Criticism of Fast Food

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Fast food refers to cheap and easy to prepare foods. Many of them have insignificant or no nutritional value to the body, and they contain excess fats, sugar, and calories. They became popular in the early 1950's, especially in the United States of America and other developed nations. Although any foodstuff that takes a short time to prepare is a fast food, the term is mainly applicable to foods available in restaurants, supermarkets, eateries, and food stores and has pre-cooked/preheated ingredients. Mainly, they appear in a take-away package. Some of the most common fast foods include hamburgers, sandwiches, salted snack foods, candy, gum, croissants, pizzas, kebabs, and noodles. Drinks include soft drinks and milkshakes. Burstein (34) observes that fast foods save on time and energy, but they have many nutritional deficiencies. Additionally, they are cheap and tasty but are the cause of many modern health concerns that are often difficult to treat or manage.
Over the recent years, fast foods have attracted wide criticism, especially from nutritionists. The revolution in daily cuisine has made fast food part of the daily diet in urban families and school age children. Many people blame them for the rising cases of lifestyle, health issues such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular illnesses. Fast foods bear the blame for the loss of traditional cuisine and authentic dishes that were healthy.
Consumer groups have emerged to criticize fast foods. Some of them include the Center for Science in Public Interest, which criticizes fast foods over their portion size, trans-fats, and calorific content. Some have raised long-term physiological concerns as opposed to short term ones. Cancer is a health condition that emanates from lon...

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...have particularly hit the debate on food security owing to their short maturation time and ability to alleviate hunger.

Works Cited
Burstein, John. Fast Food: Slowing Us All Down. St. Catharine's, Ont: Crabtree
Publishers, 2008. Print.
Gutierrez, David. “Chemicals in Fast Food Wrappers Show up in Human Blood”.
Natural News. 6 January. 2012. Web. 12 June 2014.
Hargreave, Jenny and Trish, Hill. Fast Food Felicity. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes, 2001.
Print.
Leidner, Robin. Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday
Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Print.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-
Food World. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. Print.
Schlosser, Eric and Charles, Wilson. Chew on This: The Unhappy Truth about Fast Food.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. Print.

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