People were created to be loved and nurtured. Artificial items were created to be used and manipulated. Fast-food was created to be the permanent greasy glue that holds both people and items together. The reason as to why the world we live in is in utter chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used while, in the meantime, fast-food is being consumed at a repugnantly rapid pace.
As human beings, we spend way too much time living in complete disarray whilst not knowing where the next turn will take us on this path of life. As human beings, we tend to settle for the secure and comfortable aspects of our daily lives, because the biggest human temptation is to settle for the mundane. However, the minute one settles for less than they deserve, they begin to receive even less than they initially settled for and life suddenly turns into an interminable story with no satisfying ending. Now, what does any of this have to do with the fast-food industry? Well, quite frankly, this world is one enormous web full of interconnected strings that deliver a harmonious balance to its captive creatures. Some parts of the web, unfortunately, carry more weight and relevance than others. The fast-food industry is a corrupted conglomerate which has produced an irrepressible monopoly that will not be going away anytime soon. In spite of the efforts of many spin doctors to declare otherwise, the evidence in proving the deleterious effects of consuming fast-food, especially a large scale amount, are there in plain sight.
My personal stake in this global epidemic resides in my unhealthy curiosity as to why people choose to consume the things they do. I am not only interested in discovering the iniquitous impact that fast-food has on society, but I am also interested in discovering how the industry consistently maintains their unholy grasp on the hands of many. The evidence that tugs on my heartstrings the most is the understanding that most individuals are well aware of the human garbage they regularly consume at a McDonald's, a Burger King, a Taco Bell, and so on and so forth. However, they choose to do nothing about the matter, because once again, it is so much easier to settle for complacency and comfort. In order to facilitate this corruption of the cardiovascular system, and in order to defeat the greasy system that is in place, people have to become more cognizant of how the entire industry, along with their own predilections, operate so they are better prepared to battle the injustices within. I am not looking to drastically move mountains. I’m only attempting to break enough branches so that enough people will hear a tree falling silently in the woods.
It is fair to suggest that the vast majority of individuals have at least a decent grasp of what makes fast-food supremely unhealthy and addictive. However, unless those individuals majored in the sciences, they probably do not possess the thorough understanding of what intrinsically makes a cheeseburger, and its other villainous comrades, detrimental to one’s organs. The information may surprise people and perhaps give them pause as they contemplate their next bite of fast-food. There are approximately 14 billion hamburgers, the symbol of fast-food, consumed each year in the United States alone. Mike Adams, contributor to the Food Matters documentary and online community, claimed:
This simple fact would shock most consumers if they knew about it. People assume that beef found to be contaminated with E. Coli must be thrown out or destroyed (or even recalled), but in reality, it’s often just pressed into hamburger patties, cooked, and sold to consumers. This practice is openly endorsed by the USDA [United States Department of Agriculture]. But E. Coli may not be the worst thing in your burger: USDA regulations also allow chicken feces to be used as feed for cows, meaning your hamburger beef may be made of second-hand chicken poop, recycled through the stomachs of cows. According to the FDA, farmers feed their cattle anywhere from 1 million to 2 million tons of chicken feces each year.
While it is accurate that hamburgers are not the only option on a fast-food menu, they are the predominant product sold in the industry. This cross-species contamination of the products that are served to billions of people on a daily basis leads to an increased risk in potential mad cow disease along with the aforementioned E. Coli disease which isn’t any better. I constantly wonder why people risk their health on a consistent basis just because they save a few minutes and dollars going to a fast-food establishment.
Overall, when it comes to the fast-food industry, there isn’t a vast amount of significantly new information out there and there aren’t that many controversies surrounding the grotesque culture. The pros are quite evident and the cons are even more distinguishable, but it is the prerogative of each and every individual to acquaint themselves with the necessary information in order to make logical decisions regarding what they consume. The fast-food industry is just this large representation of everything that’s positive and negative, optimistic and pessimistic, about the worldwide population. We literally have billions of people out there with the capabilities to better this planet for generations to come. It’s unfortunate that the world we live in contains a myriad of followers but only a small portion of legitimate leaders. One person can’t change the collective mindsets of billions of people, but he or she can certainly be an impetus for that change. It starts with parents educating their children and not giving in to their temptations by appeasing them with McDonald's or Burger King, amongst many others. Nobody in the world is forced to buy fast-food. The first step toward meaningful change is by far the easiest: just stop buying it . . . It’s not too late. Sometimes the most irresistible force is the most mundane. Sometimes the largest step for mankind is also the most straightforward. This doesn’t have to be a gastric bypass generation, but it’s imperative that we start somewhere. Check, please!
