Food, a simple four letter word and something that humans need to initially survive. Whether it’s frozen or fresh we all need to eat. But there’s a new trend out that has been sweeping the nation. That trend is called fast food the definition of fast food according to the Dictionary is: “Food that can be prepared quickly and easily and is sold in restaurants and snack bars as a quick meal or to be taken out.”  Everyone has had this shame-filled food at least once in their life or maybe they eat it once every week. Fast food is so awful for us and we should learn more about its effects on us before eating or even serving it. Today I’m gonna be discussing the history of fast food and the treatment of animals by the chains, and then the deadliness it has on us, humans before we talk about legal cases against most of the fast food chains.

The history starts off with a burger shop. This particular shop is popular and in most cities of the world. It has some crazy stories and many mixed feelings from everyone. Yes, it’s McDonald’s. McDonald’s is going to be the highlight of this article seeing as it’s been the fastest growing fast food chain out there. Watching the movie “The Founder” by John Lee Hancock, I was surprised about the start of McDonald's honestly. Britannica does a nice job as well, the article was written by The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, named “McDonald’s American Corporation” goes into great detail. McDonald’s was started by two brothers Maurice and Richard McDonald, they wanted to buy around 8 milkshake mixers from a man named Ray Kroc who was very intrigued by their little business. Ray visited their shop and was surprised at their efficient setup and even their 15 cent burgers. Kroc offered to make this small efficient shop into a major franchise. Soon there were around 1,000 shops over the country by the end of the decade. Now there are 36,899 outlets throughout the world since 2016. But what really brought on the fast food chain? White Castle was the first ever founded fast food chain in 1921. Before McDonald’s, according to white castle website. With all this in mind, that fast food was started in the 20th century someone would think our knowledge of fast food would be well known and good. That’s really not the case.
Our treatment of our agricultural animals in the fast food industry has been very disappointing. Let’s bring up McDonald’s again but this time it’s about their chickens. A petition started by Mcdonalds Cruelty website and an article named “The Secret Ingredient in Chicken McNuggets is Animal Cruelty” lists how their McNuggets are really made. The demand made by human intake of these small misshapen pieces of chicken has these poor chickens being bred to grow so fast that their own legs can’t support their own bodies. They sit in their own waste, crowded together in the dark. Most every day. Just imagine that inflicted on a human, animals have their own lives too. Rolling Stone has even done an article for the treatment of these animals by fast food chains. Now, this is the Price We Pay for Cheap Meat, the article goes on to tell details about a pig farm and how they have to deal with many pigs with blood on them from the tight cages surrounding them. All of these places have these poor animals in small, cheap cages that force them to be crowded and even in the dark. The only time most of them see sunlight is when they’re being taken to be slaughtered. Just for the price of our own desire to eat fast food. Think about this the next time someone is buying from a dollar menu. Is one dollar really the price we should pay for their cruelty? Now people know about the treatment of fast food chains on animals but what about the treatment the fast food inflicts on our own body?

Fast food is dangerous. We should maybe have more tests down on these simple horrifically cheap food before we chow down. Not only can these chains make us obese but think about the outbreaks they can cause. Let’s backtrack to 2016 into 2017 where the E. Coli outbreaks occur at Chipotle. A nine-state outbreak. These outbreaks aren’t always avoided. Food is shipped out from anywhere in the U.S or sometimes the world. Some employee could come into work and not watch their hands too. But this is something we can all avoid. But we don’t. Diseases can come from anywhere too,  such as diabetes. Liver damage or even heart diseases can occur, the leading deaths in 2012 were from heart disease. Humans are lazy, but being lazy can also cost people their lives. Some of these outbreaks or disease from fast food even make people sue.

Fast food legal cases can be over the dumbest things sometimes. One case included a woman suing McDonald’s for her burns over spilling their coffee on her lap. The best part is when she won the case. A real serious case was Jack-In-The-Box and their E. Coli outbreak. When Jack-In-The-Box had an E. Coli outbreak in 1933, in an article by Marler Clark website it goes into detail about how many kids in the Seattle, Washington area had suffered symptoms from E. Coli. One lawyer represented a 9 year-old-girl who recovered from kidney failure because of this outbreak in 1933. She went into a coma for 42 days, and from the case, they won a $15.6 million dollar settlement from the company. In total over the course of 18 months, the fast food chain lost over $160 million dollars. Something that could have been prevented. Up in New York, there was a whole different case. Fox News did a story on how two teens in New York and their lawyer are suing McDonald’s for making them obese. These two teens have been eating there several times a week over the course of years and McDonald’s output on this is that the average person eats there only twice a month. McDonald’s is blaming the kids for making themselves overweight and the kids are blaming McDonald’s. Who is really to blame and who won the court case? Well, the judge threw the case out, because it’s true. We are what we eat, and fast food has a horrific effect on our body. Scientists need to look into fast food more, and then stop these chains.

Learning to eat healthier is hard to many, especially when throughout the halls I hear many people say how they don’t like water or they don’t like drinking water. I don’t know how that’s possible but it is. We’ve heard about the history of many fast food chains and how their treatment of their animals are awful. How this can be deadly to us with many diseases and that there are legal cases to prove that. Humans need food but do we need food that can cause us problems with our health. Or that makes us become lazy as human beings. We must learn more before eating this or serving this. Human beings need to figure out what’s happening before it’s too late.