Talk:Fast food

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Fast food article.
Article policies
Food Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.
This article is currently or was the subject of an Spring 2007 educational assignment.

Contents

[edit] Doesnt Fit Here

I completly rewrot this sentence because in it's original form it looked like ait was written by a kid. But when I look at it some more the information just doesnt relly look like it fits. In a sense it is true. Nut not all fast food causes this. And this is caused by obesity overall. so should I keep it or remove it? it does have a citation needed tag anyways.

"Fast Food can also lead to health problems at both an old and a young age such as colon cancer, respiratory failure and Heart Attacks.[citation needed]"

so tell me your opinion.


[edit] Biased

The page in his current version is totally biased against fast food.

[edit] Vandalism

This page has been vandalised many times, and it should therefore be protected from editing from unregistered users.

[edit] Cleanup

This article needs some serious help:

  • It's full of promotional language and needs general NPOV work.
  • It needs expansion.
  • Its organization needs work.

sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 01:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I have attempted to improve the language in the article so that it is less amateurish. The article still needs much work. The most urgent tasks are

  • Expansion of topics
  • Elimination of biased language
  • Improving the style

[edit] Franchise concept

I have revised the franchise concept. I wouldn't say that in NZ, franchise is synomonous with fast food. For sure it's probably the first thing that will come to people minds but I would say most people probably recognise that it's not the same thing and there are in fact franchises which are not fast food. If you feel that franchise is synomonous with fast food in your country then add it to the list if you feel it is necessary but regardless mentioned it here (whether it is or isn't). This way, we can try to evalute how this varies in countries to determine what's the best thing to say. Nil Einne 13:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


I mean think about it.... fast food doesn't always mean junk food people! Although it gives so many young teens an opertunity for a job and with jobs shortages, imagine if fast food was banned! Less jobs less money, poorer people! There are many places that are fast and you can have a take away pasta and all of that .... soo it is not always bad!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.91.74.6 (talk)

[edit] Kebab, Schaworma, Falafel, Gyros

I am not an expert but I know that in many parts of the world (Europe, Middle East) these are extremely popular. I know as a fact, that In Romania, for instance, this type of food has becomed in he past 5-10 years even pore popular than hamburgers and similar US-insipred products. I'd say that in other European nations the situation must be similar. Is this kebab-boom documented anywhere? So the article needs to take into cosideration this oriental type of fast food, as well.

[edit] Reversion

I deleted the statement that fat causes erection problems in men because it has no references. Besides this point, it is a bold claim, and dubious. If anyone can point me to credible research supporting it, I will leave it there. Rintrah 16:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

---In the movie Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock attests to having those problems.

[edit] Nutritional value section

I rewrote this section to try to reduce its severe POV (anti-fast-food) problem. The changes included:

  • Specifying that certain items on fast food menus may be unhealthful, rather than saying that fast food in general is unhealthful. Most U.S. fast food chains offer salads and grilled chicken items, for example.
  • Deleting this inaccurate sentence: "Fast food is commonly deep fried, and thereby contains more fat and calories." Fast food is not commonly deep fried - hamburgers aren't deep-fried, and they're the major food item sold at McDonald's, BK, etc. - and deep-fried foods do NOT contain more fat and calories than foods cooked via other methods if the oil is kept at the proper temperature and food is removed promptly from the fryer when finished.
  • Deleting this unsourced sentence: Additionally, fast food may contain unwanted chemical additives hidden and lack proper labelling.
  • Deleting this unsourced sentence: Fast food portions are usually larger than the amount one should consume in a serving.
  • Changed phrase about Spurlock's "lack of exercise" to "his refusal to exercise." The lack of exercise had nothing to do with his fast food diet, and many critics have charged him with skewing his results by refusing to exercise at all during filming.
  • Added mention of competing dieters and filmmakers who have had different results on all-fast-food diets.

I also rewrote the first sentence of the next section (also terribly POV) to specify who is calling for changes, and deleted another unsourced sentence ( In particular, restaurants want to add some healthy choices because of the veto effect, in which one person in a group interested in healthy eating causes the group not to go to the restaurant.). | MrDarcy talk 21:49, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mergefrom

I've proposed a {{mergefrom}} Fast-food restaurant and have started a discussion on that article's talk page as well. | MrDarcy talk 16:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

  • This merge is now completed. | MrDarcy talk 16:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of the "Drive-thru"

Why is Wendy's stated as being pioneering of its "drive-thru" window if it did not start until 1972? In-N-Out Burger in Southwestern United States opened its first drive-thru in 1948 "California's first drive-thru hamburger stand" although it was only a small room with just a kitchen and windows at both ends, allowing for a lane on each side. I understand that Wendy's was a restraunt with a drive-thru window. So which should get credit for pioneering the drive-thu Wendy's or In-N-Out?. I see In-N-Out as pioneering the idea of driving up to a window to pick up your fast food.

I also can not find anywhere on Wikipedia what the very first drive-thu fast food was in the country/world. Can somebody tract down this fact? -- AlexTheMartian | Talk 09:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  • The source for that sentence is provided in a link at its end. Here it is again: [1] And the relevant sentence: Wendy's, begun in Columbus, Ohio, in 1972 by Dave Thomas (1932–2002), pioneered the use of drive-through windows. | MrDarcy talk 14:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism

The section entitled "Consumer Appeal" has sections that are plagerized directly from the website that it quotes. Since I am unsure about how this could be best changed, I left it alone, and I don't know any plagiarism tags, so I'm not going to mess with that, either.

Hi, thanks for your note. The source is a document on a government Web site and is in the public domain, meaning that it's not protected by copyright. In addition, there's just one sentence that is copied verbatim from the source, which doesn't qualify as plagiarism. | Mr. Darcy talk 20:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs Major Work / Removal of Bias

All granular discussions of McDonald's need to be removed; they are but ONE of MANY fast food businesses. This article reads as an indictment to McDonalds and not a neutral article on fast food as it should.

While almost all nutritionists will tell you that certain types of fast food are incredibly bad nutritionally, I removed the Morgan Spurlock paragraphs from the 'Nutritional Information' secton. Those paragraphs had degenerated into a debate about whether or not Spurlock's movie was credible, and cited references to those that disagreed with him. I believe a far more neutral approach would be to provide side-by-side nutrition data from several fast food businesses to equivalent home cooked / "sit-down" restaurant meals. Let the reader have the facts. Somebody please provide some credible and real nutrition info, not just references to Spurlock's wildly unscientific movie. Including his movie as any statement of 'fact' undermines the credibility of this whole article and incites a Spurlock vs. McDonald's debate.

[edit] Fast food images

The second image on the page has a description of: "Typical forms of fast food - potato scallops and chicken pieces"

Is this really typical fast food? I know most fast food joints in North America and the UK don't give potatoe scallops out too often. Sure some fast food places do, but not majority and it's certainly (in my opinion) not typical forms of fast food. I see fast food as fries and a hamburger with a drink, or fish & chips or a slice of pizza and usually in some sort of fancy bag with the joints logo on it. Any one else agree? What's your thougts? Decimal10 01:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Definition

My definition would be any restaurant that meets the following:

  • Needs only 2 minutes to deliver to the customer for 90% of the orders as measured from the time in which the order is completed to when the order is 100% ready to eat.
  • Combos include a side (which can vary, but must include some sort of fry as an option) and a drink.
  • 90% of the combos (as defined in the previous entry) are under US$5.00 with none above $6.00. This price is a measured before add-ons like larger fry/drink sizes or taxes.
  • Has a drive-thru. (A subcategory adds a dining room. However, that is not required.)

Will 04:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be part of a fast food franchise rather than fast food? The whole article is pretty sh*tty as there's quite a lot of confusion between fast food and fast food franchise. Problem IMO seems to lie with the 'American perspective' (not purely geographical definition) whereby fast food is often represented by a franchise rather than individual businesses (McDonald's vs. local chippy/kebab shop/bakery). PS: it's always very dangerous to impose empirical definitions. - Htra0497 26 August 2006 (AET)

[edit] Does this Center exist? Did it?

In the paragraph titled "Changes," I read

<<The Center for Nutritional Health in Baton Rouge has even classified some of Mcdonald's menu items as "health" food. It is projected that 32% of all Americans will have at least one "healthy" item from Mcdonald's in the next year.>>

I couldn't locate this place when I called around. Does it exist? What's the phone number?

The only hit on Google is for the Wikipedia article. There are a couple of Google hits for the International Center for Nutritional Health, but that is in Pennsylvania. I'm removing it from the article. -- Donald Albury 01:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swiss Chalet

What's the say that Swiss Chalet is a fast food restaurant. Any opinions before I delete?

[edit] Bias/Lack of NPOV in Legal Issues section?

Call it my overly suspicious nature, but does the last line of the Legal Issues section seem slightly biased to anyone else?

"The bill arose because of an increase in lawsuits against fast-food chains by people who claimed that eating their products made them obese, disassociating themselves from any of the blame."

Maybe it's just me. --Sandblast 00:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Nah, perhaps it's just me + you, but it does seem to call for extra Neutrality, hold the B.S. Feel free to Supersize the impartiality by changing it, unless you want fries with that. dr.ef.tymac 01:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fast Food Hoax...or not hoax?

The Famous Chicken Head Nuget http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4peC31MgLE —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.148.169.135 (talk) 23:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Narrow focus

Unsurprisingly, this article leans quite heavily towards traditional American fast food: Hamburgers and fries. That's not a bad thing, these are both the most common kinds of fast food in the world and what normally springs to mind when the term is used. BUT, there is a fairly serious neglect of other kinds.

I suggest that sushi, the Subway chain, kebab houses, chinese takeaway restaurants and fish and chip shops all need to be incorporated somehow. These are not just regional shops, they all exist in varying prominence in most Western countries. The problem is: where is the best place to do that? The international section is focussed on international chains, which makes me think "not there".

I've restructured the article a bit. If you really want to contribute pursuant to your suggestion, I am all in favor of it. The section entitled "Service" might be a good place for you to start. If you still have trouble deciding where to add your contribution, let me know and I will try to help. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 04:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please make links to .....

Food safety and Food quality from the topic

[edit] change title and do a redirect to QSR

To properly do what one would expect the goal of this wikipedia article is, describing typical American fast food, it really should be under the more specific title Quick Serve Restaurant. There probably should be a small section with a redirect to American fast food aka QSR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.76.11 (talk) 04:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We need a split

This article is trying to do two things at once, and having made a shot at fixing it I think it's irreconcilable.

  • Fast food in general. This should be a list-ish article covering everything from TV dinners to KFC but in a WP:SUMMARY style.
  • Fast food restaurants (QSR), specifically covering mass-produced franchise restaurants.

Split shouldn't even be that painful. I'll get on with it when I've got the time. Chris Cunningham 11:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello Chris Cunningham your general rationale sounds reasonable, but there is one thing that concerns me a bit, it appears you are de-emphasizing the structural aspects of the article that made distinctions based on geography. Since there is clearly a tendency to omit non-USA-centric viewpoints from an article subject such as this, some editors may take this deemphasis as further justification to exclude non-USA-centric perspectives. This may be an unintended side-effect of some of the recent structural changes.
If you could explain a bit more your basic rationale for how you see this article changing, and your strategy for improving it, that would be much appreciated. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 19:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
There's also a tendency to attempt to counter perceived US bias by artificially inflating the importance of non-US content. In this case, the term "fast food" originated in the States and refers specifically to the dining revolution of the latter half of the 20th century. That kebab stalls also sell food which is prepared quickly is irrelevant, and is detrimental to a merged article's readability.
The basic plan it to take anything which deals with the quick-serve restaurant genre and bundle it off to quick serve restaurant. The fast food article would then be little more than a list of dining concepts with low preparation time, and would not attempt to explore any particular theme (because there isn't one). At the moment, the article is trying to pretend that McDonald's and random kebab stalls have something in common, which is silly. Chris Cunningham 10:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, if the point you are making is that content in this article should be restricted to the U.S.-centric perspective of fast food, I respectfully, but vehemently, disagree with that. If you have a reference or authoritative foundation for your viewpoint, now would be a good time to bring it forward, to help substantiate your apparently restrictive interpretation of the scope of this article's subject matter. dr.ef.tymac 02:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I just said the exact opposite, which is that US-centric stuff should be punted to a dedicated article at quick serve restaurant. If you feel that "fast food" should be contrived to mean "any foodstuff prepared in advance and reheated to order", then feel free to maintain an arbitrary collection of said information at this location, fast food. Chris Cunningham 09:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split finished

Okay, western-specific stuff goes here now. Please note that this is not a POV fork; the Western part of the equation here is deep and involved enough that it needs its own article to explore themes, trends and concepts specific to the kind of fast food which comes with a plastic tray and a drive-thru bolted on. Chris Cunningham 17:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a citation or reference to support your viewpoint? Is this just your "gut-level" feeling on how this article content should be treated? dr.ef.tymac 20:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Gut feeling. The article as it stood had serious focus issues, there's a clear theme which relates McDonald's-style restaurants, and I'd rather improve an article which I feel actually has some direction than waste time arguing over perceived problems with global viewpoint because somebody decides that Subway is the same thing as McDonald's. Chris Cunningham 07:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Wasting time = bad. Improvement = good. Direction = good. Gut feeling = fine, but not without its problems.
First off, let me say (IMHO) it's great if you want to improve this (or any other article) based on your own sense of how things should look. One problem, however, is unless there is a foundation of references or outside support for your editorial strategy, there's no general reason to conclude that anyone but you is going to understand (let alone agree with) the logical basis for your distinctions.
If you were to open up a textbook on managerial accounting for restaurants (just for a random example), and segment this article based on the same segmentation found in that textbook, that would be great, because anyone who didn't understand your segmentation could consult the textbook, and at least have a published "road map" to go by if they decided to further enhance your changes to the article(s), and ensure that their changes coincided with your master plan.
In contrast, the only person on this Earth who is guaranteed to have the same "gut-level" understanding of this material as you is ... you. That's not a problem when you are writing a personal essay, but it is a problem when you are collaboratively editing an Encyclopedia article.
That's really all I have to say on this at this time. If things go well, these remarks will make sense to you and you will consider them to whatever extent you feel useful. dr.ef.tymac 15:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Food Code laws

I hate to say this but I work in the industry and in the intro it is completely wrong about not having food code laws. That United States Government in 1999 took it upon themselves to regulate the food code law. As a result it applies to every restruant in the nation. They have updated this 3MB pdf file several times over the past decade. As a result the only issue is if the county you are starting up decides not to enforce the federal law which would not be in their best interests. Some counties do go above and beyond the federal law which does put more of a strain but not too much.--Mihsfbstadium 05:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UK sitaution.

I've tried to make a start on expanding the historical stuff in relation to the UK. Anyone able to expand it or add appropriate sources? 62.56.76.71 (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] merits and demerits of fast food restaurants

please kindly let me know the merits and demerits of fast food joints —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.225.62.199 (talk) 17:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Second sentence

Surely there's a better way of defining fast food than that. I can think of a few chains to whom this doesn't apply, as they cook to order without "keeping things warm." Nach0king (talk) 09:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I am removing it.

-- Jeremy (talk) 05:55, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Variants' - Subway

In the variants section, the paragraph dealing with subway, is biased. Heirware (talk) 10:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

What about it is biased? --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 17:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Hm, I think it got edited. Nevermind. It was something like 'Subway has been a great success, showing how healthy foods can blah bla etc.' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heirware (talk • contribs) 05:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)