Allison McCafferty
Language Arts
6, December 2016
What Is and What Is in Fast Food
As an American, I eat fast food. Anyone else who is an American has eaten fast food at some point as well. Yet, what is defined as fast food? Is it something that is made fast, is it something that is consumed fast? What exactly is in the food people consume when we eat at these fast food restaurants?
According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, the first use of the word fast-food was in 1951. “Fast-food was designed for ready availability, use, or consumption and with little consideration given to quality or significance.” (Webster’s) This is true in many ways; all of the food that the restaurants serve can be made in five to ten minutes. Also, most of the foods served at these restaurants have very poor quality. Some fast food places try and put some healthy items on their menu, however, their “healthy” food consists of more calories than other items on the menu. Take McDonalds for example.
McDonalds. That fast food place that makes a lot of Americans happy. That restaurant that has been around since 1955. That glorious yellow M that marks that they are nearby. They, like every other restaurant has a menu (1). On this menu, they have selected certain items which are “healthy.” On said menu is a Bacon Ranch Salad & Buttermilk Crispy Chicken. This salad contains buttermilk chicken, salad blend, grape tomatoes, cheese and dressing. This is not the salad for the dieter; it has a grand total of 490 calories! That is almost twice as many calories that are in a regular hamburger (250 calories).
If you were to eat a Big Mac, fries and a super-sized Coke, it would take seven hours to walk off those calories. That would be about 1350 calories in that one meal. There is something else on the menu that we are going to talk about. The McRib.
What is the McRib you say, well, the McRib is a sandwich served at most McDonalds. It is a “rib” between two buns with onions and sauce on the inside. Delicious sounding right? Allow me to share with you what it is actually made with. The McRib is a product of “restructured meat technology.”
The restructured meat technology was created by a professor who wanted to find a way to make food out to of healthy excess ends without using a ton more beef. These processes consists of taking pig bits like tripe, hear and scalded stomach and cooking it, then you blend it in a food processor. While you blend it you add salt and water so that you can take out any “salt soluble” proteins. These proteins act as a glue to keep it all together. Although this sandwich is not altogether bad for you, it isn’t all too good either. After adding the bun and the BBQ sauce, it sums up to roughly 500 calories.
Another thing on the McDonalds menu is the chicken nugget. Many people argue whether or not the chicken nuggets are made of all white meat of no real meat at all. (1) Jamie Oliver, British celebrity chef and restauranteur did a video on what is in a chicken nugget. He shows a bunch of grad schoolers the entire process as he takes a whole chicken and removes the drumsticks, the breasts, the wings and the thighs. Then he takes the carcass and cuts it into pieces and puts it into a food processor, and then he adds some fat and skin and blends it up. After he blended it, he strained the goop into a bowl, (this is what it basically looks like.)(3) Then added flour, bread crumbs and some seasonings. After that, he flattened it out and made little patties and breaded those and fried them. He asked the grade schoolers if they wanted a bite…. they all raised their hands with glee. Even after watching what was in it and how it was made.
Here is another restaurant, that only the Mexicans decline. Taco bell! Many people like taco bell. The hot sauces bean burritos, the lava taco and let us not forget the dozen taco or burrito deal. But what exactly is in these items that we call food? Allow me to shed some light on the subject.
Below is a graph I got off of a website called Food Babe. (3) It shows just how many ingredients are in the Taco Bell Bean Burrito. This graph is made up of a total of 63 ingredients. 63 ingredients to make a bean burrito that someone could make at home with 4! (Not including the ingredients in an actual tortilla.) Half the ingredients most people can’t pronounce let alone know what they are or what they contain. Let us name a few.
Soybean oil, this oil is one of the cheapest that restaurants can use to cook, or fry with and it is almost always hexane extracted from GMO soybeans. Soybean oil is also high in omega-6 fats, which according to Dr. Michael Roizen, (5) “it causes your arteries to get inflamed, causes your immune system to get inflamed, and decreases your ability to fight infections, decreases your ability to find cancer cells and get rid of them before they cause cancer, and increases inflammation and atherosclerosis in your arteries.”
Another ingredient in this burrito and in the tacos is hydrogenated vegetable oil. This oil is not considered good for you. In fact, it strips the good oils and lowers the good cholesterol from your body and replaces it with bad oils and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
The last restaurant that I am going to bring up, Burger King. That’s right, the king of the American burger. Back in 2011, Burger King was the #2 on the list of where to go get a burger. McDonalds was #1. In 2012, Wendy’s stole that title and Burger Kings grasp on the top fell. It still is falling actually. The reason for that would be for their constant plagiarism.
Yeah, restaurants plagiarize too. BK has stolen McDonalds Big Mac and renamed it to the “Big King.” It is exactly the same as the Big Mac-right down to the bun in the middle of the burger! The McRib. That succulent sandwich that was explained in detail above: They serve it. It is served under the name—the BBQ sandwich. In one of their commercials, they practically admitted to stealing McDonalds McMuffin idea. (6) Finally the Crispy Chicken Snack Wraps are the same as McDonalds too, surprisingly enough.
Now, you have been educated, you have been told and warned. The next time you go to any fast food place, make sure you know what you are eating. Don’t think that it won’t affect you, because it will. Maybe not this minute, maybe not today or tomorrow, but in 10 years it will. Eat what you know is good and things that you can pronounce and please, don’t get a McRib sandwich. I read somewhere that they are made of things that make my stomach churn.
Work Cited Page
Fast-Food; Webster’s Dictionary (2016): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ fast%E2%80%93food
- Oliver, Jamie: How chicken nuggets are made;
- Food Babe; Bean Burrito Graph; http://foodbabe.com/2014/05/05/what-taco-bell-isnt-telling-us-about-their-ingredients-but-you-need-to-know/
- Roizen, Michael; Omega-6 Fats Inflammation; https://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2013/April/The-Omega-Balance-Getting-Smart-about-Inflammation/
- Burger King stealing McMuffin recipe commercial; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lag2vDx2faQ
1 comment:
This is really cool Allison. Your Paragraph stricter is great and it is really informative.
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