Problems associated with fast foods

Introduction

Following a subsequent shift from suburb homes to a sophisticated urban lifestyle, there has been a change in dieting patterns. Consumers are opting for pursuing of time effective strategies; for instance, self-contained apartments, laundry, and fast foods. In particular, fast food consumption has gained popularity even to suburb dwellers. For the city dwellers, fast food consumption has gained popularity making it look a lucrative lifestyle than homemade dishes. The government on the other hand is supporting this kind of food consumption and little has been done by reliable bodies; for example, Foods and Drugs Administration to mitigate divergent consumption trends. Fast food industry has been invaded by all manner of product development strategies. The synthetic approach seems lucrative to a variety of developers since the overall profit objective is satisfactory met. As a result, fast foods are primarily responsible for the development of number one killer disease cardiovascular attacks. This research will attempt to prove that the chemical orientation in fast food recipes is principally liable for the heightened health risks.

Background of Fast foods

Fast foods began gaining clout in early 1950S, and by 1980s, the baby boomers were utilizing the fast food as their main source of day foods. Timing is the key thing in fast foods. The ability to develop foods at much faster rate is what makes fast food such a popular food. In most cities, outlet kioski provide semi developed, or no shelter at all for seating allowances. A good number of these kiosks processes standardized foodstuffs and ship them to central locations. Fast foods popularity gained influence after the conclusion of World War II. It should be recalled that at this time, time for preparing decent meals was normally absent. Soon after the World War, American and Western Europe adopted fast food patterns as vital prerequisites to respond to demanding economies. However, it should be recalled that although this foods seems appears a lucrative feeding strategies, the foods have medically been associated with development of rapid diseases and cancers. As this report will find out, there are plethora of divergent factors that can be associated with the consumption of fast foods.

The chemical nature of fast foods

It should be noted that the fast food are prepared to ensure that cost is mitigated while appellants are exemplified. For this reason, artificial flavors in fast food have remained to the core business orientation as compared to natural factors. The synthetic compounds are not subtle, however, given the nature of fast food business industry, integrating synthetic compounds is still by large the only main strategy of profit maximization. Secondly, the food sources are contributive the nature of the foods. In most cities, sources of foods have been a contentious debate point. Some of these sources include; beef, bark, chicken, fruits, herbs, roots, and yeasts. However, it should be noted that the mode of product is not appropriate since synthetic add-endives are applied almost at every stage of production to make the product look appealing at a much faster rate. Nonetheless, Prescott (2004, pp. 144) argues that natural flavors and artificial flavors contains almost the same chemicals but the method of production is what differs and make each different.

Chemically, natural flavors are necessarily purer and healthier as compared to the artificial one. However, while production of artificial flavors, a series of chemical flavors are oriented. Krishnakumar and Mathammal (2008, pp. 1890) argues that when almond flavor (benzaldehyde) is derived from natural sources in an irregular time patterns, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. In particular, benzaldehyde is developed from mixing banana flavor, oil of cloves and cloned by amylacetate, which does not contain any cyanide. However, this collection is legally considered in most cities and sells at a much lower price.

Other identified induced chemicals include; bleached wheat flour, which means nutrients are removed. Secondly, the foods contains tertiary butylhdroquinone commonly known as TBHQ. The foods are recorded to have dextrose (commonly known as sugars) (Jaworowska et al, 2013, pp. 311). Fourthly, the foods contain significant amounts of prepared vegetable oil commonly known as Canola oil, hydrogenated Soybean Oil and Soybean oil. With this kind of chemical consideration, it is good to note that fast foods to a greater extent are synthetically generated and as a result, the foods are primarily responsible for disease such as obesity or cancer.

Fast food consumption rates

The graph below shows fast food consumption rates in America. From the graph one will notice that fast nearly 95 percent of Americans, at one point in a week or a month do consume fast foods. Fast food consumption in United States has become a real symbol of modernity. In America, the most popular fast food is the hamburger. A hamburger restaurant presents a direct replica of fast food in America. The population is followed by pizza, family, submarine, oriental, chicken and Mexican. As stated, fast food have replaced a lot of home meals and people naturally consume them for their easiness. In fact, fast foods have gained popularity in cultural ceremonies; for instance, birthdays and anniversaries. So from the graph, it is notable that the consumption of fast food has gained significant clout in recent years.

Adopted from Stastista.com

From this analysis, one will notice that American economy heavily relays on fast food consumption. American have been increasing the calorie intake by a nearly three percent every year (Eslami et al, 2012, pp. 213). Out-of-home eating habits have increased and diversified with various orientations being pursued. Popular Italian, Turkish or Chinese traditional foods have been modified to add taste to American fast food orientation. CITE further argues that the density of fast food restaurant have almost doubled with various merchants entering the fast food industry annually. The sad thing is that archaic black and other natives neighborhood which pursued traditional meals have now adopted the fast food consumption trend doubling the average intake of fast foods.

The risk factors in fast foods

The most common diseases associated with overconsumption of fast food include; diabetes, cancer and obesity. Diabetes mellitus is a medical condition that affect nearly to 8 percent of Americans and a quarter of adult population. Fast food induces the uncontrolled increase of sugar levels in the body. This disease is the top five of the seven killer diseases in America. Risk factors associated with diabetes mellitus include, obesity, lack of physical activity and old age. The diseases graduates to Type of Diabetes Mellitus, which include is primarily responsible for the development of obesity, cancer and can lead to kidney disease, heart failure and other infections.

The following graphic, which shows the percentage of obesity rates have been rising from 1961-2009 in the United States. After 1980, the obesity rates rise very quickly and in 2009, the percentage of obese people is 30%. This graphic shows the idea of fast food can cause obesity directly. I can use this graph as a source for my fast food research paper.

Fast foods can be associated with the development of cardiovascular diseases, which is leading cause of death in the United States and the general world. The common diseases associated with fast food consumption are the Dyslipidemia and DM, which through to physiological factors; the two are primary cause factors of heart failure. Secondly, HTN primarily causes risk of mortality rates worldwide. Scientifically, fast foods contribute the majority of chemically induced factors which cause HTN. The foods are populated with sodium and other add-endives examine in this research. This links between fast food consumption and high blood pressure has been confirmed in various demographic presentations adult, and children.

Legislation involving fast foods

The Food and Drug Administration, FDA or USFDA is the chief department entitled in for protection and promoting public health through regulation of dietary supplements, food safety, and prescription. In response to the fast food consumption, the agency does not require flavor companies to disclose the ingredients of their additives, as long as the chemicals are considered safe by the Generally Regarded As Safe commonly known as GRAS. This allowance has enabled synthetic food developers to develop complex formulas. Flavor foods compounds contain more ingredients than the foods being given for their taste. In fact, CITE argues that the chemical wizardry and manufacturing skills is highly processed on food taste like a strawberry.

Failure of identifying these inclusions has been primarily responsible for the consistent alteration of FDA laws. Flavors usually arise from a mixture of many different volatile chemicals; a single compound often supplies the dominant aroma. Consequently, for business orientation, synthetic food developers have attempted to influence the smell of these foods to offer a blank palette of the chemicals to provide specific tastes and smells. However, most of these orientations are laboratory engineered and are not noticed by FDA. In fact, the ingredients presented to the FDA or the public are not necessarily the applied system to arrive at a given meal. Additionally, the nature of American politics has deterred the benevolent application of FDA requirements. Fast food developers; for instance, Mc Donald or Papa John have proved to be large organizations which employ a number of Americans. For this reason, questioning their operations comes with a large unemployment price (McDonald, 2013).

Conclusion

Fast food consumption trends nationally and internationally are not expected to mutilate in the near future. As this research has established, the law is relatively weaker in apprehending fast food consumption strategies. The research has further clarified that the synthetic orientation in fast foods is primarily responsible in causing the development of risk factors. Risk factors in this case are multiple diseases and the leading disease being cardiovascular attacks. For this reason, future research should be structured to examine on the possible methodologies of shifting fast food production from artificial orientation to natural orientation.

References

Eslami, S., Barzgari, Z., Saliani, N., Saeedi, N., Barzgari, A. (2012). Annual Fasting; the Early Calories Restriction for Cancer Prevention. BioImpacts 2 (4), 213-215.

McDonald, D. (2011). Challenging Ronald: Mc Donald versus McDonald’s. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. 48 (2012) 103-105.

Jaworowska, A., Blackham, T., Davies, I., Stevenson, L. (2013). Nutritional Challenges and Health implication of take-way and fast food. Nutritional Science Policy. 71 (5): 310-318.

Astrup, A., Dyerberg, J., Selleck, M., and Stender, S. (2008). Nutritional Transition and its relationship to the development of obesity and related chronic diseases. Obseity reviews. 9 (1), 48-52.

Guyenet, J.S. (2012, March, 9). Seduced by Food: Obesity and the Human Brain.

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