Fast Food

• In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food. In 2006, the spending rose to nearly $142 billion.
• Today, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products are sold in every country in the world, except North Korea
• In 2005, Advertisting Age cited Ronald McDonald as the number two top-10 advertising icon of the twentieth century. The Marlboro Man was number one.
• There are more than 300,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S. alone
• Television greatly expanded the ability of advertisers to reach children and try to develop brand loyalty early in life. Today the average American child sees more than 10,000 food advertisements each year on television
• McDonald's is Brazil’s largest employer
• In 2004, PETA released a video taken at Pilgrim’s Pride, a chicken supplier to fast food restaurants, which showed intense animal cruelty
• Because McDonald's initially did not want its customers to stay and socialize, they prohibited newspaper boxes, candy machines, telephones, pinball machines, jukeboxes, and other types of entertainment. They also installed uncomfortable chairs to deter customers from lingering.
• The popularization of the drive-thru led car manufacturers in the 1990s to install cup holders in the dashboards. As fast food drinks became larger, so did the cup holders
• Caffeine is the most commonly used drug in the world, and high doses can have serious health effects, including muscle weakness, heart irregularities, and infertility.^f Children and teenagers consume more than 64 gallons of soft drinks per year
• The spread of E.coli and mad cow disease are just a few of the dozen examples of food-born pathogens linked to beef. Some meatpackers have considered radiating meat to kill the bacteria in tainted meat. Some scholars also claim hamburger meat may cause Alzheimer’s disease.
• Eating fast food can result in high levels of insulin, which has been linked to rising incidences of Type 2 Diabetes. In fact, more than 600,000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year.
• Burger King’s Double Whopper with cheese contains 923 calories. A man would need to walk for about nine miles to burn it off. Adding french fries and a large cola brings the total calories to an amazing 1,500 calories (2/3 of an adult man’s recommended daily caloric intake)
• French fries are the single most popular fast food in America. In 1970, french fries surpassed regular potato sales in the United States. In 2004, Americans ate 7.5 billion pounds of frozen french fries.
• When it was revealed in 1990 that McDonald's used beef tallow to flavor its french fries, Hindu vegetarian customers in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, ransacked a McDonald’s restaurant and smeared cow dung on a statue of Ronald MacDonald.
• The fast food industry has dramatically affected how cattle and chickens are raised, slaughtered, and processed. It also encouraged consolidation in the meatpacking industry, such that there are now only 13 major meatpackers in America. McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef and has great influence over meatpacking practices.
• McDonald's is the largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes and the second largest purchaser of chicken in the world. Its annual orders for french fries constitute 7.5% of America’s entire potato crop.
• McDonald's is one of the largest owners of real estate in the world and it earns the majority of its profits from collecting rent, not from selling food.
• High-fructose corn syrup (which tricks your body into wanting to eat more and to store more fat) first appeared in 1967, and the average American now consumes 63 pounds of it a year. It is ubiquitous in fast foods.
• Dangerous fast food ingredients that have been linked to various cancers and/or obesity includes MSG, trans fat, sodium nitrite, BHA, BHT, propyl gallate, aspartame, Acesulfame-K, Olestra, potassium bromate, and food coloring Blue 1 and 2, Red 3, Green 3, and Yellow 6
• Burger King’s Triple Whopper with cheese has an amazing 1,230 calories. Hardies Monster Thickburger has 1,420 calories and 2,770 grams of sodium. Carl’s Jr.'s Double Six hamburger has 1,520 calories and 111 grams of fat. Most people need only 44-66 grams of fat per day, and most of them should come from sources like nuts, fish, and olive oil.
• The American Heart Association recommends a maximum of no more than 2 grams of trans fat per day. A person should eat no more than 1,000-3,000 mg of sodium per day. Men need about 2,700 calories a day, while women need about 2,000 per day.
• Some of the healthier fast food choices include Arby’s Light Roast Chicken Sandwich (276 calories, 7 grams of fat, 777 mg sodium, 33 mg cholesterol), Burger King’s Chunky Chicken Salad (142 calories, 4 grams of fat, 443 mg sodium, 49 mg cholesterol), Wendy’s Chili (210 calories, 7 grams of fat, 800 mg sodium, 30 mg cholesterol), and McDonald’s Vanilla Shake (310 calories, 5 grams of fat, 170 mg sodium, 25 mg cholesterol).
• A McDonald’s’ corn muffin has more calories than a glazed donut. A small packet of Wendy’s honey mustard dressing has 280 calories.
• In the U.S., we eat more than 1,000,000 animals an hour
• 60 percent of all Americans are either overweight or obese
• One in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime
• Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America
• The average child sees 10,000 TV advertisements per year
• McDonald's distributes more toys per year than Toys-R-Us
• McDonald's: "Any processing our foods undergo make them more dangerous than unprocessed foods"
• Most nutritionists recommend not eating fast food more than once a month
• 40 percent of American meals are eaten outside the home
• McDonald's represents 43% of total U.S. fast food market

Tons of great info here:

http://www.fastfoodmarketing.org/

http://www.vivavegie.org/101book/text/nolink/social/supersizeme.htm

http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/06/27_fast-food.html

http://belleverite77.blog.com/category/fast-food/