Fast food restaurant Essay Example for Free

Fast food restaurant Essay There are a few issues in the United States that many of us are talking about daily. One of those main issues that are being talked about is food in our society. But even more specific than that, many are talking about how the fast food industry has affected and impacted our society. There is a lot of history of how fast food has started. There were a lot of entrepreneurs many years ago that realized that going into the fast food chain would bring them great profit (Levenstein 229). Some not only went after the food people liked to eat, but also where exactly they started their business. The author Harvey Levensteing tells us that one of the most successful entrepreneurs, Ray Kroc from McDonalds, went after the areas where there were more families with children, and just that helped him become more successful than others (229). So other than a couple of smart guys knowing what industry to get in and being extremely successful, there are many ways that these people have made the fast food industry impact our society in a couple of ways. We all live in this country and since we are all humans we have to make time to eat, whether it is at home or somewhere outside of home, we still have to eat. In that case, we all have seen or been around the fast food industry. Fast food is a growing industry that has had a huge impact in our society today, with its speedy service, the convenience of drive through, and its cheaper way of mass production, it has made us Americans see food in a different way. America now in days is known to want and have everything as fast as we can have it. We Americans, have gotten into this set of mind that if things go faster then everything will be better. Like I have said previously, many entrepreneurs saw that and took advantage of it quickly. It has been researched that people are relying more on food that isn’t prepared at home for meals when you’re not home and even when you are home (Sharkey et al. 1). One of the main reasons for that is that it is time consuming to even go home and cook a meal for a whole family. It saves time to just go right around the corner, usually, and buy a whole meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is an easy way out for those with a fast-paced life which now is almost every American. In many cases when you are tired from working long hours and are starving, a meal from one of the many fast food restaurants just seems holy since you know you will receive it in a matter of just minutes. The fast food chains have adapted with the fast-pace lives which also lead us to other types life styles such as amusement and entertainment (Thomas). With its advantage of saving time and getting as much food as you would otherwise, there is also a disadvantage with fast food being so speedy and gotten us used to it. Since it is a way of getting your food so fast and eating it right away, it takes away from other valuable things there was to eating. We are so wrapped up in just getting eating out of our way that we lose the value to family quality time spent when there is a more home-made traditional meal (â€Å"Advantages and Disadvantages†). Clearly, fast food has helped with getting our meal faster, but also made us lose some of our valuable moments. One huge advantage that fast food owners saw was drive-through, also known as drive-ins. This was something that happened at exactly the perfect time it had to. These entrepreneurs saw how the car industry was growing in our society and immediately took advantage of that fact. That is when drive through started because they saw how much American’s loved the car. So they made a food lifestyle revolve around the automobile, which to this day has stuck to our society. Eric Schlosser has a quote of one of the first founders of drive-ins, Jesse G. Kirby, which he states, â€Å"People with cars are so lazy, they dont want to get out of them to eat! † (Schlosser) This shows how America had changed and revolved around what these guys were doing. Clearly they were successful meaning there had to be those of us loving to just go to a place, order and get our food brought right to us. The bad part of this, was that like Kirby said people were being really lazy to get something we couldn’t go without, which is food. This has come to a full circle with how it has impacted our society. Being able to get in your car and drive through a window and get a meal in a matter of minutes is great, but when we are doing this constantly and through laziness, that’s when we go wrong. The fact that there is an easier way to get our food has helped the fact that America is known for an obese country. We can’t completely blame it, but it has had the drive-in impact, which like it has been said, people are that lazy they don’t want to get out of their cars to even eat. To sum it up, drive-in have been an addition to our society that has had several effects. Another big way the fast food industry has impacted our society is the economics of mass production (Levenstein 228). A perfect example of this is what the McDonald brothers did when they were tired of having to deal with things that lead to them spending much more and consisting of more time. So they started something that would stay with us for a long time. What the McDonald brothers did was: [They] fired all their car hops in 1948, closed their restaurant, installed a larger grill and reopened three months later with a radically new method of preparing food. They eliminated almost two-thirds of the items on the menu. They got rid of every item that had to be eaten with a knife, spoon or fork. The only sandwiches now sold were hamburgers and cheeseburgers. The brothers got rid of their dishes and glassware, replacing them with paper cups, bags and plates. They divided the food preparation into separate tasks performed by different workers. The guiding principles of the factory assembly line were applied to the workings of a commercial kitchen. The new division of labor meant that a worker had to be taught how to perform only one task. Skilled and expensive short-order cooks were no longer necessary. All of the burgers were sold with the same condiments: ketchup, onions, mustard and two pickles. No substitutions were allowed. (Schlosser) This is where it all started. Schlosser clearly tells us that they even added the principle of the assembly line. The McDonald brothers saw that making things in more amounts was going to be way cheaper and save time as well. How they changed things impacted society greatly. After the other fast food entrepreneurs saw that this was a genius idea, they all started following the same path. What Schlosser says that the brothers did is still what we see today in almost any fast food restaurant we go out to eat at. How much they produce in a day is mainly by how much us as Americans demand for. This all seems great and beneficial to all, but how beneficial is it to our society as a whole. The fact that the fast food industry has seen that it is cheaper to hire people to a job that is literary a dead end, make the food we eat just as a simple assembly line to satisfy our need to have everything faster, and making everything in huge amounts has been good in a way, but bad in others. This had led to other problems as to how and where they get there food fast enough to have as much as they need for the demand. Much of the process of how they get there food isn’t the greatest which in another way has a bad impact to this country. Clearly us as Americans loved the economics of the mass production, but we should realize everything behind it. In conclusion, we clearly see the impacts fast food has had in our country and society. It has come to change the way we live because food is such an important part of our lives. Us as Americans have had a habit to want things very quickly, we love our cars therefore the drive throughs were a huge success, and the fact that producing things in large amounts and being able to pay less for the work seemed like a genius idea. This has lead to many benefits with the fact that we are living in a fast-paced society. On the other hand, some of it has affected us like being one of the obese countries. This issue is something that will be talked about for years to come. Hopefully someone will find that happy medium where the benefits of fast food stays, but the bad side of it goes away. When that day come will we have a better way of seeing fast food and how much of an impact it has and will have in our society, and we will be able to focus more on those other issues that are being talked about. Works Cited â€Å"Advantages and Disadvantages of Fast Food. † Buzzle. com. N. p. , 2011. Web. 13 June 2011. Levenstein, Harvey. â€Å"Fast Food and Quick Bucks. † Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 227-236. Phoenix College Library. Web. 7 June 2011. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. N. pag. Print. -. â€Å"Fast-Food Nation. † Rolling Stone 3 Sept. 1998: Part 1-2. MC Spotlight. Web. 7 June 2011. Sharkey, Joseph, et al. â€Å"Focusing on fast food restaurants alone underestimates the relationship between neighborhood deprivation and exposure to fast food in a large rural area. † Nutrition Journal 10. 1 (2011): 1-2. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 June 2011. Thomas, Emma, ed. â€Å"How to Cognate The Good Side of Fast Food Culture. † Sooper Articles. ISolution, 2011. Web. 14 June 2011.