EXPRESS READING AMERICANS AND FAST FOOD

EXPRESS READING

AMERICANS AND FAST FOOD

Fast-food is such a omnipresent part of American life that

it has become synonymous with American culture. Fast-food

was born in America and it has now swollen into a $106-billion

industry. America exports fast-food worldwide and its attendant

corporate culture, has probably been more influential and done

more to destroy local food economies and cultural diversity

than any government propaganda programme could hope to accomplish.

No corner of the earth is safe from its presence and no aspect

of life is unaffected. Fast-food is now found in shopping malls,

airports, hospitals, gas stations, stadiums, on trains, and

increasingly, in schools. There are 23,000 restaurants in one

chain alone, and another 2,000 are being opened every year.

Its effect has been the same on the millions of people it feeds

daily and on the people it employs. Fast-food culture has

changed how we work, from its assembly-line kitchens filled

with robotic frying machines to the trite phrases spoken to

customers by its poorly paid part-time workforce. In the

United States, more than 57 per cent of the population eat

meals away from home on any given day and they spend more

money on fast-food than they do on higher education, personal

computers, or even on new cars.