English Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

English - Essay Example It all started when McDonald brothers had a very successful drive-in restaurant and decided to cut cost and simplify. They fired all their carshops and got rid of the things on the menu and mechanized the entire food preparation. This basically brought the factory in the restaurant kitchen and revolutionized how to run a restaurant. This proved to be a huge success that it inadvertently altered how and what we eat. This idea of cheapness and convenience brought by the fast food industry however is not necessarily healthy. It basically skewed our food preference towards the mechanized meat that produces unhealthy calorie that it is now cheaper to buy a burger than a carrot. The effect is devastating to our health. Statistics showed that one out of three children who were born from 2000 in America will contract diabetes and among the minorities, that will be one in two or 50 %. And this new method of feeding corn to the cows (the feedlot operator can buy corn at fraction of what it cos ts to grow) resulted in E. coli that is acid resistant. This is the more harmful E. coli as its mutation evolves to a strain called "E. coli 0157:h7". And it's a product of the diet that is being fed to the cattle on feedlots. A diet of corn which cows were not made to eat by natural evolution but by deliberate government policy of heavily subsidizing corn which is central to U.S. agriculture. Where it is grown in greater volumes and receives more government subsidies than any other crop. Between 1995 and 2006, corn growers received $56 billion in federal subsidies, and the annual figure may soon hit $10 billion (Heffern, 14). This E. coli 0157:h7 is so lethal that a child named Kevin, went from being perfectly healthy to being dead because of E. coli hemorrhage after eating just three hamburgers (Food Inc.). We may not know it but we also eat oil when we consume industrial food. Just to bring a steer to slaughter, it consumes 75 gallons of oil. Overall, the industry guzzles up petr oleum fuel of about 40,000 gallons per year. Consuming oil in food production not only makes the food industry vulnerable to oil spikes just like what is happening today with the recent crisis in Libya,it also makes the food more unhealthy with all its carbon dioxide emissions. Also, just when we thought that we were able to save money when we avail of fast foods as they are cheap, we are in fact very wrong. There are a myriad of hidden costs associated when we avail fast foods. When these hidden costs are factored in and included in the accounting its true cost, it is in fact more costly. In fact, experts had this consensus that â€Å"consumption of fast food, which have high energy densities and glycemic loads, and expose customers to excessive portion sizes, may be greatly contributing to and escalating the rates of overweight and obesity in the USA (Rosenheck, 246). Similarly, other studies have also concluded that â€Å"our findings suggest that increase in the supply of fast food restaurants have a significant effect on obesity† (Currie). Cheap does not also means we are able to save. Just when we thought we were able to save with the cheap price of fast foods, the industry took us for a ride. They worked against us with the typical allure of fast food chains that they are cheap and convenient . . . . For a few more dollars, you can