Some facts from: Smith, Andrew F. 2006. Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
- In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food. In 2006, the spending rose to nearly $142 billion
- During the early 1900s, the hamburger was thought to be polluted, unsafe to eat, and food for the poor. Street carts, not restaurants, typically served them.
- In 2005, Advertisting Age cited Ronald McDonald as the number two top-10 advertising icon of the twentieth century. The Marlboro Man was number one.
- Fast food companies, the movie industry, and theme parks have a long and financially lucrative relationship. The companies seek to promote and “product place” one another for incredible profit. For example, Frito Lay sponsors the California Screamin’ roller coaster at Disneyland, and movies intentionally feature a type of fast food (e.g., Pizza Hut in Wayne’s World).
- McDonald’s is Brazil’s largest employer.
- When McDonald’s opened an outlet in Kuwait shortly after the end of the Gulf War, the line of cars waiting to eat there was seven miles long.
- Because McDonald’s initially did not want its customers to stay and socialize, they prohibited newspaper boxes, candy machines, telephones, pinball machines, jukeboxes, and other types of entertainment. They also installed uncomfortable chairs to deter customers from lingering.
- A genetically engineered hormone called rBGH is given to cows in the U.S. to increase milk production—even though its chemical byproducts may be carcinogenic. Residues of rBGH have been found in meat products, such as hamburgers sold in fast food chains.
- Coca-Cola originally included coca derivatives such as cocaine in their sodas, which at the time was not illegal. It was originally served as a “brain tonic and intellectual soda fountain beverage.”
- White Castle, started by J. Walter Anderson and Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram, is considered to be the first fast food restaurant. Its major product was a hamburger, which had been sold as sandwiches by street vendors since the 1890s.
- When it was revealed in 1990 that McDonald’s used beef tallow to flavor its french fries, Hindu vegetarian customers in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, ransacked a McDonald’s restaurant and smeared cow dung on a statue of Ronald MacDonald.
- French fries are the single most popular fast food in America. In 1970, french fries surpassed regular potato sales in the United States. In 2004, Americans ate 7.5 billion pounds of frozen french fries.
- Hamburgers are not served in India out of respect for Hindu religious beliefs, and beer is served at McDonald’s in Germany.
- McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes and the second largest purchaser of chicken in the world. Its annual orders for french fries constitute 7.5% of America’s entire potato crop.
- McDonald’s is one of the largest owners of real estate in the world and it earns the majority of its profits from collecting rent, not from selling food.
- By the end of the twentieth century, one out of eight American workers had at some time been employed by McDonald’s and 96% of Americans had visited McDonald’s at least once. It was also serving an estimated 22 million Americans every day and even more abroad.
- High-fructose corn syrup (which tricks your body into wanting to eat more and to store more fat) first appeared in 1967, and the average American now consumes 63 pounds of it a year. It is ubiquitous in fast foods.