Does fast food deserve its bad reputation?
 

Just a random thought while I am sitting here in McDonalds.

Do you think that fast food chains (especially the ones owned by big corporations) deserve their poor reputation as a danger to public health and an accelerator of obesity, or should they be seen in a more positive light?

It doesn't seem to hurt the popularity.
So long as people are aware of what they are eating then then it's up to them if they want to eat it often or not.

I take ordering a pizza over MacD's though.

Can we consider pizza to be fast food? You're not seeing that sucker for like 45 minutes, if you're lucky. That's a longer wait time than if you'd walked into a fine dining restaurant.

:lol:

Yeah I did question if it counts when I typed that.

Are you talking about Pizza Hut and Dominoes? I've never had to wait for those for more than 10 minutes.

Impossible. Maybe carry-out, and even then only if you'd called ahead. 10 minutes you can barely pull the pizza out of the oven.

Damn, sounds like its a whole different story in America.

Here in New Zealand, the 10 minutes on average what you would normally wait when ordering pizzas in store. 15 minutes if its a busy hour but never any longer than that.

Hm, maybe if these are pre-set pizzas. Are you talking, even if you place an order for a pizza with custom toppings and all? Like, "I want an extra large pizza with thick crust and Canadian bacon, artichoke, chicken, tomatoes, and bacon," and within 10 minutes it's at your door? There's no way.

Ohhhh, so you're talking about pizzas delivered home? I thought you were referring to in-store purchases. Home deliveries definetly take longer, about 30 minutes where I live.

As for custom pizzas, I've never ordered any of those.

The most I've done is ordered a Pre-Set Pizza with some custom changes to the ingredients but it also takes about 10 minutes on average when ordered in-store.

I guess I'm gonna order a custom via home delivery someday just to see how long it takes.

Has anyone else here ever worked in fast food? I did a couple months at a McDonald's right after college. So wack.

As far as pizza, I would count Hungry Howie's and Little Caesar's as fast food but not most other pizza places

I have and still do. Have worked Papa Johns, Dominoes, Taco Bell and currently at McD's. I've also worked briefly at both a BBQ joint and a mom n pop pizza restaurant. Out of all of them, Dominoes and McDs are the worst. PJ's was fun, and TB was alright. I definitely prefer the food at those two over either Dominoes or McDs. Partly because I know how everything is made. PJ commercials are NOT kidding when they claim to use better ingredients. The dough is hand tossed- which neither Dominoes not Hurt do- and everything is cut daily for veggies. Same at TB. All the pico, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, etc are made fresh every day.

If it's genuinely bad for you, then it's not really a matter of reputation or opinion, just fact. :tlol:

As with many things in life, if ya don't want it, don't get it.

Oh yeah. I worked in McDonald's for like a year when I was 17, 18. They wouldn't let me do anything but work on the grill, which was fine by me. It was pretty cool... on breaks, we could all just make ourselves, like, quadruple Big Macs or super quarter pounders and eat up. We used to chase each other around with the Mac Sauce guns, too, shooting each other throughout the back area.

I remember the freezer room downstairs, too. All the dudes would go down there and pee on all the boxes of frozen meat patties. Everyone that worked there knew it was happening but no one cared... it was like an employee bathroom, if you're a dude and had to go pee.

Yeah, I've gotten used to Pizza places giving you your pizza immediately, during busy hours/days they already have "stock" pizzas cooked so you don't even have to wait unless you want a more specific order, then you have to wait.

I also started seeing advertisements again of "if it's not here in 30 minutes it's free" which I remember was big in the 90s but then kind of faded away which I guess might've been because of accidents and now they don't care again? :lol:

I worked at Burger King once for a couple of months to pay college fees. I was pretty satisfied with the job.

I don't think fast food is the devil that its cracked up to be. Documentaries like Super Size Me that are supposed to show how bad fast food is, have people not exercise and eat excessive calories on purpose. What else do you expect when that happens?

As for its ethicalness as a business, I think its a mixed bag. While heavily contributing to greenhouse gases and mistreatment of employees is never a good thing, there is always the fact that millions of mouths are fed and millions of people are paid to work there.

Nothing is good for you in large quantities and just be honest with yourself when you treat yourself some fast food. It's not a big deal and it does get stigmatized a lot more then it deserves.

Fast food is a lot more expensive in Norway then compared to UK or USA, so I don't eat too much of it, although a friend and I have been having a habit of getting the McDouble burger at McD for driving snacks or go for a proper meal on Burger King when we meet up for D&D.

Yes, the corporations that sling fast food deserve their reputation.
Which is one of the reasons I'm extra stoked that food trucks have become a much more popular thing.

I worked grill for a franchise owned Wendy's and it was a horrible experience. I was already pushing 30 when I took the job but I couldn't find anything else. I worked there roughly 3 years before calling it quits.

When I started out I had no clue what I was doing but got really good at it to the point that anytime they needed someone they would call me in to work a few extra hours. It was horrible though in the sense that I would have to close down the store and the teenagers would just play when business was slow instead of cleaning or doing anything productive. Then they would get to go home at 11:00 because they were still in school. I would be stuck there until 3:30 or 4 in the morning sometimes and the restaurant closed at 11. Worst job I have ever had by far.

Does it deserve it? Yeah, pretty much. Some of the major chains don't exactly seem to use the best quality meat in the first place... Then throw in all the extra salt, sugars, etc., (plus the soda and other stuff), uh, yeah, pretty deserved. Buuuut it's a personal choice to eat it or not. Although there's no way there aren't going to be drawbacks if eaten too often.


It's rare I eat it though as I just don't care to spend the money on it. Most of the major chains are okay, but I can't stand McDonald's... Onions on the burgers and grossed me out years ago with chunks of bone in the nuggets. No thanks on the "meat" products.


Honestly, other than pizza, the closest thing to fast food I've had a number of times this year is the chicken sliders and fries from Royal Farms near home, gotten after some closing shifts at work. If that counts, I assume. At least it's better meat than the nuggets.

Out of curiosity, why do you believe they deserve it?