Where did the
dense, gorgeous forests go? Where do the wild animals reside? Why can’t I
remember the last time I saw a bald eagle? Of course it’s because money has
become more important than nature and beauty. In Bellingham, there are fast
food restaurants on almost every street polluting the world while making people
unhealthy just to make a dime or two. I remember when I could go on a bike ride
and play with my friends in a nearby local creek. Not anymore. The creek is
long gone now and, in fact, a McDonald’s fast food joint has been built on top
of the land. However, I only envy McDonalds a little for that… what I really
hate is how fattening their products are, how they get their ingredients and
how I can’t seem to escape the popular, cheap franchise.
I often wonder what the world would
be like if fast food hadn’t been such a hit when it was first revealed. For
instance, the world might be less polluted and people might live longer lives
than they currently do today. Fast food is coated in layers of grease and then
wrapped in copious amounts of non-biodegradable wrapping, which is often left
near or in oceans or forests. Furthermore, think of how beautiful our world
could be without as many daunting bright signs and appealing, but also
disgusting, aromas of unhealthy, cheap food - there could actually be high
percentages of wildlife and enchanting forests populating the world like there
once was years ago. I don’t speak for everyone, but personally, I would much
rather view the beauty of nature from my window than a series of greedy fast
food restaurants trying to make profit.
The first fast food restaurants are
said to have originated in the United States with A&W in 1916 and White
Castle in 1921. Today, American-founded fast food chains such as McDonald's and
KFC are multinational corporations with outlets across the globe, adjusting
their menus to the cultural foods of their locations. The founder’s goal was to
have a McDonald’s on every street corner in the world. Could you imagine?
Furthermore, the McDonalds' Speedee Service System and, much later, Ray Kroc's
McDonald's outlets and Hamburger University were built on principles, systems
and practices that White Castle had already established between 1923 and 1932.
After discovering that most of their profits came from hamburgers, the brothers
closed their restaurant and reopened it in 1948 as a walk-up stand offering a
simple menu of hamburgers, French fries, shakes, coffee, and Coca-Cola, served
in disposable paper wrapping. As a result, they figured out how to produce
hamburgers and fries constantly, without waiting for customer orders, and could
serve them immediately at about half the price at a typical diner. By 1954, The
McDonald brothers' stand was Prince Castle's biggest purchaser of milkshake
blending machines. Prince Castle salesman Ray Kroc traveled to California to
discover why the company had purchased almost a dozen of the units as opposed
to the normal one or two found in most restaurants of the time. Enticed by the
success of the McDonald's concept, Kroc signed a franchise agreement with the
brothers and began opening McDonald's restaurants in Illinois[1]
which then led to other states and after a few decades, globally.
With
this in mind, fast food became all of the rage
in the 1950's partly because of the new "car culture." Restaurants
where you could just drive in, pick up a meal, and then be on your way in just
a few minutes became extremely popular. At first, the portions were designed to
do just that; small hamburgers, fries and a 12-ounce Coke. Then all the big
chains such as McDonald's, Burger King, and
KFC’s competed to see who could have the biggest ‘Monster Burger' or
biggest bucket of chicken, [2]
without considering the impact it would have on future generations.
The
declining sales in the early 2000s, caused franchises to shut down for the first
time in McDonald’s history, additionally causing a major rethink of the way
McDonald’s operates, attempting to go ‘greener’ by reproducing the companies
standards in which all the stores will abide by. In contrast, the production of
the raw products which go into McDonald’s meals, from burger patties to sauces,
is subcontracted to different suppliers, making it impossible to assess the
company in terms of a single golden standard. Coca-Cola is almost, if not, as
common as McDonalds around the world. Both McDonalds large golden “M” and
Coca-Cola logos are widely known. Coke-Cola is actually a sole global supplier for
soft drinks.[3]
On
the other hand, the impact of the fast food explosion on foreign food markets
is both good and bad. The benefits are that the restaurants bring many jobs,
which means more money for the communities in which they run. This is good for
the economy and the people, yet the negative effects are more long standing.
People that eat this food will become unhealthy, introduced to genetically
modified foods, stuffed with fat and much too many calories. Fast food is
convenience food and normally when something is "faster" it isn't as
healthy. Even the "healthy" foods offered by most fast food
restaurants are filled with preservatives and pesticides, which defeats their
good properties (Schlosser, 2002)[4].
Similarly,
grain is fed to cattle in South American countries to produce the meat in
McDonald's hamburgers. Cattle consume 10 times the amount of grain and soy that
humans do: one calorie of beef demands ten calories of grain. Of the 145
million tons of grain fed to livestock, only 21 million tons of meat and
by-products are used. The waste is 124 million tons per year at a value of
20 billion US dollars! It has been calculated that this sum would feed,
clothe and house the world's entire population for one year. Humans don’t NEED
meat to survive; thus, we could save a lot of money, land, and animals by
changing our consumer status to vegetarians[5].
Moreover,
every year an area of rainforest the size of Britain is cut down or defoliated,
and burnt. Globally, one billion people depend on water flowing from these
forests, which soak up rain and release it gradually. The disaster in Ethiopia
and Sudan is at least partly due to uncontrolled deforestation. In Amazonia
torrential rains sweep down through the treeless valleys, eroding the land and
washing away the soil; the bare earth, baked by the tropical sun, becomes
useless for agriculture.[6]
Additionally,
around the Equator there is a lush green belt of incredibly beautiful tropical
forest, untouched by human development for one hundred million years,
supporting about half of all Earth's life-forms, including some 30,000 plant
species, and producing a major part of the planet's crucial supply of oxygen.
Furthermore, McDonald's and Burger King are two
of the many US corporations using lethal poisons to destroy vast areas of
Central American rainforest to create grazing pastures for cattle to be sent back
to the States as burgers and pet food, and to provide fat-food packaging
materials. In addition, not only are McDonald's and many other corporations
contributing to a major ecological catastrophe, they are also forcing the
tribal peoples in the rainforests off their ancestral territories where they
have lived peacefully, without damaging their environment, for thousands of
years! This is a typical example of the arrogance and viciousness of
multinational companies in their endless search for more and more profit. It's
no exaggeration to say that when someone bites into a Big Mac, they're helping
the McDonald's empire to wreck this planet and cover it with enormous non-proportional
people.
McDonald’s
doesn’t make it clear that the food is high in fat, sugar, animal products and
salt, and low in fiber, vitamins and minerals - which describes an average
McDonald's meal - is linked with cancers of the breast and bowel, and heart
disease. Every year in Britain, heart disease alone causes about 180,000 deaths.[7]
Focusing back on the rainforests, McDonalds only use parts of the rainforest
for 2 years at the maximum because the soil quality is so poor there that they
clear-cut another area once the soil cannot sustain the grass and grain that
the cows eat. So what's so wrong about that, won't the forest regrow? Nope.
The moisture in a rainforest is what makes it a RAIN forest, and since about
70% of all moisture comes from transpiration from the trees - No more trees
results in no more rainforest. It will never regrow, ever, even if it is
replanted. The other way has to do with just the grain being shipped from the
rainforest to the US or other countries to feed cows that will eventually end
up on your Big Mac. Put simply, for
every pound of beef you eat, 55 acres of rainforest were destroyed. In order to
keep up with the huge demand for McDonalds burgers all over the world they
require vast areas of land to raise cattle for their burgers. Every year, over 30 million acres of
rain forest are lost.[8] Of
course, it would be unfair to blame this loss solely on McDonald's, and I don't
intend to do that. There are plenty of other reasons why we are losing our rain
forest land at such an alarming rate, but my main focus is on McDonalds. In order to
produce 1 million tons of meat, 7 million tons of grain must be fed to
livestock.
This use of precious resources is not even for the
betterment of anyone’s health given the unhealthy nature of food from McDonalds
while the world's most beautiful forests are
being destroyed at an appalling rate. McDonald’s have at last been forced to admit
to using beef reared on ex-rainforest land, preventing the regeneration of
forests. Also, the use of farmland by
multinationals and their suppliers forces local people to move on to other
areas and cut down further trees. In fact, McDonald's is the world's largest
user of beef which isn’t too surprising since they’re EVERYWHERE. The methane
emitted by cattle reared for the beef industry is a major cause of the
"global warming" crisis. Every year McDonalds use thousands of tons
of unnecessary packaging, much of which ends up littering our streets or
polluting the land buried in landfill sites.
Nonetheless, while
millions of people are starving, vast areas of land in poor countries are used
for cattle ranching or to grow grain to feed animals to be eaten in the
West. McDonald's continually promote
meat products, encouraging a person to eat meat more often, which wastes more
and more food resources. They never advertise how expensive and destructive it
is to raise all the meat they do. [9]
Similarly, the
US fast food industry has been implementing its fat and greasy foods all over
the Earth in order to make billions. The overseas fast food industry is booming
and there seems to be no end in sight. McDonalds may soon be on every street
corner… This provides people with jobs, but what is it doing to effect
different cultures and what is it doing to the health of those people
(Schlosser, 2002)?
According
to Schlosser, McWorld is a "homogenized international culture", a
term coined by sociologist Benjamin J. Barber (2002). Fast food companies like
McDonald's are spreading their unhealthy, fattening foods across the globe,
opening many new restaurants on a daily basis. The novelty of these restaurants
in different countries is what brings in the innocent and corrupts their
culture and their arteries (Schlosser, 2002).
”WHAT's
wrong with McDonald's is also wrong with all the junk-food chains like Wimpy,
Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy, etc. All of them hide their ruthless
exploitation of resources, animals and people behind a facade of colourful
gimmicks and 'family fun. The food itself is much the same everywhere - only
the packaging is different. The rise of these firms means less choice, not
more. They are one of the worst examples of industries motivated only by
profit, and geared to continual expansion.
This
materialist mentality is affecting all areas of our lives, with giant
conglomerates dominating the marketplace, allowing little or no room for people
to create genuine choices. But alternatives do exist, and many are gathering
support every day from people rejecting big business in favour of small-scale
self-organization and co-operation.
The
point is not to change McDonald's into some sort of vegetarian organization,
but to change the whole system itself. Anything less would still be a rip-off. [10]”
For instance, McDonald's
spends a fortune on advertisements, trying to cultivate an image of being a
"caring" and "green" company that is also a fun place to
eat. Children are lured in with the
promise of "free" toys and other gimmicks. But behind the smiling
face of Ronald McDonald lies the reality -McDonald's only interest is money,
making profits from whoever and whatever they can without putting the world and
their customer’s wellbeing first.
Chances
are that you have had a McDonald’s meal in the past or if not, you certainly
know a lot of people who have. It’s the biggest fast food chain in the world,
with 32,000 outlets in 117 countries. The clown-fronted burger outfit employs a
staggering 1.7 million people, and in the first three months of 2011 alone it
made $1.2 billion in profits on the back of revenues of $6.1 billion! [11]All
that money could be put towards saving the planet they’re greatly responsible
for polluting or could be put towards making people’s lives happier, not
unhealthier. The company has come in for huge amounts of criticism over the
past 20 years, for the impact it has on the diets of people worldwide, its labor
practices and the impact its business has had on the environment, yet they
still stand strong. Chickens are raised cramped together in giant barns, never
experiencing a good life grazing land but instead thrown grain to battle for
against the other chickens. [12]
All
of this should be taken with a pile of salt and grease however. It’s not
surprising that a multibillion-dollar corporation, which has been hurt in the
past by concerns over its practices, will do its utmost to sell itself as a
reformed character. And it's suspicious that any web search of the company
brings up a hit list of sites almost exclusively maintained by the
company.
McDonald's
has even coined a phrase, 'Global Realization', for their need to conquer the
fast food markets overseas; they want to be number one. America may currently
be the fattest nation, but who's next with fast food continuously booming (Schlosser,
2002)?[13]
And the fact that the restaurants serve just the American foods they serve here
as well as adjusting their menu to making cultural foods just as appealing and
greasy.
During
the eighties, people started to question if eating all of this greasy fast food
from the time you were two was actually very good for you. Obesity and diabetes
was at an all-time high and heat disease was the number one killer. Heart disease and then liver
cancer did Dave Thomas of Wendy's in, and coronary problems contributed to Ray
Kroc's, founder of McDonald's, death. Go figure. Think there could have been a
connection with what they had been eating?
Even if people like eating McDonalds’’ food, most people
recognise that processed burgers and synthetic chips, served up in paper and
plastic containers, is considered junk-food. McDonald's prefer the name
"fast-food" not because it is manufactured and served up as quickly
as possible but because it has to be eaten quickly too. McDonald's
like to promote their food as "healthy", but the reality it is high
in fat, sugar and salt, and low in vitamins. A diet of this type is linked with
a greater risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases. Their
food also contains many chemical additives, some of which may cause ill health,
and hyperactivity in children. Don't forget too that meat is the cause of the
majority of food poisoning incidents and that rainforests are destroyed only to
raise cattle for a maximum of two years!
Would it be better to
stop this madness, or is the money worth more than the people are? Only the
fast food industries and the nation’s leaders can answer that question. Well,
and the people can choose to pass on fast food and eat healthy too (Schlosser,
2002).[14]
Is eating a delicious, greasy Big Mac worth assisting McDonalds corrupt this
planet? Do you really want to pass a McDonald’s fast food restaurant every
block? Think about your actions and their implications before digging into your
next happy meal.
Sources:
Schlosser,
E. (2002). Fast Food Nation. Harper Perennial.
[4]
Schlosser, E. (2002). Fast Food Nation. Harper Perennial.
http://voices.yahoo.com/is-fast-food-taking-over-world-5594412.html
[5] http://www.mccruelty.com/
[6] http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2006/04/mcdonalds_destroys_rainforests.asp
and www.ciwf.org.uk
http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/pretrial/factsheet.html
[7] http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/pretrial/factsheet.html
[8] http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2006/04/mcdonalds_destroys_rainforests.asp
and www.ciwf.org.uk
[9] http://www.mccruelty.com/
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_food_restaurant
[12] http://www.ciwf.org.uk/what_we_do/factory_farming/food_sense.aspx
and http://www.mccruelty.com/
[13] Schlosser,
E. (2002). Fast Food Nation. Harper Perennial.
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