The fast food franchise is rolling out a new delivery option at 16 East Coast locations this week. For a fee of $2, flame-broiled burger fans can stay put and wait for thermal-lined bags of greasy goodness to appear at their front doors.
Los Angeles Times writer Tiffany Hsu suggests the move will benefit Whopper cravers who are “tied to a desk,” unable to disrupt the work day to make a burger run. Somehow, we suspect the option is likelier to appeal to the couch potato.
Here are four more fast food “advancements” that have made it just a little easier for Americans to pack on the pounds.
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The Slippery Slope of ‘Supersize’
Everything—even deep-fried chicken strips and cheese-smothered quarter-pounders—is okay in moderation. Just ask the nutrition professor who ate Twinkies for a month to prove calorie counting matters. Increasing an already fatty meal to even greater proportions? That’s trouble. Americans asking to be supersized got what they wanted. Ten years after its supersized debut, McDonald’s began phasing out the option under pressure from health advocates.
Photo: Ted Thai/Getty Images
The Doomsday Dollar Menu
Fast food’s uber-low prices should already be suspect to anyone who knows anything about meat production. Drop burgers, fries, and apple pies to just a buck, and you have glaring proof of a highly subsidized, highly mechanized food system. Plus, getting chub on the cheap isn’t a good deal, no matter how you slice it.
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The Danger of the Drive-Thru
Never mind that a walk from the car could put a small dent in the 500+ calories most customers are likely to pack on during a roadside pitstop. Getting out of your seat to eat is not something restaurants wanted to ask of their customers. Enter the drive-thru, man’s laziest invention to date. Need proof we never should have gone there? The birthplace of the drive-thru banned its claim to fame last year to combat obesity.
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‘Health’ Food That Isn’t
We get it, we get it. With obesity rates ballooning, fast food franchises aren’t going to sit still and let their prized pig perish. But introducing salt- and sugar-laden substitutes under a health food banner puts the onus on customers to spot a wolf in sheep’s clothing. McDonald’s Fruit and Maple Oatmeal didn’t make it out of the gates without a good deal of slack. Chick-Fil-A’s large carrot and raisin salad, at 390 calories and 47 grams of sugar, deserves the same treatment. Wendy’s apple pecan chicken salad, with 560 calories and 27 grams of fat, does too.
The problem is that these meals are a hell of a lot cheaper and now more than ever apparently more available. Why would poor people buy their kids healthy food with money that they need for other things? Not to mention the time constants that are put on them. However for the everyday couch potato, George Washington would be revolving in his grave. Obviously the fast food industry is going to make this leap, like the pizza joints, because it will increase their profits. We all have a say though, talk to your friends and tell them not to buy into this your children's future depends on it. Thanks for reading.
ODURugger30
posted on Mar 5, 2012
Considering the cost of healthcare in the US, fast food is not cheap at all. It's not impossible to eat well on a budget. $10 can buy you 2 value meals, or it can buy you a loaf of whole-wheat bread, a dozen eggs, and a bunch of canned goods that you can make 5-6 healthy meals from.
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