The Ethics of Fast Food

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Recommended: Ethical issues in the fast food industry

So, what exactly is "fast food"? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, " fast- food" is food that is designed for ready availability, use, or consumption and with little consideration given to quality or significance. So, is there even a link between fast food and its technology with ethics? At first, I thought "what I am thinking? I'll never be able to find any information linking the two." To my surprise, there is a plethora of information regarding fast food... And, due to the large number of restaurant chains today, I will mainly focus on McDonald's, perhaps the most popular fast food restaurant today.

Professional Issues

From humble beginnings in 1955, McDonald’s grew steadily until 1980, when it had 5,213 outlets in the United States. Then, as capital moved into hyper-drive during the age of Reagan, McDonald’s took off, reaching its current level of 12,000+ domestic outlets and another 8,000+ abroad. By 1996, the pace of McDonald’s growth was impressive even by the standards of the times. The Wall Street Journal put it in a headline: the company "wants to run over its competition with a Mack Truck." (1) With the number of actual outlets, specific issues will depend from outlet to outlet. However, in general, the professional issues regarding this case mainly deals with food quality issues. These range from the technology in processing the food to store sanitary policies.

First, take the production of the famous McDonald's French fry. During the chain's early years French fries were made from scratch every day. Russet Burbank potatoes were peeled, cut into shoestrings, and fried in McDonald's kitchens. As the chain expanded nationwide, in the mid-1960s, it sought to cut labor costs, reduce the numb...

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...w.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/ba2000-12-14.htm>

15 Ethical Decision-making Group Capture Worksheet.

<http://cseserv.engr.scu.edu/nquinn/ENGR019/EthicalDecisionMaking.PDF>

16 Ibid.

Other sources:

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9806/11/diet.heart.attack/

http://www.askmen.com/sports/foodcourt/22_eating_well.html

http://www.eatingbythebook.com/article/art002.html

http://www.dietitian.com/fastfood.html

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/features/hoffman/507084

http://members.aol.com/AnneDroidz/mcdsux.html

http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell30.htm

http://www.speakout.com/Issues/Briefs/1333/

http://www.waste.org/~lanshark/vegan/fastfood.html

http://www.jambajuice.com, http://www.mcdonalds.com, http://www.tacobell.com, http://www.carlsjr.com, http://www.burgerking.com, http://www.subway.com

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