The Fast Food Paradigm

Dr. J,

Why can't fast food be made healthy? And why has the cost of

fast food not inflated over the years the way other things have?

Sincerely,

Buy-Curious

Dear Buy,

Fast food could be made good for you, but no one would eat it.

Good food is available to you right now. Go buy a bag of carrots

and munch on those until your craving for something hot, smothered

with cheese and mayonnaise or ranch sauce with a name like

Santa Fe or Triple overtakes you.

The main reason fast food is bad for you is economics. The goal of

fast food is to make money, not to nourish you. A good burger

made with a quarter pound of meat or more, quality bun and fixin's

would easily run you $6 bucks without the fries and drink. A typical

fast food cheeseburger is about 1/10 of a pound of ground beef. You'd

have to be very tiny to get anything out of that. So in order to make a

tiny amount of meat taste like it just came off the grill, you have to

screw with it ... hard core. A little salt and pepper will just not do. You

need some serious punch to taste anything. Don't believe me? Go to

the store and buy a pound of the

best hamburger you can find. Get some of that good Angus beef everyone

is talking about these days. Then divide the pound 10 ways, flatten one of

those patties out flat, fry it and eat it on a bun with ketchup mustard pickle

onion. Now, if you can taste that meat and find it remotely enjoyable, I'll

kiss you straight on the lips.

The fast food industry is not like the restaurant business. Oh sure, they

cook stuff and clean stuff and you eat there, but the real distinction is in

quality. A real restaurant wants to provide the customer with a great dining

experience as well as make some cash. Fast food is all about the money.

It is a for-profit endeavor in which all aspects of the business are set forth

to separate you from your money. Fat, sugar and caffeine are all very

addictive substances. High carb, high calorie meals make your blood

sugar spike and then drop. When it drops, you get hungry and when you

get hungry, you are going to crave that very same stuff that drove your

blood sugar up in the first place. The industry knows this and designs its

menus around the concept.

I never used to eat at McDonald's at all. I was a Burger King man. But I started

eating at Mickey D's because it was free (actually, I was stealing from a

McDonald's Express at the ISU Student Union ... they just didn't care what

happened there). After a while, I started craving their food. I'd have an

eggamuffin or a double cheeseburger for breakfast and by lunch time I'd

want another (luckily it was even easier to steal at lunchtime). Granted this

isn't a massive scientific example but as anecdotal evidence goes, it's

pretty good. Why would anyone get hooked on food they otherwise found

a bit dull when compared to similar items from other burger joints?

The only way this paradigm will shift is if Americans suddenly get a mad

hankering for fresh food that isn't BURSTING with flavor but tastes good

in the traditional sense. Learn to love the taste of a fresh tomato or some

fresh baby spinach. Even a nice fresh pork chop or chicken breast that

wasn't soaked in saltwater solution before being quick frozen in a three

pound bag. Until we do, we are not just feeding ourselves, but the monster

as well.