By Chikako Takigawa and Sara Torchio             

 

                 When reading Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson we learned about the horrors of fast-food. We found out how our fast food dinners, lunches, and snacks are made, what ingredients are used, and how fast food harms the body.  Both animals and workers are treated poorly. Fast-food companies take advantage of kids by luring them into their restaurants with toys and catchy advertisements. After reading this book, we decided to avoid eating fast food and hope to inform parents and kids to be aware of what they are eating.

 

                 Although fast food might taste really good, in reality it is full of fats, chemicals, and too much sugar. The fries many people love are made of seven percent soybean oil and 93 percent beef fat. Lots of these fast foods are filled with chemicals and artificial flavors. Some of the ingredients found in a fast-food strawberry milkshake are: milk fat and nonfat milk, sugar, sweet whey, high fructose corn syrup, guar gum, mono- and diglycerides, cellulose gum, sodium phosphate, carageenan, citric acid, red food coloring #40, and artificial strawberry flavor. Plus, some yogurts contain color additives made of bugs also known as Carmine. The sugar content of most of this food is very high. A 32 ounce glass of coke has about 30 teaspoons of sugar! Over the years, the portion sizes have also been getting bigger. In 1957, a huge burger weighed one ounce. Today, the typical burger weighs six ounces.  All these ingredients may help the food taste good, but they are horrible for the body.

 

                 Many fast-food companies consider kids their ideal customers and strive to get kids to come to their restaurants by making their advertisements appealing to kids.  Many advertisers pay kids for their opinions. At one marketing conference in Singapore, children were asked: “What do you want your parents to buy you? What’s your favorite brand of clothes? What kind of cell phone do you have? What’s cool right now? What do you want to be famous for?” Also, some fast -food restaurants pay kids to test their products before selling it to the public.  Fast-food companies add chemicals that get kids addicted.  Some kids get so addicted that they get angry and furious when fast-food is taken away.  Fast-food companies say, “Eight-year olds were considered the ideal customers since they had about 65 years of buying soda ahead of them.”  Now many schools have fast-food on their lunch menus.  “Today, 43% of elementary schools, 74% of middle schools, and 98% of high schools have soda machines, candy machines, snack bars, or stores that serve foods high in sugar, fat, and salt.  Many schools depend on money from the sale of soda and junk food to pay for uniforms for their school sports team, trips for their marching bands, and other activities.” School officials said, “Selling food that kids like seemed to be an easier way to get money than convincing parents to pay higher taxes.”  Children are bombarded by fast-food advertisers trying to get their attention and make them lifetime customers.

 

                 Fast-food companies not only exploit kids, but animals too. Fast-food companies don’t care about how the animals are treated.  All they care about is getting the food and making money.  All the animals that become fast food ingredients endure many hardships before their eventual deaths. Chickens are crammed inside a chicken house unable to exercise.  In addition to not exercising, the chickens eat a diet of a gray mixture of old pretzels and cookies covered with a layer of fat.  They suffer from this extra weight on their skinny feet.  Before being horrifically slaughtered, chickens are hooked onto an overhead chain which leads to a rotating blade that slits their throats.  Some chickens face an even worse death. “Instead of attaching them to the overhead chain, workers throw leftover birds against the wall…..According to the animal rights activist, one worker put three live chickens on the floor and jumped on each of them.” While the chickens were being slaughtered, the cattle were also suffering. In the 1980’s, mad cow disease was introduced to the public.  Mad cow disease was linked to the ingredient that agribusiness companies were secretly putting in cattle feed: dead cows.  Many cattle got a brain disease from the dead cows and died.  The news about mad cow disease spread quickly.  Chicken and cattle are not the only animals being harmed by fast-food companies.  “In 1991, one billion fish were killed in North Carolina by a disease linked to the runoff from slaughterhouse lagoons.” So whenever you buy a burger, McNuggets or a fillet-o-fish at a fast food restaurant, think about the poor and helpless chicken, cows, and fish that were killed to make your meal.

 

                 Fast-food workers are also being exploited. The fast food industry gives jobs to “unskilled workers who are willing to accept low pay.” Almost anyone can do this job; therefore it is easy to be fired because unskilled workers are common. Most McDonald’s restaurants have a crew of about 60 people that work about 30 hours a week. “A typical fast food worker either quits or is fired in only three to four months.” Since fast food workers are easily replaced, they receive little pay and no health and dental benefits, have no control over work hours, and fail to develop skills for such hard work.   Most fast food workers earn the minimum wage, which “is the lowest amount of money that an employer is legally allowed to pay a person for each hour of work.”  In 2006, minimum wage workers are paid $5.15 an hour. In addition to low pay, some workers are forced to work extremely long and hard shifts. For example, one teenage girl named Sadi Lambert worked a 19 and a half hour shift and only received a bag of candy in return.  The poor treatment of workers has become so common that there is a definition of “McJob” in the dictionary. “A McJob is a job that is low-paying and offers little opportunity to get ahead.”

 

                 We will not eat fast food ever again because it is high in calories and fat. Fast-food companies should face tougher laws.  We can force fast food companies to improve by making the U.S. Congress prevent soda companies and fast-food companies from marketing unhealthy foods in schools.  The U.S. Congress should also punish companies that mistreat animals and ban advertisements that exploit children.  We can force the fast food industry to change its practices by not buying fast food.  Remember, every dollar spent on fast-food is like a vote.

 

                

 

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