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[umiman]

Let's get it out of the way. I enjoy fast food. No, I'm not fat. No, I'm not a basement dweller. I'm healthy and fit, able to lift up a small car by myself without one of those spring things. No, I'm not some strange diseased person. Heck, when Aqizzar was wondering how strange people could eat things like this, I considered and actually made that thing then ate it... which was a bad idea but still (I nearly vomited after I started gagging on the 3rd slice). I like the greasy stuff.

Then I saw a bunch of sites like this, all saying the same thing:
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1204896
http://board.rapmusic.com/lipstick-alley/1096498-damn-i-fuckin-hate-fast-food.html
http://travelblog.agoda.com/home/2009/11/13/you-know-what-i-hate-food.html

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That last one is especially funny since I come from SE Asia and I can tell you our regular and homemade food is far more greasy and unhealthy than regular fast food. Heck, fast food is considered premium stuff worthy of taking girls on dates to in Malaysia and most of SE Asia.

The same tired routine of assuming everyone in the world hates fast food and it's strange and absurd to consider liking to eat at fast food places. Statements like these, "instead of going and buyign[sic] fast food why not just stay home and make it yourself?" really tick me off. It's so pretentious. These people ASSUME and BELIEVE that you're a loser and a failure to even consider the fact that you could possibly eat fast food. Like the people who look at you funny when you choose to drive a truck instead of some fusion hybrid electric thing. That drove me to write up this entire rant.

---


Hating things and liking things are very cyclical. Take the current "Green" movement. About a year ago, it was building up so much steam you'd think the world would overheat just from the steam itself. Nowadays, people are getting fed up with eharing about more green and healthy bullshit. It's fair game. Soon we're going to see people hating on the environmentalists. And then we'll see people hating on those people. Etc. It's totally cyclical.

Fast food is another example. The problem is. I don't honestly see why people make such a goddamn deal out of fast food. I can understand it when people hate rap music. They're subjected to it when they want to hear something else. I can understand when people hate Macs. Workplaces and schools can force them to use it. I mean, not all hate can be logical, since some Mac haters can be idiots with completely zero exposure to Macs or Mac advertisments and just hate it for being a Mac (we call these fellows fanboys).

But fast food. No one is going to kidnap you, tie you to a chair, beat you to within an inch of your life, and force feed you McDonalds. No one straps you to your couch and tapes your eyes open to watch that new Wendy's commercial. If you don't like fast food, you can have nothing to do with it. You have no reason whatsoever to force your hate for the fast food system onto others. I see people who hate fast food because it makes OTHER people fat. That's retarded. I may not enjoy the company of morbidly obese people, but fast food is as much the cause for fatness as the beach is the cause for steroid-pumping fake-tan surfer boys. I guarantee you that if fast food did not exist, most of these fat people would still be fat and then people would come up with another silly excuse for them being fat... probably carwashes or something.

Let's go over the other complaints. Taste. Number one complaint. McD patties taste like cardboard. KFC chicken tastes like oil soaked in oil. It's perfectly fair. Probably legitimate. But just like how people are getting sick of Jehovah's Witnesses attempting to convert people, I think I speak for a lot of people when we say, "we are SICK of hearing those tired lines". I think every single person in the world has heard every single one of those complaints. There's no need to repeat them ad nauseum and play them every single time like it's the end of the world. "HOLY SHIT HOW CAN YOU EAT THAT DISGUSTING THING IT'LL GIVE YOU A HEART ATTACK AND TASTES LIKE COMPLETE ASS MADE OUT OF ASS ASS ASS ASS. ONLY SICK FAT IDIOTS CAN EAT THAT DISGUSTING TURD YOU MAKE ME SICK." Look. I want to eat my goddamn taco. I know it doesn't taste the best in the world and it probably isn't very healthy but I want to eat it. Go away and eat your boring plain salad that somehow costs more than a burger despite only being lettuce.

Another common complaint. It's unhealthy. I only have this to say: Everyone bloody knows. Everyone who doesn't know doesn't care. Again, there's no point bringing this up over and over and over again because really, the only people paying attention to that kind of rant at this point are the people who hate fast food in the first place. It's like PS3 and Xbox 360 fanboys at this stage of the game. Neither side is going to convert anyone yet everyone is still so vocal. What's the bloody point? It's like a massive, "POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS" contest. "I like playing good games on the Wii." "Yeah, all 5 games lolamirite?" Zzzz... I think the funny thing is that quite a lot of fast food isn't that unhealthy to begin with. Sure, it's not the fountain of youth I can think of a lot of other things which are worse for the body such as say... tequila, cigarettes, wedding cakes, ice cream, barbeque foods, etc. As I mentioned earlier, from where I came from, EVERYTHING else was unhealthier than fast food. We're all fine, yo.

I think we're mature enough to stop using fast food as a punching bag. No one thinks anyone is greater just because they made the amazing and painstaking decision to boycott fast food. Maybe we'll reach a point in the future when bashing fast food is okay again (possibly after another scandal when they discover dead cancer patients are the Big Mac's secret sauce), but for now, in the present, you guys need to abandon this hating train before you join folks still doing the Numa Numa Dance. Heck, go out and try that McChicken. It ain't as bad as your hate imagines it to be.

If you actually read this whole thing, thanks. To everyone else, this rant isn't directed to anyone in particular. Except that guy in the red shirt by the corner over there with the disapproving look on his face and the crossed arms.

Edit: I posted this in Other Games for some reason. Huh.

[Muz]

Er, wrong forum perhaps?

Heh, but I strongly agree with you. Fast food is a scapegoat. Like cigarettes. The worst thing about it is that it encourages people to eat more unhealthy 'slow' food. I hate it. Many people I know fry lots of food at home, fish, meat, eggs, whatever... but complain that KFC is too oily. They'd eat traditional food at a restaurant with a load of MSG and claim that KFC adds MSG to it's 11 herbs and spices.

These same idiots suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, etc.. whine that I'm eating so much fast food, not exercising but am still healthy, then whine about their bad luck being born unhealthy. Fast food is bad if you eat too much of it. I'd bet that if you eat a lot of salad or tofu, you still get very sick. It's just that salad and tofu is so disgusting, it's impossible to overgorge on it.

But fast food is bad because it encourages people to overeat. With home-cooked meals, you need a lot of time to cook up something nice. Most people can't cook, so what they end up cooking is not enough, and not tasty enough to get fat on. With fast food, you can just eat as much as you like, whenever you like. You can call someone, get an XL pizza at your home, and eat it on your bed in front of a laptop, but you need some exercise to cook your own XL pizza. Also, there's the cultural value of "eat everything on your plate; poor kids in Africa are starving" and excessively large portions, which is possibly the main reason people get fat.

I'm of the belief that you like eating what is good for your body. Fat is good, but only in limited amounts, which is why we gag on eating pure fat. Carbs are good, they make us want more. I'd question vitamins.. I don't know any athletes who take multivitamins. Salads certainly make you thinner, but so does eating rocks. If fast food tastes good, it's probably good for you. If you're sick of it, and still eating it because it's easier and cheaper than cooking, then you're overindulging and deserve to be fat.


Hmm.. I'd like one link that compares fast food to traditional food. Just any statistics. Especially Malaysian food. I'd bet real money that says that a Coke has about as much sugar as a "teh tarik" (tea with condensed milk) and a Big Mac + fries causes less heart disease than lamb curry with "roti telur" (fried bread thingy with an egg in it).

[Nilocy]

I like my fast foods, they're fast thats the main attraction of them. You don't have to cook it yourself and you can walk in and out of a store in 2 minutes with a fairly substantial meal. Although I find myself trying to limit the amount of fast foods I consume in a month. For this I blame society (oh here we go again blah blah blah). But I've been brought up in a culture where the previous generation (the 80's kids) were effectively raised on microwave meals, the 90's were not any better when it came to it, but then all of a sudden there was a huge backlash in the 00's. Probably from the practises that the companies use to make us these fast food; I guess the biggest one is the the cow farms where the amazon rain forest used to be. There was also a resurgance in the hatez for McD's when Supersize came out, which looking back was quite frankly stupid, and didn't prove anything other than you should have a balance diet that doesn't solely consist of meat and coca-cola.

I pretend to myself that I shouldn't be eating McD's, but when they're the only place open at 3am in the morning after a raging alcohol fueled night I don't give a flying fuck about the rainforest. I have the ability to hate it one day then love it another... damn those salty chips always reeling me back!

[kilakan]

ok, wth muz, I mean sure, feel free to state that YOU find tofu and salad disgusting, but stating that in generally it's digusting and hard to overindulge on, that's the same remarks that people throw at fast food, which started the whole conversation,  myself am a vegetarian, (probably cause I was scarred as a little kid when I saw someone beat a baby goat to death with a small club at the down-town butcher shop, but anyways),who actually eats alot of tofu, salad ect.  I am healthy, however it is true you can overdo things like greens and tofu, and I eat a hell of alot of fish (helps I live in a fishing community, so that's homestyle cooking for us)  but basically, can we keep this to I find that.... and not generalized statements which make it appear that the general population agrees with what your saying and that anyone who shares a different point of view is either crazy or wrong, ok?

As for fast food for me, I don't generally eat at fast food places, because it's mostly meat, and the last time I had a fish-fillet at Mic' Donalds, I found a large piece of fish spine in it, though I do stop at my local equivalent of side street fast-food places, like chip-trucks and stuff, which I tend to eat alot of deep-friend clams, scallops, fish and chips, ect.  Very greasy, very fattening, yet I eat it everyday in the summer, I also go ocean swimming or surfing right after, so activity counter-balances that for me, however I know plenty of people who went through their childhood, eating stuff like MicDonalds, never exorcising, and being fine, but the second they hit 25 all of em went to 350 pounds cause their metabolism dropped through the floor, and they still ate badly.  So ya, things like fast food may not affect you now but when your body isn't growing anymore and doesn't need the fat, yet you still eat the same (which would be overindulging then) it tends to catch up with ya.  Sort of like an addiction, that is fine as long as your under 20 but will kill ya over twenty.

[WorkerDrone]

Okay, yeah, while I do prefer cooking my own meals, and for ME it isn't that hard of a task, while it might be for some other people, these are generally people who don't buy GROCERIES.

I can say that I can cook things much better than whatever processed grease and meat they give you at McDonalds (and I have been guilty of stopping at this very eatery for a, yes, fast lunch) for some people eating fast food is just a inbetween thing rather than a habit that sticks with you until you realize you need a new diet.

Good rule for people that DON'T like cooking. Eating the same thing day in and day out isn't exactly a good idea, which is the routine you fall into when you eat fast foods every single day. You buy the same value meal or whatever combo the eatery shoves at you. Simply changing around what you eat from day to day'd end up better for you, and possibly your wallet.

It doesn't take a genius to work an oven, but it also doesn't take a genius to see that fast food is addictive. And...quicker.

Eat it when you want, but I think I'll avoid the greasy grab it generally strangles lazy (well, lazier than me) people into.

...

Due note however, I fucking love the dead cowmeats burgers, and so do you. ADMIT IT.

[kilakan]

I love to use them for mini experiments and bring them back to life (or atleast twitch alot) just before someone eats one, that way it tends to twitch all the way down, yummy.

[Gunner-Chan]

It doesn't take a genius to work an oven.

Eva would like a word with you. XD

[WorkerDrone]

I fucking swear, that girl can work an oven.

I can MAKE her work an oven.

[penguinofhonor]

I don't love fast food or anything, but it doesn't nauseate me. I'm not the biggest fan of McDonald's, but I'm not going to get sick if I eat a big mac. Although I am going to get angry because there's three buns on the damn thing, but that's another topic entirely.

[NewoTigra]

To prove a point, I, at one point, bought a sheep, fed it and kept it healthy for a month or two, humanely beheaded it, and then (with some advice from my grandfather, who knows about such things) cleaned out the insides and skinned it.

I then made chops, which I barbequed and served at a party. They were delicious. The hardest part was killing the sheep, after 6-7 weeks you get attached to the little wooly things.

It took about 2 hours to go from corpse to chops. In that same time, I could have easily ran down to the local supermarket (4 miles away), bought some chops, ran back, and cooked them. But I didn't. Why?
Because I could.

The next day I had McDonalds instead. It was also quite nice. Each side of the argument has its' own merits, but when it comes down to it, it's a personal choice. I do not advocate that everyone keep their own cows and sheep, or grow their own crops, but nor do I insist otherwise.

The only real benefit to raising your own livestock, or growing your own vegetables, is that you know exactly what goes into them, so you know you aren't eating any harmful chemicals, unless you put them there. Which would be silly.
Of course it does give you a feeling of superiority, which might be why people are so adamant on cooking their own meals, but that might just be a natural thing left over from when you had to do all that.

Personally, the main reason I learned to cook was so I could make my own food when I wanted to eat it. It doesn't take long to cook an omelette or make a sandwitch (burgers are a bit harder to do, as the neighbours tend to disapprove of barbeque activity at 4AM None of the stores that sell food near me are open at 4am, a time when I am quite usually awake at. Being able to cook means I can fire myself up a decent enough meal at any time. Plus, I can bake my own delicious cakes.

Although I agree with practically everything the OP / TC said, I prefer to cook my own burgers, for one simple reason: none of the people working at my local fast-food places seem to understand the phrase "hold the mayo, please". Gack. Grease I can stand, extreme salt, fine. But honestly? Who thought this pus-coloured ooze would do well as a Goddam MANDATORY ingredient in burgers? Tell me. I want to hit them (or at least cover their house in mayonaise).

[Duke 2.0]

I can MAKE her work an oven.

I...

Nah, too easy.

 But yeah, I can make a cheeseburger that will make you weep with delight. Alright, so I don't cook it at above 160 degrees F, but my father knows well enough to get ground meat made fresh at the store.

[JoshuaFH]

I subscribe to the Sims philosophy: Fast food is fast, but it doesn't fill your nutrition bar as much as a home cooked meal, so read those cook books damnit, and get your culinary skill up! No, don't sleep, READ DAMNIT!

[kilakan]

OH GOD the oven's on fire, quick try to fix the oven while it's still burning, while the kid plays with the fire extinguisher achieving NOTHING!!

[Cthulhu]

PROTIP:  Don't put the fire extinguisher on the wall above the stove.

PROTIP:  Also, be careful when you're retrieving food from the oven.  Those heating elements are pretty hot and aren't as high up as you think.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I love to cook. I also love fast food. There's a reason it sells - it's engineered to be delicious! But it is pretty unhealthy. And you're right that nobody's forcing anybody to eat it.

That said, I watched a documentary (it had references, which I checked, and they are legit unless they're outright falsifying their research data) about school lunch programs. Basically, school lunches in high school tend to be greasy fast-foody affairs, because kids choose to eat things like pizza and hamburgers if those choices are available. They choose soda from vending machines instead of unsweetend fruit juice or water.

But one school, experiencing very poor student behavior (lots of absences, lateness, fighting, police being called, etc), decided to change their lunch menu and vending machine offerings.

They served delicious food that wasn't trucked in by prepared-food supply companies. They actually bought normal foods, finely minced them, cooked them, and served them. It wasn't a big tray of premade lasagna in a foil trencher. Or frozen meat patties. Or "chicken" nuggets. Just good food.

Sure some kids complained. But they bought the hot lunches and ate them, bought the healthier stuff from the vending machines. And the school found that behavioral problems dropped dramatically. The study didn't mention test scores, and in any case testing that is problematic because you don't have the same student taking the same test in A and B food regimes. But I wouldn't be surprised if test scores improved noticeably.

Before the change children were experiencing health problems normally found in middle-aged adults: chronic constipation, high blood pressure, diabetes, liver problems, and others. It's clear these things have a cause, and when children are interviewed and claim to eat only one or two servings of vegetables per week one begins to think the health problems may be linked to diet.

Most importantly, the school wasn't spending any more money on the healthy meals. So even if there was little benefit to be had, it would still be worthwhile.

One argument against this sort of thing is that high schoolers should be allowed to make their own choices. They're free-thinking people, right? Well, sort of. Adults around them still have a responsibility to show them good choices and make those choices available, but there is no duty for these adults to make bad choices available also. You're not forcing kids to eat the hot lunch at school. If they want to bring their own bad lunches you can't really do anything about it. But you can decide to not serve them bad food even if they request it.

I'm looking around for the source (the documentary and its references) and will post if I find them.