Fast food in America
By Riley Duignan
I bet in the past week you’ve gone to a restaurant for the sake of fast and cheap food and, of course, a craving that has been clawing at your tastebuds for the past few days. Or when you drove past a building with multiple different food options, I bet your eyes averted to the fast food places before they even looked at the healthier option.
Well, same…
Or, have you just really felt like you could go for a delicious, juicy, cheesy, cheeseburger? Or possibly a salty and slightly sweet breaded Chick-Fil-A sandwich? Well if so, would you be able to guess how many ingredients are in these seemingly simple meals, or why your body demands to taste it so much?
The science behind fast food
You may have been told by someone, “It’s addictive, what you’re eating is terrible!”
But, they’re not all that wrong.. Fast food IS addictive. Two ingredient culprits hook your body and put your food cravings in handcuffs, and they are simply salt and sugar.
According to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, in almost all fast food restaurants an increased amount of sodium (salt) is used as an ingredient in the food, whether it’s fries, a burger, or a good pickle topping. Salt is used as a natural preservative and flavor enhancer, enhancing the taste of a product and helping it not go bad as quickly when being stored in mass quantities.
Sugar is also used in most recipes for any food in a fast food restaurant, whether you’re getting a rich chocolate shake or again, a burger. In almost any product there is some amount of sugar that is used. It’s more than likely that if you are getting an item with any type of carb or bread product, the sugar intake is from that.
These two ingredients are highly addictive foods and give your brain a similar reaction to when you hit a vape, or do some type of drug.
Drugs, vapes, etc. give your brain a momentary dopamine spike when you take it, meaning while you’re under the influence of any of those products, you will feel happier or calmer. Naturally, your brain craves a euphoric feeling, causing you to do it again, and again. This is the exact same thing that salt and sugar does to your body.
According to scielo.org, sugar and salt both activate the dopamine hormone, a neurotransmitter and hormone that when activated, sends a ‘message’ to the brain, causing a happy, calm, or joyful mood. As the two ingredients increase the amount of dopamine and glutamate (another neurotransmitter) released in your body, you become more satisfied. Not only does the taste make you happy, but so do the ingredients. Due to this, your body becomes truly, addicted.
America’s strong history with fast food
America is all about easy convenience especially after we got to the 20th century. From quick serve to TV dinners, the concept of quick delicious food has always grabbed Americans by the collar, especially with the growth of consumerism.
Consumerism is the constant advertisement and selling of a popular, helpful, or specifically directed product to the buyers. Convenience and easy accessibility spiked in the US especially after WW2 due to multiple reasons. These being, war-time rationing, high wages and job accessibility, mass production of food and products, increasing marketing, etc. As technology advanced, so did convenience and advertisement in America. Food was a highly advertised market product and an increasingly easy and cheap product for Americans once companies found ways to make their products for cheap, and sell them cheap.
In fact, after WW2, America had a large excess supply of ammonium nitrate and other chemicals that were used in war as explosives. Most of them are now seen as common American fertilizers and preservatives used for fast food products.
The large concept of fast food began to boom after WW2. Around the era (1939-1945), the culture of rapid buying and selling, and quick food access was booming in the US.
I bet most people have tried a TV dinner, it isn’t the best quality, but it’s a quickly cooked and highly efficient meal for when you feel lazy or don’t have time to make dinner. TV dinners and frozen food became popular during WW2 for the convenience of quick, on-the-go meals for soldiers and air carriers. TV dinners began to move into American families’ everyday lives. As fridges became more advanced, holding frozen products and such things as ice, it pushed families to buy these frozen meals. They became cheap for the average American and easy for anyone to put together. However, you can still see this trend today in lower-income households more often than not having frozen foods in their fridge.
NOVA processing scale
A commonly used scale to identify and rank the amount of processing in products is called the NOVA scale, it has 4 levels.
1 – Unprocessed or Minimally processed
2 – Processed culinary ingredients
3 – Processed foods
4 – Ultra-processed foods
Most fast food products stand in category 3 or 4, almost always in category 4.
Ultra processed foods are foods that are manufactured, molded, and undergo industrial processing in a factory. Preservatives, dyes, stabilizers, flavor enhancers, and defoaming agents are all added to ultra processed foods for a supply that is nonperishable, delivered in large quantities, and able to be sold at cheaper prices due to the ingredients not being as valuable or expensive. Every aspect of this is beneficial for the fast food industry, in which the process and extra additives allow the prioritization of speed and efficiency rather than quality and nutritional value.
Asking students about fast food
I decided to ask a series of questions about fast food to students, many of whom have tried fast food in another country other than the US.
One of the questions I asked every student was “how many times a week do you eat fast food?”, with 5/6 students saying that they eat fast food 1-3 times a week, and only one student saying once every 2 weeks.
In addition, I asked these students how often they feel nauseous or bloated after eating fast food, and 4 of the 6 students said they felt either bloated or nauseous.
5 of the students who have been out of the country and tried fast food separate from American fast food were asked specific questions about that. When asked if there’s a tasteful difference between fast food in other countries versus America, every one of them said yes, and when they were asked if American fast food tasted “Cheaper” each one of them said it did, with one person saying it tastes more ‘artificial’ in America.
“Does American fast food taste cheaper than in a different country?”
Student 1: “I think so, I got McDonalds in Spain one time, it was a crazy experience, it tasted better.”
Student 2: “Cheaper, it’s lower quality”
Student 3: “I don’t think it tastes cheaper, it just tastes ‘less’, and very artificial.”
Student 4: “Yes, yes it does.”
“Do you think there is an actual tasteful difference between American fast food and fast food in other countries?”
Student 4: “Oh yes, it’s less flavorful”
Student 1: “Fast food in a different country tastes fresher, it’s like less processed.”
Student 2: “I think a lot of people in America who eat fast food are so used to eating it often. If you keep eating salty food it stops tasting salty. So I do think they use more salt and stuff.”
Student 3: “I think so, yeah. I do like fast food here more though.”
So, point is…?
Fast food is rooted in American culture, and with that, it has adapted so rapidly that it is one of the biggest industries in the US, and growing around the world. But, because of this rapid and constant occurrence, nutrition and freshness is not promised, nor is it a priority.
But, don’t let this stop you from pleasing that strong craving you may have once in a while, it happens to the best of us!
sources
https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0185-33252016000300175#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20salt%20intake%20
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50958/#:~:text=The%20main%20reason%20is%20that,makes%20them%20%E2%80%9Ctaste%E2%80%9D%20better.
https://www.tryhabitual.com/journal/why-is-junk-food-so-addictive#:~:text=%5B6%5D%20This%20is%20particularly%20true,the%20more%20you%20want%20it.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/heres-how-fast-food-can-affect-your-body#:~:text=Many%20fast%20food%20items%20are,stress%20on%20your%20cardiovascular%20system.
https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2023/07/28/nova-classification-matches-consumer-instincts-study-finds/#:~:text=Through%20NOVA%2C%20food%20can%20be,%2Dprocessed%20food%2C%20or%20UPF.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2023/scientists-build-a-healthy-dietary-pattern-using-ultra-processed-foods/#:~:text=The%20NOVA%20scale%20first%20appeared,foods%20by%20degree%20of%20processing.
https://ufhealth.org/news/2023/ultra-processed-foods-cookies-chips-frozen-meals-and-fast-food-may-contribute-cognitive#:~:text=Close-,Ultra%2Dprocessed%20foods%20%E2%80%93%20like%20cookies%2C%20chips%2C%20frozen%20meals,may%20contribute%20to%20cognitive%20decline&text=Scientists%20have%20known%20for%20years,and%20lead%20to%20cognitive%20impairment.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-consumer/
