very, very bad for the environment in many different ways. Millions of acres have and are being cut down to produce the food packaging that is necessary for distribution of food. Think about it, you get your food in a paper bag, sometimes more than one bag depending on how much food you order, burgers are typically wrapped in more paper or in a small cardboard box, french fries or chicken nuggets in a small cardboard container, cups are sometimes made out of paper/cardboard, the excessive amount of napkins that they put in the bag for you. That is a lot of paper and that’s just one example. In addition, a secondary aspect of how it is bad to cut down the trees for the packaging is that we are taking away animal’s ecosystems and habitats that they need to survive. Another reason that the packaging is bad for the environment is because fast food companies will often coat these paper packaging in a substance called perfluoroalkls. This is a chemical that is toxic to not only the environment but human health also, which means that the food that you are consuming could contain toxic chemicals and what it is wrapped up in contains chemicals that are toxic to the human body also (foodispower.org). I think these are all examples of things that the companies don’t tell you because they fear it will make you stop buying food from them, thus cutting down on their profit. I think that Juliet B. Schor made a point of this in her book True Wealth by explaining that “producers and retailers prefer that consumers not think about the damage their purchases are having on the earth, so information is not typically available, especially at the point of purchase” (Schor, 47). After learning about all the different ways that fast food is really hurting more than just my health, it made me rethink what I want to put into my body for financial, environmental, ethical, and health reasons.
After examining my own personal spending diary over the course of two months, I realized I spend far, far too much money on fast food. I totaled up just how much money I spent on fast food between February 11, 2018 and April 12, 2018 and it was a whopping $479.91. I did not include sit down restaurants in this total, just fast food. That’s almost $500 that could still be in my bank account or at least some could still be if I had gone grocery shopping to cook food myself and save money. In addition, that is money that I have put to go toward animal abuse in some ways; since fast food factory farms typically don’t treat their animals well as mentioned, when I could have purchased money from a local farm that could have potentially treated the animals better. I have also put $500 towards worsening the environment, because of all the negatives about the packaging of fast food. I never thought about the fast that companies have to cut many, many trees down in order to produce all the paper and cardboard that my food was wrapped in, and it also never crossed my mind that these paper products could have been intentionally coated in a chemical that isn’t only toxic to me, but the environment also. This was a big eye opener for me (and my bank account quite frankly) and I have decided to start grocery shopping more, and attempt to cut out fast food.
I used the week after I stopped tracking my spending on the spending diary from 4/11-4/18 to test my hypothesis of saving more money if I went grocery shopping and made my own food at home. I still tracked my spending for writing this portion of my paper, however it was very different than before. I work at a grocery store, so I find myself buying food every night for dinner instead of doing a big shopping trip more often than not. This week I had challenged myself to plan out meals, do a big shopping trip, prep them, and not buy anything during the week. I spent $74.36 on groceries which included things for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and some snacks for two people which I don’t think was too bad. The only rule that I set for myself that I broke was I ran out of bread halfway through that week and bought more, but that was it. I found that this saved me so much money because I was making my own iced coffee and bagel at home, which took a trip to Dunkin’s out of my morning schedule, I wasn’t getting lunch at Wendy’s or some other fast food and was packing sandwiches and snacks for lunch, and I meal prepped a bunch of chicken dinners. This made me feel better about my financial spending, because I spent significantly less than I usually do in a week; made me feel better about the environment because I wasn’t getting toxic paper bags full of chemical filled foods from animals that could have been potentially abused.
I also felt that because I was going grocery shopping instead of getting fast food as often as I typically did, I felt like I was somewhat bettering the environment because although I was still making some trash, it wasn’t nearly as much as the fast food packaging was. One aspect that really stood out to me was not getting styrofoam cups from the coffee shop daily since I was making my own iced coffee at home. Styrofoam cups are really, really bad for the environment. Science has proven that styrofoam cups, plastic bags, and glass bottles take the longest to biodegrade – if they do. Specifically, styrofoam cups can take 500 years – forever to decompose (sciencelearn.org). So basically, you or I would never live to see the day that a styrofoam cup could possibly good for the environment yet so many places use them for drinks.
In conclusion, fast food doesn’t seem to good once you learn it negatively effects more than just your overall health as a human. Fast food has chemicals and preservatives in it that can cause human health problems that can be life threatening. It is full of toxic chemicals, the animals that are used for the ‘meat’ products are often abused and given steroids to produce the most product possible. The packaging is awful for the environment in many different ways, it is coated in perfluoroalkls which is toxic to humans and the worlds environment, and we as a society cut down millions of trees in order to have enough paper and cardboard product to wrap and package each individual food product. As a secondary effect of this, animals are losing their ecosystem because we are cutting down their habitats to make packaging for fast food industries. How is it that even with this information about how bad fast food is for humans and the environment – the fast food industry still continues to climb up the ladder making more and more money each year? After learning about all of these things and realized just how much money I feel like I am wasting on a meal that seems to be cheap, but in the long run adds up over time; I’m definitely going to be rethinking my eating habits and making sure I have food on hand that is convenient and fast from home. This way I do not have to give into all of the negative side effects that are produced from fast food restaurants.