Have you ever eaten at McDonald’s and felt better about yourself after sloughing down a body manipulating, synthetic Big Mac with a side order of soaked-in-fat, weight accelerating French fries? Me neither. Surely, though, you have felt confidence and a sense of bliss after devouring a KFC bucket filled to the brim with only the finest of greasy chicken bathed in hydrogenated oils? No. You just can’t eat this food and feel good about yourself, or rather look good, which is why I firmly believe everyone, especially everyone in America, should boycott fast food.


Caution: French fries may contain carcinogenic substances. As I reluctantly stood in line at a supposedly convenient McDonald’s, I read a sign warning me of such ingredients. I looked at all the unkempt, unfit, and unattractive customers waiting impatiently for their large order of cancer-causing grease sticks and felt absolutely appalled. Some of the eager customers looked as if they stood in that same line for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They seemed loyal consumers, revering the deep fryer in the back room and eating their 2,000+ calorie meals religiously- worshipping the tragic and depressing restaurant as if they were humble servants to the CEO’s.


I wondered how I could contribute to such an organization as I grudgingly ate imitation chicken wrapped in a tortilla stripped of all nutrients and fiber. Feeling sympathy and disgust simultaneously, I realized I should never eat there again. How could a place that serves diseases in small cardboard boxes ever be considered convenient?


Let’s face it. Fast food franchises are successful. People love to bite down into the slimy “meat” of a Big Mac and enjoy its artificial flavor. The fast food industry’s annual sales average about 200 billion dollars. Lazy individuals and those with little time to prepare meals splurge on fast food because of its cheapness. If McDonalds sold its food for its worth, however, everything would be free except for the tiny bags of slimly sliced apples in the Happy Meals that are probably washed in pesticides anyway.


Fast food really isn’t saving its clients much money. Despite these franchise’s appealing dollar menus and value meals, the actual food itself provides nothing when it comes to one’s health. Medical spending due to problems linked with obesity costs about 147 billion dollars a year, which is almost ten percent of all medical expenditures. Every year the price grows side by side with the size of people’s stomachs and their gluteus-way-too-maximus. More and more people are dying every year from obesity-related health issues than smoking. How’s that for convenience? The saturated fats and the thousands of calories people consume daily due to fast food have become the leading causes of obesity in America.

If the excessive fat and countless empty calories aren’t enough to make you stay away from fast food, maybe the other ingredients lurking within these unnatural substances will. The creamer McDonald’s uses for its coffee contains sodium phosphate, sodium citrate, and tetra sodium pyrophosphate- all components used in common industrial chemicals. Yum! Wendy’s Low Fat Honey Mustard Dressing contains titanium dioxide, a chemical used to manufacture paint and sunscreen. Taco Bell’s rice has dimethylpolysiloxane. If you can pronounce dimethylpolysiloxane, then by all means eat the rice, but I certainly am not interested in that ingredient. It’s often used in silicone caulk.


McDonalds’ food not only provides you with cream-of-the-crop chemicals, but it’s also loaded with so many preservatives that, if left out, it doesn’t decompose nor rot even after a year’s time. Now instead of merely saving your fries for later, you can keep them around until next year! Joann Bruso, a nutritionist, left a McDonald’s Happy Meal out on her counter for experimental purposes and discovered exactly that. The fries maintained their golden-brown color and the burger didn’t even mold. She said, “I had the windows open many times, but flies and other insects just ignored the Happy Meal. What does that tell you, if they can't be bothered with it?”


I believe in confidence. I believe people should walk into a room with their heads held high and exude a sense of self esteem. Fast food doesn’t provide that. Although most items on fast food menus can be categorized as comfort food, the effects are anything but soothing. I feel such pity toward my country. It is such a shame how many people are willing to let themselves go for what seems to be momentarily relieving food.




Next time you’re standing in a line at some fast food place with your shoes sticking to the dirty ceramic tiles and the impatient, unhealthy customer behind you pushing his giant squishy stomach into your back, think to yourself: Is this really worth it? I would rather spend a couple extra bucks a year than eat the worthless junk these restaurants try portraying as real food.


Works Cited
Andrews, John. "Surprise Ingredients in Fast Food." Natural News. Web.


<http://www.naturalnews.com/022194.html>.
“Fast Food Franchises- Consumers are Starving for Convenience.”

http://www.restaurant-franchise.net/restaurant-startup/Fast-Food-Franchises-


Consumers-Are-Starving-For-Convenience.html
"Fast Food, Frighteningly Slow Decay: Mother Keeps McDonald's Happy Meal for a

Whole Year... and It STILL Hasn't Gone off." Mail Online.

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1258913/Happy-1st-birthday-

Mother-keeps-McDonalds-Happy-Meal-year--gone-off.html>.
Foster, J. "What's Lurking in Fast Food?" Web log post. DietBlog. Web.

<http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2007/11/07/whats_lurking_in_fast_food.php>.
“The Price of Obesity.” <http://theweek.com/article/index/98988/The_price_of_obesity>.