1 - Hello World Post
This is the first entry of my blog, which is going to try and explore different topics regarding American society and our strange, yet intimate relationship with fast food. Some of the main themes that I will try and get to the bottom of include: how much fast food we eat, how cheaply priced it is, how often and how late we eat it. I will get to the truth behind the perplexing myths as why McDonald's has the tagline of the Golden Arches or is Chinese food, via Panda Express, really authentic chinese food. I would like to also explore how we perceive ourselves consuming fast food as a society as well as how the world outside of the United States perceives how we consume it.
Does “healthy” fast food, Quiznos, Subway or Togos, really exist? I will try and get behind the calories and the processed meat to find the real secret of the Jared Subway Diet and the national phenomenon, Five Dollar Footlong. Can healthy and cheap really work as a strong duo when it comes to the livelihood of our society? Or are these inversely related qualities that corporate America is trying to push in order to create another business segment in the fast food industry? The relationship between, health and fast food, captivates the growing popularity of living a longer and more “healthy” lifestyle. This correlation can go one step further, in that our own society has the highest obesity per capita as well as having arguably the most healthy fast food brands in the world.
Another interesting segway can be found in the large amount of thorough research done to clearly layout the repercussions of eating a fast food stapled diet. Even though that these studies and statistics are so overwhelmingly anti-fast food, this diet and lifestyle choice continues to plague so many people’s lives. Diabetes, obesity, heart attack, heart failure and clogged arteries still do not deter us from eating our unhealthy late night meals. A lot of similarities can be found with the smoking phenomenon and the fast food phenomenon. The devastatingly negative advertisements our government does against the smoking industry are still so prevalent and yet with this extensive public knowledge people continue to smoke. It has become a conscious destruction of the health of a nation.
Why does our society continue to believe that having low calories or 0 grams of trans fat is even good for you? Should this be more of a cry for help to push towards educating our country about what is actually healthy? What should or shouldn’t you eat? Or do we have to hire a dietician? Or an obesity specialist? Or purchase some expensive health diet book?
Those are just a few of the questions and the themes that I have begun and will continue to explore as I wander down this drive thru path of fast food. I will hopefully be able answer some of them and I am sure I will be confronted with a lot more.
Signing Off,
Ronald McDizzle
2 - Social Profiling of Feel Good Fast Food
If you guys have thoroughly enjoyed the subject matter of my blogging site, I have a great recommendation of one that you should also check out. The name of the blog is Feel Good Fast Food. Although there are some similar themes between the two, Feel Good Fast Food, also known as FGFF, is a great stop for all things related to debunking such eating myths as: how to stop cravings, curbing appetites and reversing the want for the unhealthy fast food that our society constantly consumes.
Michelle, the main blogger on the site, does weekly posts linking and then analyzing many studies that are conducted by national health organizations as well as large food outlets. It is difficult to gauge how popular the blog is because Michelle does not have a hit counter nor does she have a profile on Technorati, but nonetheless she brings together a lot of great information to one site.
She has a great scope with regards to her blog; she does great analyses on simple stories like what are the healthiest foods to eat at Thanksgiving dinner to much more complex issues as our obesity epidemic in America. Michelle does all of this in a very tongue and cheek way, which is evident in her expose of the ten most healthy fast food restaurants. As I mentioned before Michelle gives great links to other health conscious websites such as Calorie King, Two Foods and Good Food Near You.
FGFF really relates well to one of the main themes that I am trying to explore in my blog. The health aspect in fast food is a huge revenue and industry driver. And in order to explore those topics in depth I will need many different jumping off points including the one that Michelle provides in her blog. Just to plug her blog a little bit more, I will mention some of her discussed subject matter: what is real healthy fast food and what is the worst type of fast food to eat.
The strongest aspect of her posts is that within each one she references another blog that she got some amount of scientific or studied information. That amount of reference and detail allows for larger themes to be more widely explored. The power of the inserted link plays to the audience of the Average Joe seeker of healthy fast food knowledge. You do not need to have studied nutrition in college to follow her blogs, but she does have some posts that go a little bit deeper and are perfect for those a little bit above the rank of “common man”.
Michelle and FGFF present a great starting and reference point for the type of puzzling information that I would like to unravel in my blog, the relationship between health and fast food. “Feel Good Fast Food” will offer a lot of balanced opinions and themes that both are challenging, but also at the same time can be very simple and effective. That is the same balance that I hope to strike.
Out,
RMcD
3 - Voice of a Fast Food Nation
I have to hand it to Fancy Fast Food; they really know how to expose the BS of the Fast Food Industry in both an obvious and interesting way. The blog plays to a common experience that all consumers can relate to when ordering at a fast food restaurant. Everyone has driven up to that ordering call box in the drive-thru. We all have scanned the different meal numbers up on the plastic menu board and stared at what we think is a promise of a large, juicy burger, fries and refreshing drink. And it seems that we as consumers get romanced with lines like “the freshest ingredients” and “100% Black Angus beef patty”, which are plastered on the menu board as well. Yet every time we open that colorful, paper bag, the same sigh of disappointment is expressed. What we thought we were getting never seems to match the same dehydrated version of the menu board picture we actually get. This is where Fancy Fast Food comes in.
"Carefully cut the breading off of the fish — but don’t throw the breading out, since we’re going to use it later. Take some time to absorb the fact that yes, McDonald’s does indeed use real fish for their Filet-O-Fish.” This is one example of how the chefs of Fancy Fast Food try to create a gourmet dish from a fast food meal. The chefs, known as “trinimation”, do this with a very sarcastic and quick moving voice, which keeps the blog light and a little bit though provoking when you actually take into consideration the step by step process of cooking the specific meal.
The use of a quick witted, cooking network, chef guru pace, the guys express both a very obvious knowledge of cooking as well as a bleak undertone of the disgusting food quality that is in fact being used; "after star-gazing a while at your quaint fish square, delicately flake the fish apart and place it in a bow...the grease from the breading will give you just enough oily coating to sear the fish cake - yummy". What the two chefs are doing is cooking a "Seared Pollock Cake with Southwest Ramalan Sauce" aka (Fancy Filet-O-Fish). I think you are getting the point with what these guys are trying to persuade you as the reader to realize with the blog.
The temptation to consume based on presentation is not exclusive to fast food, it can be found in any consumer industry. If that dress looks so good on the size zero model, then it will definitely make me look the exact same. That appeal is what drives human behavior and expresses the deeply looks based society that we are.
The pictures of the appetizing dishes that the two chefs are able to create even make us as a reader think that this food is not all that bad. We are basing that assessment on the look of the food rather than the calorie and processed ingredients being used in this food. “With that solid mass removed, you can easily mold the remaining cornbread batter into a shape that resembles that of a turkey leg.” That shape of the turkey leg is what makes us as the consumer feel better.
The common phrase, what we see is what we get, is too easily used because what we actually see is not anywhere close to what we actually get. That is the million dollar answer to the million dollar question.
Thanks,
Ronnie
Thanks,
Ronnie
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