Social Question

Captain_Fantasy's avatar

Is the fast food industry trying to kill you?

Asked by Captain_Fantasy (11447points) April 25th, 2010
49 responses
“Great Question” (4points)

When I see the KFC Double Down chicken sandwich it makes me think that fast food makers can’t possibly care about your health any more than the cigarette industry does.

You don’t have to be a Harvard grad to know this is terrible for you and so is all fast food from the major American chains. Even the drunkest Chico State sophmore knows this probably isn’t the best food decision.

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Answers

Jude's avatar

Watch this

I am right now and it’s highly disturbing and absolutely freaking unreal.

laureth's avatar

Corporations are designed to profit and are notably devoid of conscience. (That’s what government regulation and individual caveat emptor is for.)

Captain_Fantasy's avatar

Is there a link for the non Facebook people jjmah ?

Buttonstc's avatar

But they want to kill you slowly enough to extract maximum profit.

It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.

Coloma's avatar

It’s all a matter of personal choice.
No one is holding a gun to anyones head and forcing them to consume the Big Mac.

Nothing new, nothing astounding…my great, great grandfather was killed when he rolled his horse and buggy after imbibing in some local moonshine way back in 1885!

Damn drunk drivers!

dpworkin's avatar

They are not trying to kill you, they just don’t care if they kill you. How is that news? Toyota, Cargill, ADM, Goldman Sachs, none of them give a shit about you.

Jude's avatar

@Captain_Fantasy sorry, wrong link. I fixed it.

My girlfriend sent the link to my Facebook email.

Ranimi23's avatar

Yes, but only if you eat fast food every day for one month. We will miss you, say hello to the good people who died from fast food and didn’t know it :-/

Jude's avatar

Go organic, people.

DarkScribe's avatar

No, they can’t get money from dead people – at least not unless they cater the wake. They just don’t care how they affect your health as long as there is a dollar in it for them.

Cruiser's avatar

What I find ironic is how fast-food places are taking it on the chin over unhealthy sandwiches when you can go to a sit down restaurant with equal if not more butter, salt and fat in their food and no one seems to complain there??

Captain_Fantasy's avatar

What sit down restaurants have you been going to? lol
There are some bad ones of course. Denny’s, TGI Fridays and Appleby’s are pretty much fast food.

ratboy's avatar

With the prospects for human survival looking so bleak just now, they believe that it’s prudent to concentrate on the short term.

Coloma's avatar

A good freinds parents are both 89 years old, have a couple of ‘Ancient Age’ OTR every night, love a local greaseball fish-n-chips place…partied their asses off in their country club community all through the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s…tried Cocaine with us ‘kids’ back in the late 70’s,....our nursing homes are full of oldsters that lived through eating DDT soaked veggies, consumed massive amounts of alcohol, smoked and did these things all through their pregnancies as well.

Here I am..a shining star at 50….it’s all in the genes….I am sure half of my mothers amniotic fluid was comprised of Gin & Tonic! lololololol

Cruiser's avatar

HS @Captain_Fantasy! Check the recipes on any of their sauces and sides!! The salt and butter content will give you a grabber for sure! Why do you think it all tastes so yummy? Not many people in their healthy right mind would cook at home that way.

DarkScribe's avatar

@Cruiser equal if not more butter, salt and fat in their food and no one seems to complain there??

Nothing wrong with butter, salt, and fat unless it is excessive salt and trans fats or burned saturated fat. It is carbs that pack the weight on. Recent reports are refuting the “margarine is better” myth. It might have lower cholesterol, but more margarine eaters die from heart disease than butter eaters. Once you get past your thirties low cholesterol is not something that you really want – it damages you immune response. The entire industry has been running on myth and half truths for decades, health info has been disseminated by people who make the products they promote as healthy.

laureth's avatar

Salt and butter and fat make food taste extra-good. It sells more. More sales = more profit. It’s only “irresponsible” if health is your criteria. As far as making profits, it’s very responsible to sell as much as you can. Responsibility is to the owners/shareholders, not necessarily to the people who eat there, unless eaters refuse to buy the fat-laden items, or the government whacks the business with a stick.

This is one reason that not all entities should be run as businesses, but I digress…

BoBo1946's avatar

not me Captain, don’t give them very many chances!

Cruiser's avatar

@DarkScribe I don’t know what Dr. you go to but salt and butter fat are huge no-no’s with mine as are the trans fats of many of the other oils used in gourmet cooking at leading restaurants. Sure there are choices to be made and it does entirely depend on your body type and level of fitness. I just think people need to quit the bitchin and let them eat cake or whatever if they want to and quit blaming the food industry. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything! You want to smoke…SMOKE! You want to drink booze? CHEERS! You want to eat slop?? Bon apatite’

Mikelbf2000's avatar

They are not trying to kill you but they are not in business for your health. They are in business for selling cheap food. It’s ultimately your discision to eat their food. They are not forcing you to eat anything.

Jude's avatar

@Coloma There are examples of people that can drink five cans of Coke per day, eat nothing but white bread, cookies and cheeseburgers, and rarely touch a vegetable while remaining the picture of good health well into their 60’s. I wonder though, if you took 100 people and subjected them to this type of lifestyle what the majority of them would look like. How many would be overweight and how many would have diabetes?

Coloma's avatar

@jjmah

Agreed…it’s a gamble….one never knows…I just stick to the middle path, but won’t deny my Taco Bell addiction. Green burritos… lol

DarkScribe's avatar

@Cruiser don’t know what Dr. you go to but salt and butter fat are huge no-no’s with mine as are the trans fats of many of the other oils used in gourmet cooking at leading restaurants.

I don’t rely on Doctors for such info, many are so far behind current research that they will tell things like yours apparently do. There have been – for the first time – a number of very extensive long term, broad scale research projects who have published results in the past two or three years. Many more are still under way, but have been leaking progress. The Cancer study that made so many people stop eating red meats and meat products with salts (nitrite and nitrates) that was released a couple of years ago also pointed out that lowering cholesterol if you were not suffering from dangerously high cholesterol was a not a wise thing to do – the older you get, the higher your cholesterol count should be for good health and longevity. You can access many of these studies – they generally require accreditation and an annual fee, but it is well worth while.

As for booze – I drink whiskey, vodka and wine daily – red wine mostly – it is healthy. I just don’t drink to excess. Bit by bit they are rescinding many of the dietary “facts” – look at the redesigned Harvard food pyramid with regard to their approach to carbs and fats. The trouble is that the old myths are so entrenched that many people ignore the new food pyramid and the reasons behind its design.

Captain_Fantasy's avatar

Fast food…
Serious business.

thriftymaid's avatar

No. Your health is your business, as is what you choose to eat. Fast food just sells food. If you don’t think it would be good for you don’t buy it. What you eat is a personal responsibility. Being allowed to make these choices is a personal liberty.

CodePinko's avatar

No, If your customer dies it’s unlikely they will provide more demand for your product. Not good business.

syzygy2600's avatar

Oh wahhh, a faceless multinational corporation doesn’t care about my health! Why is this a surprise to anyone? No ones forcing anyone to go eat it – if you don’t like it, think it’s unhealthy, don’t eat it. Simple as that.

CodePinko's avatar

It is not the fast food outlet’s responsibility to be concerned with your health.
It is yours.

Coloma's avatar

Well..as I mentioned above, and don’t get me wrong, I am not defendling grossly obscene health habits..BUT…if you want to take it to the 10th power…the fact is…every one of us is literally comprised of cells that were formed from generations of our ancestors health habits..like I said, I was incubated in a womb full of Gin but ap-parent-ly that environment caused no ill effect. lol

Really..think about it, it’s a lot like sex partners, sleeping with multiples… you are what your ancestors ate!

In this sense the fast food industry is rather moot, and we are genetically engineered from countless questionable habits. haha

stranger_in_a_strange_land's avatar

The fast-food industry is acting responsibly, to their way of thinking. They (as well as the vast majority of corporations) see their responsibility as profitability for the stockholders. As long as people want to eat this slop, these places will sell it to them.

Our tastes are evolved to prefer fats and sugars. Quick energy to chase down game and build up a layer of fat against winter starvation. Our ancestors would eat this kind of food at every opportunity, but those opportunities were fewer and the hard physical labor of everyday existence burned it up before it could deposit as fat or artery plaque.

Most of us in the West now live far more sedentary lives than our tastes and appetites are evolved for. Also, the lower-priced foods are more heavily laden with fats, salt and sugars since the food processing industry is geared up to produce such products at the lowest cost.

CodePinko's avatar

CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL!!!
Your computer was developed and built by a corporation!!
Get up and set it aflame in protest NOW!

Bluefreedom's avatar

They’re certainly not helping you in any significant way. The documentary Super Size Me was very revealing and disturbing in regards to many different aspects of the fast food industry.

CodePinko's avatar

I saw Supersize Me.
The title character chose to eat McDonalds for a month straight.
If you have an issue with fast food:
Eat it…...............................................Don’t eat it.
Select the one on the right.

TexasDude's avatar

If they were consciously trying to kill us, then who would buy their greasy shit?

Think about it. We all die, they don’t have a consumer base, and they lose money and go out of business.

CodePinko's avatar

It’s just another case of the Nannystate Fun Police.
“Do it today, it might be illegal tomorrow”.

YARNLADY's avatar

I suppose you could say the same thing about your neighborhood bar. I can find more news reports about people who die after leaving a bar than people who die after leaving a fast food restaurant.

Coloma's avatar

@CodePinko
@YARNLADY

Hahaha…yep, pick your poison, there’s plenty of it!

Cruiser's avatar

@DarkScribe Exactly! You have hit the nail on the head! Not much is as bad and evil for you as some “experts” are making things out to be as moderation and balance is the key! I glass of wine with that lobster and garlic butter with a small slice of chocolate cake will be just fine to have as long as you are not consuming more than what your body should be taking in. Moderation is key, but virtually everything and anything offered as a “meal” on most any menu fast food or sit down far exceeds what our bodies need for proper nutrition and that is where people, unwittingly in most cases, get themselves into trouble.

rpm_pseud0name's avatar

I see a few comments from people, saying the business wouldn’t want it kill its customers because the dead don’t give money. Which, they won’t… but their kids have money to spend & their kids will & their kids will. There will always be people being born & growing up already hungry. Fast food (or tobacco companies) never have to worry about a shortage of customers. They really don’t care. If they did, they would close up shop & tell you to buy from your local farmers & prepare your food at home & eat healthy meals with your family at a dinner table & not a booth for 6 by the faux fireplace.

Buttonstc's avatar

McDonalds now has faux fireplaces ?

I guess they’re trying to go high class :D

mattbrowne's avatar

People kill themselves because of ignorance. But I’m in favor of warning signs for children, like don’t eat fast food more often than once a week.

CodePinko's avatar

Warning signs are uneccessary. If you have a kid you should be intelligent enough to determine exactly what your child is consuming.
Besides, isn’t it easier to teach our children individual choice and responsibility if the state isn’t interfering in the form of myriad warning labels?
Also, are you really so stupid that you need a contents listing to know that fast food isn’t exactly the best thing for you? It’s like the owners of Hummers that were “unhappy” with their new vehicle’s fuel economy. C’mon, you couldn’t tell is was a gas hog just by looking at it??

mattbrowne's avatar

As children grow older, I agree. But this takes time. They don’t become educated adults overnight. Why do we have speed zones in residential areas or near schools? Because children are not ready to deal with dangerous cars. Likewise at some point they are not ready to deal with dangerous food.

Mikelbf2000's avatar

@mattbrowne you can’t slap a warning sign on everything.

mattbrowne's avatar

No, not everything. But on the top 5 killers: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, smoking, obesity, reckless driving. Just take the diabetes epidemic. The annual cost of diabetes in the United States in 2007 was estimated at $174 billion. Direct medical expenditures alone were $116 billion. Warning signs are overdue.

laureth's avatar

Some things that one would think are obvious are not obvious. In another Fluther question about fast food, some people were of the opinion that Chipotle was a healthier choice than other fast food options. It was common sense, I’m sure – the ingredients are sourced more naturally, aren’t the ubiquitous fatty burger patty, more focused on fresh ingredients, etc. Surely Chipotle is healthy, they reasoned.

However, Chipotle isn’t necessarily healthy. It can be just as caloric and fatty as the food at any other fast-food joint.

“Common sense” leads different people to different conclusions, not all of which are true. This is another example of common sense gone awry – many thought it was obvious that a cold baked potato left in foil wouldn’t hurt you to eat, as long as it’s not moldy. It’s not meat, so it should be OK, common sense says. But a little research shows that it’s very Not OK to eat it, and could make you very sick.

That is why we need warning labels on some things. The dangers that are obvious to (the general you) are not obvious to everybody else. Sure, we could teach people the dangers of eating fatty Chipotle food or eating cold baked potatoes or smoking cigarettes the hard way – by watching many people die doing it. However, if we can cut to the chase by applying a few lines of warning label to a product, doesn’t that seem like a more humane thing to do?

YARNLADY's avatar

I think every automobile should have this warning very prominently placed on the doors ”WARNING – OPERATING OR RIDING IN THIS VEHICLE COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

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