Fast Food Is Responsible For The Biggest Legacy Of Food...

Golden Arches Fast food is the term given to food that is prepared and served very quickly, first popularized in the 1950s in the United States. The â€Å"fast food† term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a packaged form for take-out/take-away. Once you take your first bite you only find yourself coming back for more. Fast food is responsible for the biggest legacy in food industry, plays the biggest role in our economy and has taken part in our society’s pop culture. â€Å"As automobiles became popular and more affordable following World War lI, drive-in restaurants were introduced.† (Graczyk, Mark. Drive-in Restaurants of the ’50s and ’60s. The Daily News†¦show more content†¦People are not going out to buy these products they prefer to go out to consume food already made. Since McDonald’s is the biggest purchaser of the main food consumed in America, they are controlling what the animals are being fed. To keep everything on fast food menus at a low price companies have to find new ways to make more with less money. â€Å"Fast food serves 50 million Americans daily.† (â€Å"How Fast Food Has Changed Our Nation. One Green Planet. N.p., n.d.) Millions of people in America depend on fast food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. With 160,000 fast food restaurants there is one on every street corner making it easier than it ever has been before to buy fast food. McDonalds alone opens 2000 new restaurants annually. â€Å"Fast food industry is the highest employer of minimum wage workers in the country† (Langfield, Amy. In Tough Economy, Fast Food Workers Grow Old. NBC News. N.p., Apr.-May 2013). You would think that most of their employers would be teenagers wanting to earn extra pocket change; actually the average worker is from twenty-five to twenty-nine years old. However these people don’t want the job for extra cash, they’re trying to make an honest living. Car payments, phone bill, electric, water, gas, rent, living from pay check to pay check. â€Å"In the United States, consumers spent $160 billion on fast food in 2012 (up from$6 billion in 1970). In total the US restaurant industry had projected sales of $660.5 billion in 2013.†