Chapter Excerpt
Pull open the glass door and feel the rush of cool air. Step inside. Look at the backlit color pictures of food above the counter, look at the cardboard ads for the latest Disney movie, get in line, and place your order. Hand over some money. Put the change back in your pocket. Watch teenagers in blue-and- gold uniforms busy working in the kitchen. Moments later, grab the plastic tray with your food, find an empty table, and sit down. Unwrap the burger, squirt ketchup on the fries, stick the plastic straw through the hole in the lid of your drink. Pick up the burger and dig in. The whole experience of eating at a fast-food restaurant has become so familiar, so routine, that we take it for granted. It has become just another habit, like brushing your teeth before bed. We do it without even thinking about itand thats the problem. Every day about one out of fourteen Americans eats at a McDonalds. Every month about nine out of ten American children visit one. McDonalds has become the most popular fast-food chain in the worldand by far the most powerful. In 1968 there were about 1,000 McDonalds restaurants, all of them in the United States. Now there are more than 31,000 McDonalds, selling Happy Meals in 120 countries, from Istanbul, Turkey, to Papeete, Tahiti. In the United States, McDonalds buys more processed beef, chicken, pork, apples, and potatoes than any other company. It spends more money on advertising and marketing than any other company that sells food. As a result, it is Americas most famous food brand. The impact of McDonalds on the way we live today is truly mind-boggling. The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross. Despite McDonalds fame and all the money it spends on advertising, every day the vast majority of its customers dont plan to eat there. Most fast-food visits are impulsive. The decision to buy fast food is usually made at the last minute, without much thought. People generally dont leave the house in the morning saying, Im going to make sure to eat some fast food today. Most of the time, theyre just walking down the sidewalk or driving down the road, not thinking about anything in particular. Maybe theyre hungry; maybe theyre not. Maybe theyre in a hurry and dont have time to cook. And then they see a great big fast-food signthe Golden Arches, the red-and-blue of a Dominos pizza box, the picture of Colonel Sandersand they suddenly think, Hey, I want some of that. So they stop to eat fast food. They do it because they feel like it. They just cant resist the impulse. The point of this book is to take that strong impulse we all feel our hunger for sweet, salty, fatty fast foodsand make you think about it. Chew On This will tell you where fast food comes from, who makes it, whats in it, and what happens when you eat it. This is a book about fast food and the world it has made. Food is one of the most important things youll ever buy. And yet most people never bother to think about their food an
Excerpted from Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know about Fast Food
by Eric Schlosser, Charles Wilson
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