Behind the success of "McDonald's" --- Reflection on fast food culture
Today, the brand "McDonald's" has been well known to people all over the world. However, recently, in the United States, the founder of fast food culture, some people in the industry have reflected on its fast food model, nutritional structure and its impact on society, which has aroused widespread concern among the American public.
In 1948, Americans Richard and Morris. The McDonalds opened the first McDonald's restaurant on the roadside in San Bernardino, California. To attract people traveling on California's new highways, they erected a striking golden McDonald's bow-shaped neon sign on the roof of the restaurant. The restaurant has changed the traditional way of serving meals in the past. The food sold, such as hamburgers, fried foods and even drinks such as milkshakes and sodas, are all sold in paper product packaging. Since the food sold is easy to carry, those driving by do not have to leave their cars. It can solve the dining problem, so it is very popular among customers. In addition, the restaurant also uses simple and repetitive flow operations to prepare food. In this way, based on reference to industrial assembly lines and commercial kitchens, a new type of fast food was born. With its emergence, a new way of life spread across the United States and later affected the entire world.
Eric. The author of the newly published book "Fast Food Nation" in the United States. Schlosser said: "Nowadays, fast food not only plays a big role in the changes in our dining habits, but also has a huge impact on our economy, culture and people's traditional values." At present, about 1/ 4 in 10 adults eat one fast food meal per day, and the typical American eats 3 burgers and 4 fried foods per week. According to statistics, 30 years ago, Americans spent $6 billion per year on fast food. By 2000, this consumption had reached as high as $110 billion, far higher than what Americans spent on college education, home computers, or The cost of purchasing a new car.
The reason why McDonald's is successful is that the food it sells can have unified standards and quality. It uses the method of issuing licenses to standardize management of each branch, and this system is still in use today; in addition, , low labor costs and consistently low prices are another major factor in its success. Schlosser said: "McDonald's opened up a new way to hire labor, which is part-time workers, low pay and no insurance." Today, employees working in the fast food industry in the United States are highly mobile because most of them are temporary workers. As a result, it is common for working people to quit or be fired, while fast-food companies receive large subsidies from the federal government as a reward for the many jobs they create for poor people. According to Schlosser, this is "America's taxpayers effectively subsidizing this high-turnover industry."
Although American fast food culture represented by "McDonald's" has become popular all over the world, the negative impact they bring has increasingly attracted widespread concern in American society. In order to reduce labor costs, manufacturers in the fast food industry have turned to low-skilled workers. Due to insufficient training, the injury rate in this industry is several times higher than the average of other industries in the United States, and medical expenses are high. It has become a social problem that is difficult to solve. In addition, the nutritional structure of fast food is unreasonable. Nutrition experts take "Chicken McNuggets" as an example, pointing out that the high-fat content per ounce is twice that of hamburgers, and the content used to fry chicken nuggets
Hydrogenated vegetable oil contains a large amount of transfatty acids, which poses a potential risk to the human heart. Due to people's greed for fast food, there are more and more obesity patients in the United States, and it has become the second leading cause of disease in American society after smoking.
Most of the fast food industry targets children, but in fact, where there are children, there are adults. According to the latest survey, 90% of children aged 3 to 9 in the United States eat McDonald's at least once a month. They may not know who the current president is, but almost all of them don't know Richard, the founder of McDonald's. Macdonald. At present, in the United States alone, 100 million units of McDonald's "Happy Meal", which is loved by children, are sold every week. Faced with the increasing trend in the number of obese children year by year, some professionals in the United States have issued a strong appeal to the society, advocating that fast food advertising should be strictly restricted in the same way as tobacco advertising is banned, and they should conduct in-depth analysis of the nutritional structure of popular fast food on the market. .
Today, many fast food chains in the United States have begun to pay attention to the various problems caused by fast food. They have begun to improve employee welfare and pay attention to using fresh ingredients instead of original frozen ingredients to make food.