By Diana Wilkinson
I’m no stranger to eating on the run. During the school year, I would often ask someone to cover for at work me while I ran to grab a slice of pizza or buy a salad from a store near by and then eat it at my desk. I would bring sandwiches to class for dinner and hoped to finish eating before lecture started. When you have one too many commitments in a day, carving out time to make and slowly eat food just isn’t a priority.
I am incredibly privileged and can afford the kind of “fast-casual” food that is much healthier than a Big Mac and fries, but at the same time can be purchased and eaten quickly. It may not be greasy “traditional” fast food, but there a lot of similarities.
Even though the nutritional value of fast food is horrific, the idea behind fast-food may not be so wrong. It certainly fills a need in American society. I’m not saying it’s the best way to eat, but I certainly understand the popularity of it.
If you are tired from a long day of work, hungry and don’t have the means to pay for a prepared healthy meal, it makes a lot of sense that a consumer would go for something like a sandwich at Subway.Think about it, if you have a family of five and can buy a filling meal everyone enjoys for less than $30, you might even go there more than once a week!
Many Americans face the dilemma about what to eat, and as Schlosser mentioned, “on any given day in the U.S. about one-quarter of the adult population visits a fast food restaurant.” p.3 What if there was a fast-food style restaurant that was maybe a little bit more expensive but provided healthy alternatives to breaded chicken and cheese burgers. I would like to think that something like that could become as big as McDonald’s.
I’ve already seen smaller chains focused on healthier foods starting to crop up, but they cost a substantial amount more than traditional fast food. Could be get to a point where vegetables were made so efficiently that almost anyone could have access to them? If it tasted good, was filling, fast and cheap. I think it could be an extremely popular restaurant.
Also in terms of the workforce, about 1 in 6 people in America have at some point worked at a McDonalds, what would happen if those positions became higher paid and the employees received greater benefits. Starbucks even announced they would pay for community college for its employees.
Instead of trying to completely end all fast food, it might be time to look at why we have such a need for it and adapt the system that is already in place. People enjoy healthy foods too, and making meals accessible with the convenience and low price point of fast food could revolutionize the broken and unhealthy system in place today.
Diana, I really like your title. We always put fast food in a negative light, but in reality, fast food chains are so big, they could definitely be used for good or even an example to other places because of the huge influence these corporations have. I think a huge problem is the supply of these fast food chains; they can get many of their ingredients like corn and beef for extremely cheap prices, which keeps the unhealthy food cheap and healthy food more expensive. I am not 100% sure on what the government does to subsidize certain crops, but maybe it would help if they subsidized other crops. Another thing I think we should be asking as consumers is why bad food is so cheap and healthy food is so expensive. Another thing that might aid individuals who need cheaper food or need more time cooking is education. Teaching individuals where/ how to find healthy food for less money or ways to save time in order to make cooking dinner a possibility.