A Delicate Issue: Fast Food Essay

Fast food has been steadfastly adored by people throughout the world over the three decades. In the fast food restaurants, customers are always busy getting in line and buying foods on a national scale. Accordingly, employees take orders, and pack various burgers in a flurry. Foods pour in boundlessly, and help-wanted advertisements are constantly attached on one side of a wall. If so, why on earth are people going so wild with enthusiasm over fast food? In fact, several major advantages of fast food products such as hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, and tacos are convenience, warmth, taste, and accessibility of fast food restaurants. However, Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, is anxious for the riskiness of fast food industry, and he sounds a warning to the nation. In order to grasp the facts of fast food, we need to disclose the basis of his assertions. First, fast food industry is excessively expanding all over the nation. According to a Korean proverb, â€Å"Too much is as bad as too little. See more: Satirical essay about drugs † For example, the McDonald’s Corporation as the most gigantic fast food source of supply makes inroads into small restaurants, and other food industries try to imitate and adopt analogous business ability. Furthermore, in fast food restaurants, there are numerous menus. They have not only burgers and sodas but also foreign dishes such as teriyaki burger, jalapeno burger, and chili bowl. Ultimately, every foreign food restaurant around the fast food restaurants gets a blow. The business ethics are important. It doesn’t matter by law, but it can ethically be a problem. This problem occurs not only in the food service industries but also in agricultural societies. According to Fast Food Nation, â€Å"Family farms are now being replaced by gigantic corporate farms with absentee owners. Rural communities are losing their middle class and becoming socially stratified, divided between a small, wealthy elite and large numbers of the working poor (499). † In this manner, only the industrialized agriculture can survive at this time. Truly, immoderate unevenness of authority corrupts societies. Second, fast foods are relatively unsanitary and have possible effect on genetic health. In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser remarked, â€Å"The meat industry practices that endanger these workers have facilitated the introduction of deadly pathogens, such as E. coli 0157:H7, into America’s hamburger meat, a food aggressively marketed to children. The federal government has the legal authority to recall a defective toaster oven or stuffed animal—but still lacks the power to recall tons of contaminated, potentially lethal meat (499). † Germs especially in meat must be extremely harmful and they can be deadly for our life. Moreover, there are considerable numbers of children customers who like fast foods as a result of various promotions for kids. Since children have much weaker immune system than adults, the germs may lead them to death more easily if the sanitary of fast food doesn’t be improved. Besides, there’s another problem with potatoes. Frozen French fries made from genetically engineered potatoes had been used in McDonald’s for a long time. Most people don’t believe the safety of genetically modified organism. As a matter of fact, GMO is unnatural, and it may bring genetic disease such as an allergic disease occurred from the accident of Brazil nut. In the spring of 2000, fortunately, McDonald’s informed it would no longer purchase those, but how would it guarantee the safety against possible danger of GMO from now on? Truly, fast food corporations are required to have responsibility and business ethics about the nation’s health and safety. Third, working conditions are deteriorated in fast food restaurants. According to Fast Food Nation, â€Å"While a handful of workers manage to rise up the corporate ladder, the vast majority lack full-time employment, receive no benefits, learn few skills, exercise little control over their workplace, quit after a few months, and float from job to job. The restaurant industry is now America’s largest private employer, and it pays some of the lowest wages. The roughly 3. 5 million fast food workers are by far the largest group of minimum wage earners in the United States (497). † Even now, the websites such as Google and Yahoo are overflowing with complaints about poor working conditions in McDonald’s. For example, they continuously hold out for a pay increase, but the situation remains unchanged. In fact, there is a big possibility for unhealthful foods and unfriendliness to customers unless the dissatisfaction of employees doesn’t die down. In the long run, fast food corporations might undergo the severe hardships with employments and merchandising goods. Of course, McDonald’s do charitable works, but those cannot be the fundamental solution. Uncountable people think fast food corporations are able to make much more profit if they show the strong credibility. Improving working conditions is a problem awaiting urgent solution. Overall, there are numerous issues of fast food corporations. Truly, few restaurants such as McDonald’s and Burger King can have both enormous scale and authority in the world. Therefore, they are required to have a lot more business ethics. Moreover, customers should be concerned about and stimulate fast food corporations ceaselessly and strongly. There are a large number of people who are expecting radical changes. Measures to stabilize the people’s distrust and dissatisfaction are urgently needed.