The Harms of Fast Foods - Essay Example

My observation of the American culture Can I get some ketchup please ? It was a typical Saturday afternoon that I thought of going out and choosing a place where I could study. I decided to go to Starbucks coffee shop as the environment of the place is rather comfortable for students. Starbucks caters the taste and demand of all kind of customers. The provide coffees from different regions worldwide such as Latin American coffee, African, Arabian, Asian and from Pacific. I found myself a table and chair in one corner of the coffee shop and commenced with my studies. In the moments in which I took a break from studies, I observed the people around me. I observed that nearly 99% of customers ordered drinks. These drinks were big sized glasses that were rich in calories due to too much added sugar. The customers probably do not think about the calories that they intake with each drink. Furthermore the prices in Starbucks are considerably high. A drink cannot be bought in less than 3 dollars. For a student like me, this much becomes unaffordable on daily basis. And yet there remains a constant flow of customers demanding coffee. Fast foods are a major cause of obesity in United States. Owing to the trend of fast foods in American culture, the people have become very lazy. People would prefer to wait in their cars for an hour in long drive through queues to pick up the food through a window rather than walking inside the fast food and getting the meal within five minutes at most. Moreover having readymade food or fast food especially pizza, lasagna, chow Mein, etc. delivered at doorsteps on weekends or while watching movie at home poses a big problem. This is because while watching TV people do not realize how much they are eating. They have easy access to foods such as pizza, chips, candy, popcorn, hotdogs and soda. All these foods have high doses of calories. They are delicious tasting and people never settle with one shift alone. So within the course of a movie, they take in thousands of calories. Public events such as festivals, cinema hallway’s and birthday parties provide easy access to foods such as popcorn, burgers, chips, cold drinks, etc. As a matter of fact, it has become customary to eat popcorns while watching a movie. My observation of the American culture is not solely based on what I noticed at the Starbucks coffee shop. I have been living in Unites States for over two years now. I have observed how fast foods have somewhat become a part of the American culture. The prices although are concerning yet the advertisements are so luring that there’s hardly a moment when a fast food is without customers. We find promotional advertisements of fast foods in the streets, on TV, in magazines, on radio and on Internet on video sharing sites such as ‘youtube’. Being bombarded constantly by these commercials, the way we think changes. It affects how we decide what to eat by making choices that save us money while eating fancy. Starbucks forced me to think about my home country, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabian culture has a similarity with that of States in matter of drinks and fast foods. The ordering trend of big sized drinks is somewhat similar to the Saudi Arabian trend. Drinks are consumed without thinking for a second regarding the calories that come with each drink. Similar to United States, where one can find a fast food near every house, fast foods exist in Saudi Arabia in abundance as well. Comparing American food culture with that Saudi Arabia, there is no drastic difference. Saudi Arabians eat out a lot too as well as get foods from drive through. In Saudi Arabia there are fast food restaurants in every corner. In one main street alone, many different fast foods can be found opposite each other such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Hardees, Kudo, Harfy, etc. Most of these food chains originate from United State. This also depicts the extent to which American culture has penetrated into Saudi Arabian culture besides that of other nations. Another similarity lies in the fact that Arabian families do not gather for lunch or dinner, because of difference in daily schedules of family members. On weekends however, families generally gather to eat. My family, a typical Arabian family, prefers to have homemade food every day. On weekends however they like to eat out or taste some new food such as Chines, Italian, Turkish or Indian. This reminds me of an instance from my younger life. When I was about fifteen years of age, my father did not allow us to eat out or have food delivered to our doorstep. It was strictly forbidden on us. One day, I and my brothers while sneaking from our father ordered food from KFC. When the delivery boy brought the order and rang the bell we had the scare of our lives. We were afraid that our father would catch us receiving the order from main door and would get angry to have crossed his rules. So we decided an alternate strategy of retrieving the food. Instead of receiving the food from the main door, we took it from the guest door where our chances of being caught were minimal. We hid the food in our shirts and headed for our rooms. I remember we pretended to be asleep with lights off so our father wouldn’t notice anything out of usual. He must have thought we were sleeping while in actual we were enjoying food from KFC. The incident was a funny and memorable one. When we grew up, our father removed all restrictions on basis that we were educated and we understood what impact fast food could have on us. The point I intended to bring to notice is that our father considered fast food to be unhealthy. Considering the effects ads have on the simple minds of young people, he imposed a restriction upon us not to eat fast food. And yet, the dream of eating delicious portrayed in the ads was strong enough to compel us to break a rule. American families generally prefer to eat out. One reason is that the people are so busy in their long hour jobs that they cook only when they are free which is rare. So they have home cooked food on special occasions such as Thanksgivings, Christmas, etc. Secondly some of them find it easy and cheap to eat fast food than having to buy vegetables, meat, etc. and cook the food at home. Thus their diets do not remain healthy. In the essay ‘’Do You Want Fries With That’’, Emily Rivera explains how the fast food is delicious and the consumers love to eat it. On contrary, in the essay by Daniel Iskovic, ‘’Pass The Butter, Please’’, he talks about how in the past people used to eat butter products. No cholesterol existed then. With time, people started eating fat enriched fast foods and did no exercise which led to an increase in the disease. The butter used in these foods was not in pure form which is not healthy. In another essay ‘’Meet Your Meet’’ written by Melissa Ulrich, she mentions that important issues with the meat and the poultry that we eat daily. The chemicals they put into meat or poultry in factories causes many fatal diseases. Consuming food based on them causes different body illnesses. Although we all are aware of the harms of fast foods, yet they prevail everywhere in the world and people continue eating them. Advertisements are a big factor of flourishing the trend of fast foods in people. Some people consider them as a cheap way to kill hunger and desire of eating tasty. They don’t realize it that their way of thinking compromises their health. Laziness settles into people who eat rich fast food and do not exercise regularly or play any type of healthy sports. And so people head towards obesity. It is healthier to cook at home as we know for sure what we’re eating. Doctors recommend homemade food as it is healthier and contain less oil and calories as it is not made for business. Since it is made for oneself, one can make sure to add in only the good and fresh components in the recipe. For maintaining health, the fast food need to be replaced with instant natural food sources such as apples, oranges or any other kind of fruit, or with drinking fresh juices. It needs to be realized by various culture of the world that our health is wealth. Read More