The fast food industry plays a very crucial role in today’s quick pace lifestyle. Given the amount of hours that we work in a day, it’s hard to believe that we are able to spare a few minutes to eat. In the article “Read a Good Book Lately”, author Reid Paul (14, March 2007) discusses some of the new developments that have occurred in the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry. Paul believes that there has been a rapid improvement in the QSR industry and that “the book [“Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser] played an important role in bringing about those changes”. In fact, he has come to the conclusion that it “helped propel an entire movement to produce more healthy food items”. The idea of serving salads and healthy snack items is only the beginning and over time many of these changes will “have a significant impact on the rest of the industry and especially hotel foodservice”. Paul also brings up the idea of creating new forms of technology that will decrease the amount of food born illnesses that exist. He states “As the parent of a five-year old, the fear of exposing my son to e-coli has impacted my decision on how often and where we go out to eat”. Unfortunately, “We have always been an industry that has been slow to adopt technology, and the supply chain is still an area that is ripe for reform and improvement”. In response to this, food chain suppliers have been looking into new technology such as RFID that “will provide us greater corporate oversight for quality control and food safety”. In addition, “concerns over food safety have also pushed many consumers to look for more locally produced (and seasonal), humanely treated and organic food items as well”.
Personally I think that the QSR industry has made a huge effort to become more dietary friendly. As far as I’m aware, all major fast food chains now offer a variety of salads and low calorie snack items. One particular brand, Subway, is constantly advertising their low fat sandwiches. Even though there was a lot of negative attention brought upon the QSR industry from the movie “Supersize Me”, I believe that in the end the restaurant chains benefited from it. The overwhelming criticism forced them to pay more attention to the calories being consumed which ultimately fed into the ever so trendy “era of diets”. Now more than ever people are focusing on what they are eating and the amount of time they spend exercising. We keep track of every single calorie, burned or consumed. If the QSR didn’t cater to this new interest they would be out of business within a year. I wouldn’t be surprised if more people take advantage of the fast pace service provided by QSR chains today because of the healthier items that they are advertising. Unfortunately there will always be complaints and now that the QSR industry has created healthier eating options, the focus shifts to the different types of diseases that exist. The mass producing of low-cost food production is only one of the many issues that exists today. Over the past few years, e-coli has become a major threat to the success of many businesses. Hopefully with the new idea of using locally produced organic foods, the issue of food born illness will slowly fade away and QSR industry will consist of healthy, disease free food products.
4 comments:
I found this article to be very interesting. I love how it’s about something that is on a lot of people’s minds these days. I know for me, after seeing Supersize Me and reading Fast Food Nation, I stopped eating fast food altogether. If I were to eat at a fast food restaurant now, I like knowing that they do offer healthy options like salads and yogurt parfaits. The fact of e-coli and other food borne illnesses is also another factor of why I don’t eat fast food. I think the idea of using local organic products will help me and many others get over the “fear” of eating fast food!
Hey Rosie! This is a cool article because it shows a little bit of the positive light on the fast-food service industry. The QSR isn’t all bad like it’s made out to be. People never really knew how to eat properly when given a smorgasbord of selections at a restaurant. Nowadays, people in our society have become more educated on what is healthy and what is not. Like the article said, the fact that people are so focused on what they are eating and how much they are exercising plays a huge role in how QSR facilities will stay in business. I think that the QSR industry is moving in the right direction and I hope that they can keep up the pace.
The fast food industry is one not based on health rather value. This value is money for calories. It has always been this way and despite alternate marketing strategies and products it continues to be a huge draw. Granted people work more hours and have less time to put towards finding a meal, the value menu and dollar menu offerings can provide someone with almost a thousand calories for 3 bucks. This is good and bad. The negative side is that its almost irresponsible for a restaurant to be able to provide that many calories and grams of fat to their customers for such a low cost. This leads to over-eating or mal-nutrition amongst people who frequent these QSR’s. Wendy’s has at least added healthy options and have included all of them on the dollar menu. This gives a customer the option of getting a salad, baked potato, and chicken sandwich for the same 3 dollars that at most other QSR’s will get you an order of fries, and two whoppers or basic burgers.
Quick Service Restaurants are peoples regualar eating very often and being concience of the nutritional value of what you put in your body is very important. The documentaries brought to light a lot about the unhealthyness of teh fast food industry, but I don't think it is really going to stop people from eating there. People need food fast and they may make a healthy choice, when teh menu allows, but they are going to eat what they are in the mood for.
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