"This guy ate nothing but McDonalds for a whole month?" Asked Matthew back in middle school, "does not he know it?" Of course, I thought after watching Super Size Me. We all know fast But Matthew 's Matthew' s # 39; s I've been programmed to think that way by our foreign grandmothers who babysat us while our parents are at work, letting us have Happy Meals once a month if we were lucky. Yet, people continue to stuff 660 calorie Premium Crispy Chicken (happy intrigued me. Why do people eat fast food, when they know what harm it is cause of body? Being fat is no longer a wonderful image Club Sandwiches down their esophagus.
"As a kid, I ate lots of McDonalds," It may be the long time at school and work, when we are too exhausted to go past 5 feet of the office when the Golden Arches are not even a couple of steps away. says Jenny, a 27-year old bartender whom I interviewed in McDonalds, "they '' re everywhere. 'and they are imagination; there are currently 31, 000 McDonalds worldwide, operating in 119 countries in 6 continents (McDonalds Canada FAQ, 2006). Even in my Mill Basin Brooklyn neighborhood, there are 5 McDonalds within 3.75 miles of my zip code (McDonalds Corporation, 2006).
I grow up with McDonalds, therefore I stayed with McDonalds; it's like Aristotle & # 39; s law of logic. Consider Coca-Cola. If you drank nothing but this brand of soda as a kid, why would you change now ___ ___ ___ ___ 0 ___ ___ ___ ___ 0 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ 0 "Customers are drawn to familiar brands by an instinct to avoid the unknown." ___ ___ ___ ___ 0 The products are always and everywhere the same, "says Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation. As a child, I was exposed to the smiling (yet slightly creepy) face of Ronald McDonald. The children on the commercials seemed smitten with him and the month & # 39; s plastic toy that came in the Happy Meal, gushing every time they consumed a French fry. My g "I had McDonald & # 39; s as a treat myself, once per week," says Jenny. The overly-happy commercials and getting McDonald "for for" Because it was safe. Because it was safe. Because it was safe.
Not really in the commercials did I see Ronald McDonald actually eat the "McFrankenFood" (Spurlock, pg. 115), and Let 's take a look at the contents of the French fries: natural beef flavor (The Hindus in India formed a lawsuit against against McDonald' s; they are not aware of this ingredient ( ), TBHQ to preserve freshness, dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent, etc (McDonald 's Ingredients Listing for Popular Food Menu Items, 2008). Wait, I And what is this TBHQ? It actually # 3; s actually tertiary I have just eating potatoes, with maybe a bit of salt! Well, that 's not exactly the case! butylhydroquinone, an antioxidant for many vegetable oils. Well, are not antioxidants healthy? W Even the barbeque sauce has 24 ingredients, and is mostly composed of high, TBHQ induced precursors to stomach tumor and damage to DNA, as well as carcinogenicity. fructose corn syrup. HFCS "mixes easily, extend shelf-life and can be as much as 20% cheaper than other sources of sugar; It also messes with your metabolic regulating hormones, forcing" the liver to kick more fat into the bloodstream .. . 24 items in the McDonalds menu contain this sweetener, including the buns and the croutons for when you want a "healthy" salad.
McDonalds is cheap. At the prospect of getting a cheeseburger for a dollar and 7 cents, many are intrigued. "When you have a couple of bucks in your pocket, anything that & # 39; s 99 cents looks good," says Jenny. Lower working class people frequent McDonalds, you can get meals for under $ 5, or even 5 cheeseburgers at the same price! It & # 39; s much more efficient than going to the supermarket and cooking at home, which not only consumes your time, but That concerns most the lower class, which need to conserve as average, maids working for $ 13, 182 a year have $ 184 to spend on food monthly. That & # 39; s $ 6 per Grab some Wendy & # 39; s or McFood, of course!
I wake up at 6:00, skip breakfast and have no no. I do not have the lower class that has a habit of eating fast food. Students, especially those in high school, do not have any time to eat normally. Time to prepare lunch. So, I go out to Mike & # 39; s Papaya for some $ 1.57 cent cheese fries at 11:00, my lunch break. Some people have their lunch period start as early as 4th period - 10: 15 AM "Seriously, the damn pizza place does not even open when I'm up lunch ... so I have to go to McDonalds," says Saimon Smith, a Stuyvesant High School student who has lunch during 4th period. I end up "I used to love Gray & # 39; I am told that it is" I actually found a hair in them once, and did not go back ever again. At least, that & # 39; s what I was back within a week - my hunger outweighed my disgust. "It 's gross, but it tastes so good," says Jenny.
In 2004, 61% of the United States drank alcohol (National Center For Health Statistics, 2007). "When I & # 39; m bartending, I drink a lot of shit, "says Jenny." I used to eat a lot of McDonalds during my drinking period; you know, I just had a Jones for a Big Mac. "And she is the only one who felt that fast food satisfied "Drinking always made me hungry," says Augusten Burroughs in Possible Side Effects, the author of Running With Scissors, "I ordered a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a Big Mac, a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and four cheeseburgers Three large fries. And a six-piece Chicken McNuggets, with extra hot mustard sauce. "on an ABC online forum, a man replied" Normally just grease of any description. If it is healthy, like a roll or rice or something, I do not feel like it, and it does not satisfy, "to what kind of food he craves after drinking. Grease helps reduce the speed of alcohol absorption.
"It's comfort, soothing, and nurture that may not come from other people," says Kelly Brownel, a professor of psychology, epidemiology, and public health at I have buy a I have gotten a good grade on a test that day, I would even get myself a Hershey & # 39; s Pie from Burger King (I lived next to a I would not eat after. I had turned eat after I had turned on the computer to a new, fully loaded, Japanese episode of Naruto Shippuuden and was comfortably wrapped up in my bed in a warm blanket. It was the ultimate comfort, and I celebrated with food, much as I had when I lived back in Russia with a once-a-month fast food to granny.
Diets fail, and those frozen South Beach diets that claim having ice cream instead of white bread is less fattening are not very truthful (Dr. Phil McGraw, 2004). Like smoking and drinking, like drinking, smoking and drinking, Americans ignore this epidemic because it 's slow acting, because we do not understand what is is not food. It' s not our fault; we have thousands year old genes that tell us to But as addictive additives are put into that McNugget and our small wallets act as a compass towards McDonalds, the line between personal responsibility and circumstances outside our control gets fuzzy.
