EXPRESS READING
AMERICANS AND FAST FOOD
Fast-food is such a omnipresent part of American life that
it has become synonymous with American culture. Fast-food
was born in America and it has now swollen into a $106-billion
industry. America exports fast-food worldwide and its attendant
corporate culture, has probably been more influential and done
more to destroy local food economies and cultural diversity
than any government propaganda programme could hope to accomplish.
No corner of the earth is safe from its presence and no aspect
of life is unaffected. Fast-food is now found in shopping malls,
airports, hospitals, gas stations, stadiums, on trains, and
increasingly, in schools. There are 23,000 restaurants in one
chain alone, and another 2,000 are being opened every year.
Its effect has been the same on the millions of people it feeds
daily and on the people it employs. Fast-food culture has
changed how we work, from its assembly-line kitchens filled
with robotic frying machines to the trite phrases spoken to
customers by its poorly paid part-time workforce. In the
United States, more than 57 per cent of the population eat
meals away from home on any given day and they spend more
money on fast-food than they do on higher education, personal
computers, or even on new cars.
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