Between my adolescent years and the beginning of the current decade, fast food chains have grown to provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner to many Americans. The first McDonald’s restaurant opened in 1955. As more and more women joined the workforce, the number of restaurants grew steadily, helping to feed workers and their families who no longer had time to cook. Due to the increasing demand, restaurants, as well as growers and suppliers, looked for ways to cut corners and to prevent food ingredients from spoiling in transit. Convenience, cost, availability, and profitability drove many restaurants to use less expensive and often inferior products. Foods became heavily laden with preservatives and added ingredients to lengthen their shelf life. Nutrition was of the least concern. The meals that were being offered to the public only needed to be palatable and appealing to the eye. As more people began to rely on fast food, obesity and poor health ensued.
More than fifty well known fast food chains are now struggling. Many have had to close all but a few of their doors and several have claimed bankruptcy. A few, such as Marie Callender’s and Boston Market, now sell their products in the frozen food section of the super markets.
The free exchange of knowledge that is now available to us on the Internet, has helped to bring awareness about the problems in our food system. Our attitudes are changing and we are demanding healthier, organic foods that are free of hormones and preservatives. Documentaries have allowed us to see into the dark secrets of suppliers: of the cruel treatment of and unsanitary conditions in which animals are raised. Those practices that had previously been hidden from us have been exposed. People are now choosing, based on their own conclusions, the type of diet that will best support their individual requirements, for the optimal health of their body and for their peace of mind. Those who have never learned how to cook or to grow their own food, are now embracing the possibility that they can rely on themselves, rather than on the corporate food chains to nourish them. They are choosing home cooked foods over fast foods. They are choosing health over sickness. We may be ushering in a new era and headed for a time when fast food is a thing of the past. We could be on the threshold of a new age of healthy, happy, and peaceful human beings.
