Rex Trulove
Have you ever really thought about the term, “Fast food”? It is often used to mean something served in certain restaurants, which are also called ‘fast-food restaurants’. This includes such places as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Sonic, Subway’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Taco Bell. But is it truly fast food?
When I last lived in a town that had a fast-food restaurant, and it actually had several, those locations were all about 10-20 minutes away from home. There is usually a waiting line there, whether you use the drive-through or go inside, so add another 5 minutes. The food takes typically 5 minutes or longer to be served once it is ordered. This means that driving from home to a ‘fast-food’ place, ordering food, receiving it, and driving back home typically took 30-50 minutes, often more if the traffic was bad.
I seldom prepare a meal that takes longer than 30 minutes to make. For many of the exceptions, they are slow-cooked so when mealtime rolls around, the meal is done and it takes a minute or two to dish up. All of these meals are healthier, tastier, and cheaper than so-called fast food, yet none of them are thought of as fast food.
Calling any of these restaurants ‘fast-food’ is a misnomer, specifically designed to cater to the instant-gratification and lazy crowd. That doesn’t mean that everyone who eats at these places is lazy or wants instant-gratification. The term is simply meant to give that illusion.
The term, “fast food”, was first used in 1951 and it strictly refers to the amount of time between the order and the delivery of the food. In the second paragraph above, I mentioned that it can take as little as 5 minutes from the time a person orders to the time they actually receive the food. Naturally, they take shortcuts and sometimes even have the food already cooked and waiting for the order, but that is still the meaning of the term.
Fast food places gained popularity in the 1950s and they have gained wider acceptance since then, but the idea isn’t new. The Roman Empire and the ancient Chinese also had fast food. Remember that the food from fast food places is usually premade. This means that a person actually can make fast food by simply pre-cooking it and heating it when desired.
Just as a bit of trivia, too, the first fast-food restaurant in the world wasn’t American, it was British. In 1860, it opened and served fish and chips. Fish and chips are still quite popular in the UK.
Anyway, there is no doubt at all that fast-food is popular. In 2018, it is estimated that the fast-food industry, worldwide, was worth $570 billion. That doesn’t mean that the food is healthy, tasty, cheap, or even fast, but it does mean that people buy it.
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How often do you eat food from any kind of fast-food restaurant?
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Daily or almost daily
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Two or more times per week
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Two or more times per month
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Once a month or less
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Rarely or never
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I gave up bread which kills most of these places. I moved to Salads, which lets most of these places out!
That is certainly true enough, though some of these places do have salad bars.
But the salad bars are bad to really bad.
I tend to go for places now, that have BBQ. I don’t need a bun just a fork please!
I think Yes , Its also the part of fast food
I live in a resort town so fast food is the name of the game here with plenty of fast food places. However, I do not eat fast food more than once a month when I just really crave for some usually Burger King.
Once a month probably isn’t doing much harm to you and you mentioned craving. That means that you don’t go there just because it is a “fast-food” place.
You have a point Rex. The right term should be junk food restaurants.
I rather like that suggestion. Somehow, though, I doubt that McDonald’s, Wendy’s, et al, would appreciate being known as junk food restaurants, even if there is truth in that label.
Fast food restaurants are not popular here. I have never visited any of them, but tried such food a few times being abroad.
It is a good thing they aren’t popular there. In the early 1970s, fast food restaurants began opening in Japan. Up until then, the Japanese people were far healthier than Americans. The suffered fewer strokes, heart attacks, and heart disease than people in the US. Today, those illnesses are very close to even between Japan and the US. The main change was fast food.
Be thankful that it isn’t popular there.
It takes me more than 30 minutes just to decide what to make! I really need a menu.
LOL…many people actually do have sort of a menu and pre-plan their meals in advance. It wouldn’t work for me because I’d constantly be changing the menu. 😀
I hardly ever eat fast food. It’s usually when my husband brings home something for me. Unless you have a coupon, it can be expensive too! Great post, Rex.
Yes, I can remember when it was possible to get a burger and fries for less than a dollar at McDonald’s. That wasn’t all that long ago, but I suspect that those days are long gone now.
You may not believe but I have never eaten at Mcdonalds, I never felt the need of it.
I applaud you for that. McDonald’s is so popular even outside of the US that not many people can make that claim.
Yes, it makes you wonder how ‘fast’ these fast food restaurants really are. There’s too many of them in my town, I know that!
The fact that there are many in town indicates that a lot of people are eating there, whether the food is truly fast or if that is just a subliminal suggestion.
My husband often wants a snack or coffee out and we sometimes visit McDonalds..Not KFC because the chicken there made him feel ill.
Other times we go to a cafe somewhere..
However, I prefer to cook our meals, as the meals with “Fast Foods” are greasy…I prefer sub way or pitta pit because they are healthier options, quite like Sushi too..
I’d agree that the quality at subway is much better than most fast food places. It has been nearly a year since we’ve gone to any fast-food restaurant, though.