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1. Fast food
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Fast food is the term given to food that is prepared and served very quickly, first popularized in the
1950s in the United States. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered fast food,
typically the term refers to food sold in arestaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients,
and served to the customer in a packaged form for take-out/take-away. Fast food restaurants are
traditionally separated by their ability to serve food via a drive-through. The term "fast food" was
recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.Outlets may be stands or kiosks which may
provide no shelter or seating, or fast food restaurants (also known asquick service
restaurants). Franchise operations that are part of restaurant chains have standardized foodstuffs
shipped to each restaurant from central locations. Modern commercial fast food is often highly
processed and prepared in an industrial fashion, i.e., on a large scale with standard ingredients and
standardized cooking and production methods. It is usually rapidly served in cartons or bags or in a
plastic wrapping, in a fashion that minimizes cost. In most fast food operations, menu items are
generally made from processed ingredients prepared at a central supply facility and then shipped to
individual outlets where they are reheated, cooked (usually by microwave or deep frying) or
assembled in a short amount of time. This process ensures a consistent level of product quality, and
is key to being able to deliver the order quickly to the customer and eliminate labor and equipment
costs in the individual stores.Because of commercial emphasis on quickness, uniformity and low
cost, fast food products are often made with ingredients formulated to achieve a certain flavor or
consistency and to preserve freshness.
In 2006, the global fast-food market grew by 4.8% and reached a value of £102.4 billion and a
volume of 80.3 billion transactions. Global fast-food sales are projected]
to reach $239.7 billion in
2014 In India alone the fast-food industry is growing by 41% a year.
McDonald's has outlets in 126 countries on 6 continents and operates over 31,000 restaurants
worldwide. On January 31, 1990 McDonald's opened a restaurant in Moscow and broke opening-day
records for customers served. The Moscow restaurant is the busiest in the world. The largest
McDonald's in the world, with 25,000 feet of play tubes, an arcade and play center, is located
in Orlando, Florida, USA

2. The Dangers of Fast Food
When James Dean said, "Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse" in the 1950s, Americans were much
thinner and fast food was a new invention. Today Americans are simply too chubby to live as fast as the lean
1950s idol. Instead they eat fast food, die younger than they should and leave increasingly obese corpses.
Along with smoking, substance abuse and inactivity, fast food presents one of the greatest public-interest
health threats to Americans today. Fast food is almost universally dangerous and should probably carry a
warning from the surgeon general. It contains meat-based carcinogens, is high in total calories and saturated fat
and is a principal source of trans fat. North Americans are always looking to shave a few seconds off
everything–even eating. Fast food is a $103-billion industry and more than 25,000 new fast-food restaurants
opened between 1996 and 1998. In a country obsessed with immediate gratification and conspicuous
consumption, what could be more seductive than the capacity to consume excessively at a moment’s notice?
The dominance of the fast-food culture makes it possible to have almost continual, unhealthy moveable feasts–
daily. Not only is the food dangerous, but it promotes a lifestyle and culture that are also dangerous. Our lives
are fast, frenetic and commercial. Food should be our sanctuary from the madness, not part of it. It’s no
accident that Dave Thomas, the happy CEO of Wendy’s who pushes the company’s burgers on TV, had a
coronary bypass operation several years ago. As we can see on more recent commercials, he’s dropped a few
pounds, but that hasn’t stopped him from hawking his products to the rest of us.
Fat Kids
North American children are not eating well. Approximately 30 percent of them are obese, up more than 50
percent in the past 20 years. In general, children eat too much, and much of what they eat is unhealthy.
A study sponsored by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine revealed that despite
poverty and poorer access to health care, immigrant children are actually healthier than their American-born
counterparts, having fewer short- and long-term health problems. The researchers noted that immigrant
children eat fewer processed foods and more fruits, grains and vegetables. Unfortunately, as time goes on, the
immigrant children acquire the unhealthy eating habits of American-born children. Most people know that fast
food is not good for you, but many don’t realize how dangerous it really is. They probably know about the
calories, saturated fat and maybe even the potential carcinogens in the beef. But maybe they think they can
escape the worst of it by skipping the burger and having the Chicken McNuggets or the french fries. After all,
fries are just potatoes cooked in vegetable oil, right? Unfortunately the fries may be worse than the burger.
Why? Trans fats.
Fast Food And Trans Fats
Trans fats are man-made fats that were virtually unknown to humans until 1911, when Procter & Gamble, the
people who brought you Olestra, first marketed Crisco. Before Crisco, if you wanted to make a pie crust, you
needed to use rendered lard or beef tallow as your solid fat source. But Procter & Gamble discovered that
adding hydrogen to polyunsaturated cottonseed oil made it more saturated and turned it into a solid fat at room
temperature. If you look on the labels of many manufactured food items you will see the words "partially
hydrogenated"–meaning that the manufacturer added hydrogen to a polyunsaturated fat, making it into a trans
fat. The more saturated a fat becomes, the stiffer and more solid it gets. Trans fats are also less likely to go
rancid and thus have a longer shelf-life.
Procter & Gamble used what was abundant and cheap in the early 1900s–cottonseed oil–to build its partially

3. hydrogenated evil twin–Crisco. In the 1930s the same technology was applied to the increasingly cheap and
very abundant soybean oil. Today you will see that many oils are subject to this potentially dangerous process,
sometimes even olive oil. Fast foods are probably the biggest source of trans fats in our diet. Up until the late
1980s, fast-food restaurants deep-fried food in beef tallow loaded with artery-choking saturated fats. In the
early 1990s, McDonalds, responding in part to public pressure, proudly announced that its fries would be
cooked in "cholesterol-free 100 per cent vegetable oil." While this was true, it was not the whole truth. The
whole truth is that McDonalds uses partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. In other words, it uses trans fats,
which are at least as bad for your blood cholesterol as the saturated fats they replaced, and probably worse.
In some ways this is another kind of high-fat fraud. You go into a fast food outlet and choose the fries instead
of the burger, thinking you’re avoiding saturated fat. But it turns out that you’re no better off. Temperatures
used for deep-frying liberate legions of deadly free radicals from fats. Even more frightening is the effect for
multiple frying episodes. Fats that are used again and again for frying oxidize at frighteningly high rates.
The next time you see a basket of fries plunged into a vat of bubbling brown oil, you should get out of that
place as quickly as possible! We are surrounded by trans fats in many of the foods we eat, but the single largest
dose we are likely to get is still the seemingly innocuous, cholesterol-free french fries from Wendy’s, Burger
King or McDonalds. McDonalds is the largest source of these potentially fatal fries. McDonalds understands
that food is a cultural issue and it spends more than half a billion dollars a year promoting the McDonalds
culture of eating. That culture is even penetrating public schools, places where children should be learning to
make healthy lifestyle choices. Fast-food chains are now contracting with public schools to provide unhealthy,
trans fat-laden lunches for our children. In an effort to attract children to the McDonalds culture of eating, the
company has created a cultural icon that rivals some of the most universally recognized symbols in Western
culture. According to Rolling Stone magazine, 96 per cent of schoolchildren surveyed could recognize Ronald
McDonald, making him second only to Santa Claus in name recognition and the Golden Arches are more
recognized than the Christian cross.
Fast food and you: The effects of too much fat, sugar,
and salt in your diet
I try to hasten my pacepast the neon-glow ofthe user-friendly menu,but the aroma has already conga-
lined up my nose and trapped me. The environment screams innocenceand ease, with its doors wide open
and welcoming, like a hippopotamus lying in wait. I go in, order, and consume my burger and fries within
60 seconds ofpure sensory joy –followed, by halfan hour ofindigestion.Fast food is anchored firmly in
our fast-paced world,providing us with the food aligned to the modus operandi for modern living - quick,
easy and cheap. The effects on your body, however, are not as innocent.Now we all know that fast food is
tasty becauseit is packed with sugars and fats. It is also apparent that sugar is currently monopolising the
limelight, with media and health groups holding their pitch forks aloft, and burning effigies ofsugar cubes
at dawn, calling for ‘sugar taxes’ and reform. With this in mind, I am going to focus my article on the
saturated and trans-fats lurking in our fast food, and providea snapshot oftheir unscrupulous activity in
your body.But beforeI sharpen my pitch-fork and strike-up my matches, I want to explain why fat,
especially the healthier unsaturated fats that you get from foods like oily fish, are actually a welcomed,
necessary component ofyour balanced diet.Let us begin with the big picture reasons first:protection,
insulation and fuel.Fat is yourbody’s natural cushion, providing protection and comfort for your internal
organs and pressureareas like yourbum (sitting on the ‘ischium’, a part ofyour pelvis, withoutany fat is
not nice). Fat also provides you with some natural minor insulation, so that once our British summer has
completed its annual 14 day stint,it supports yourbody’s thermoregulation.

4. Last but by no means least, your body fat acts as an impressive energy depot, with around 100,000
calories available for yourbody, ifcalled upon.This, by comparison, dwarfs your quicker release
carbohydratestores that limp in at a weak second place, providing around 1900 calories –about 24 hours
worth. So, if you are wondering how Tom Hanks survived in Castaway, no, it wasn’t just the company of
Wilson that kept him going but that unsung hero, fat.The positive roles offat in your body - such as
supporting the digestion, absorption,and transportofyourfat-solubleessential vitamins A, D, E and K;
and its secretion ofthe hormone, leptin,which acts as a ‘fat thermostat’ (or a ‘lipostat’) to regulateyour
body habitus by effecting your hunger –indeed, do go on. However,it is time to tool-up and light the
match…Fast food fats have the potential, when consumedin excess(Government daily recommendations
are less than 20g for women and 30g for men of saturatedfats, and less than 5g trans-fats for both) to
deliver both troublesome short-term problems and morealarming long-term repercussions to your
health. After-all, every biteadds up, with a fast food burger packing about 10g ofsaturated fat, and a
quarter ofyour recommended calorie intake for the day (and that’s before youfactor in the fries and fizzy
drink!).
So, let us consider your
brain for a moment. Now although with a mass, attributing only 2%ofyour body’s total, your brain has a
staggeringly disproportionatemetabolic demand,accounting for 25%ofyour total energy consumed. It
needs this in order to allow youto make those smart business decisions, witty Facebook status updates,
and think with clarity. “But you said fats haveloads ofenergy!” I hear you shout. Sadly, like a
disappointed under-18 at a night-club,the fats just can’t get in;the interface between the brain and the
blood stream being largely (but not entirely) impermeableto fat. Quite simply, your brain needs
carbohydrates for fuel.To be honest though,a few dumb days are not your main concern. Instead it is the
long-term risks ofa fast food, high-fat diet lifestyle that are more worrisome.Y ou only need to look
around, or down at yourself, to see thatwe are an expanding society with over 64%ofadults in the UK
overweight or obese. It goes without saying that this carries significant mortality and morbidity risks. Yes,
I agree, this is a product not just ofa poor diet but ofchronic physical inactivity (and numerous other
factors) –but that is a story for anotherday.Now before we move on,I want to clarify the two main types
of fats in your body;youhave‘subcutaneous fat’ (some, admittedly morethan others), which consists of
fat cells called adipocytes, deposited under your skin in an area called the hypodermis and gives us all our,
well, unique shapes, paving the way for the colourful phraseslike ‘lovehandles’. Then, thereis your
‘visceral fat’ which surrounds yourorgans. Depression, osteoarthritis, gout and increased infection risks
are all associatedwith excess fat consumption and weight gain. Although both carry their own set ofrisks,

5. when in chronic excess, visceral fat is by far more concerning both by its insidious existence and its
consequences, so we shall focus on these.
So let us start with the
more serious ofthe two - visceral fat, the fat that is packed between ourorgans. Excessive consumption of
fast foods will chronically elevatethe levels offats in your blood. Alongside this, the amount of‘bad’
cholesterol-carrying molecules,known as low density lipoproteins (LDL), also increases. This is bad news
for you, as instead ofhelping to remove cholesterol from your body, the LDL carts it offto sites such as
your liver and the walls ofyour blood vessels. The end result is that your bloodvessel walls develop fatty
plaques, in process known as atherosclerosis, narrowing them over time. This elevates y our risk of
interrupting blood supply to major organs like yourheartand brain, increasing the risk ofconditions like
angina, myocardial infarctions (‘heart attacks’) and cerebro-vascular events (‘strokes’).Organs,
particularly your livercan also become infiltrated with fat. This is a gradual process that may begin with a
‘fatty liver’ but progress, over a lifetime, to conditions more serious such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis
(NASH), causing inflammation and damage to your liver. Excess fat can further unremorsefully impair
your body’s sensitivity ofperipheral tissues to insulin, causing type two diabetes.An excess offat in your
diet may also endorse the ‘metabolic syndrome’, a collection ofconditions that includes hypertension
(high blood pressure),diabetes, obesity, and hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), all present in one
person. This can ultimately, as a result ofdysregulation in energy usageand storage, greatly increase the
risk ofcardiovasculardisease.

6. Now, I am going to break
my promise to the salts and sugars,and very briefly giveyou a snap-shotofrole in this fast food debate.
The best way to explain the role of sugars is to talk about the ‘crash’. Not the Academy Award winning
movie, no, but the feeling you get after you havedemolished your fast food meal in record time,and then
60 minutes later slip into an exhausted, sluggish, and lethargic ‘food-coma’ to rival Sleeping Beauty. The
simple, refined sugars in these foods give your blood sugar levels a huge, immediate spike –giving you
that burst ofenergy –before being used up almost immediately. This is why you are left craving more –
you are, in part, addicted to the sugar;just like kids and sweets.High salt levels in fast food (roughly 2g in
a fast food burger alone, equalling one third ofyour maximum daily allowance) can leave youfeeling
thirsty in the short term - but in the long-term can affectyour blood pressure and subsequent risk of
future cardiovasculardisease.Theway in which high salt levels do this is, once in your blood stream, it
separates into sodium and chloride,increasing the pressurein the blood by ‘holding water’ in you blood
stream, and thereby exerting more mechanical stress on yourblood vessel walls. A diet with chronically
excessivesalt will worsen bloodvessel wall damageand promotehypertension.Ofcourse, the jackpot
question is “why do you like fast foods so much?” As with mostanswers I give, thereare, frustratingly,
multiple factors –two of which I will highlight. Firstly thereis that perfectcombination offats, sugars and
salts in foods (that fast food companies look to perfect) that galvanises yourbrain’s reward centre;and
secondly the orosensation (i.e. how the food feels in yourmouth) and mouth-watering taste;both ofwhich
leave you craving more ofthe same guilty fast food pleasure.As we draw to a close on this debate, cast

7. your mind back to what I said in the beginning – some fat, the right fat, is good for you. It is a natural,
supportive and healthy part ofyour diet.Just, perhaps,be mindful to select out the less desirable
saturated- and trans-fats, high salts, and sugars that are within fast food. The NHS ‘Live Well’ website, for
example,has mountains ofinformation to help.Remember too that the occasional fast food meal isn’t
going to hurt you (I certainly have the occasional one), it is more that the cumulative effects ofthree or
four each week will increase your health risks. I too appreciatethat fast food chains do seem to be trying
to become healthier –which is commendable. As always, ifyou are concernedaboutanything raised here,
for example, your eating habits, want support for weight management,or further info rmation on the
health effects ofhigh-fat diets, then please contact your GP - they are there to help.