Fast food

Fast food is an industry where food is prepared and served quickly at a fast-food restaurant at low cost. It is often highly processed and prepared in an industrial fashion, ie., with standard ingredients and methodical cooking and production methods. It is served usually in cartons or bags without cutlery, in a rapid manner in order to minimize costs.

McDonalds is a noted company which supplies fast food. It is a phenomenally successful enterprise, in terms of financial dominance and world-wide expansion. Fast food restaurants are the most popular in the United States, which is credited with developing the style. Many major international chains are based there: this sometimes makes fast food the target for opponents of globalization, the target of anti-Americanism and subject to claims of cultural imperialism

Because of its convenience, fast food (also known as take-away food or take-out food) is very popular and commercially successful in most modern societies, but it is often criticized for having the follwing alleged shortcomings:

• It has poor nutritional value,
• It contributes to obesity,
• Exploitative advertising and marketing is used (especially directed at children),
• It causes environmental damage through clearing virgin forests for animal rearing.
• It reduces the diversity of local cuisines

and other issues.

The need to limit the fast food approach is increasingly being recognised in the early years of the 21st Century. Some of the concerns have led to a Slow Food reaction. This movement seeks to preserve local cuisines and ingredients, and directly opposes laws and habits that favor fast-food choices. Among other things, it strives to educate consumers' palates to prefer the richer, more varied and more nourishing tastes of fresh local ingredients harvested in season.

Some of the large fast food chains are beginning to incorporate healthier alternatives in their menu, e.g. salads and fresh fruit. However, some people are cynical about this, seeing it as a tokenistic and commercial measure, rather than an appropriate reaction to genuine worries about the world ecology and people's health.