Tag Archives: fast food

Rationale for ban against future fast-food restaurants in South LA

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Earlier this week, Los Angeles developed some new restrictions for new fast-food restaurants:

New fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles will be banned within a half mile of existing ones under an ordinance approved Wednesday by the City Council.

The law includes other restrictions on stand-alone eateries, the Los Angeles Times reported. They include guidelines on landscaping, trash storage and other aesthetic issues.

Similar limits are in place in other LA neighborhoods. The council imposed a moratorium two years ago in southern Los Angeles.

Is this an example of the government telling people what they can or cannot eat? Is this example of a government limiting business or jobs opportunities? The rationale for these new regulations is interesting:

The goal of the restrictions is to encourage the development of stand-alone restaurants and grocery stores.

“For a community to thrive, it is important to have balance, a full variety of food, retail and service providers,” said Councilman Bernard C. Parks, one of the sponsors of the ordinance.

The ordinance includes exemptions for fast-food restaurants in mixed-use developments and shopping malls and for existing restaurants planning to expand.

These sorts of rules are not unusual in communities. How does this differ from a suburban community that decides it won’t allow any more banks in its downtown? Or communities that have restrictions against tattoo parlors? Both banks and tattoo parlors create jobs and bring in some sort of tax dollars. If the City of LA wants to promote other kinds of development, this seems like a reasonable rule that doesn’t force out already existing stores but limits their future growth.

At the same time, the issue of fast food seems to bring out passionate arguments from people. Do we have a “right” to fast food restaurants? A lot of critics of sprawl argue that fast food restaurants represent the worst of sprawl: they are completely dependent on the automobile, the food is cheap, mass-produced, and not healthy, and the restaurants and their signs are garish advertisements for multi-national corporations who couldn’t care less about local communities. Others argue that we should be able to eat what we want when we want.

In Los Angeles, they seem to have made a decision about promoting other kinds of development. Communities make decisions like this all the time, depending on factors like tax revenue and what goals or values they wish to promote.

Don’t just ban Happy Meal toys; American food culture needs to be changed

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After San Francisco recently moved to ban the toys in Happy Meals (by tying the ability to include toys to certain nutrition benchmarks),  Josh Ozersky argues that more than just banning Happy Meals is needed: American food culture and what foods it says are good needs to be changed.

No, the problem with the ban is that it doesn’t go far enough. America’s tots aren’t getting supersized simply by eating Happy Meals…University of São Paulo professor Carlos Monteiro makes the case that “the rapid rise in consumption of ultra-processed food and drink products, especially since the 1980s, is the main dietary cause of the concurrent rapid rise in obesity and related diseases throughout the world.” And reversing that trend will be a lot harder than making Happy Meals a little less happy.

But still, you have to start somewhere, and I understand why the San Francisco supervisors picked Happy Meals as their beachhead…

Again and again, efforts to promote fresh fruit and produce in low-income urban areas have failed for the simple reason that Americans have been brainwashed. We have been conditioned, starting in utero, to prefer high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar concoctions rather than their less exciting, more natural culinary cousins…

Why? Because as Americans, we like highly processed food. It was invented to please us. Cheap flavor bombs will always trump healthier alternatives. Dangling a Transformer or Beanie Baby or some other toy du jour in front of a kid may help balance the playing field at least a little. But why can’t cheap, processed food be made healthier? Is that really impossible? Or is it just too expensive?

Ozersky doesn’t quite come out and say it but he is suggesting that Americans need to radically rethink their diets and food choices. This is not a matter of just eating less fast food but thinking about all processed food and why we eat it rather than more natural food. As other writers like Michael Pollan have pointed out, other cultures make different food choices where natural is the norm and meals are events that then five or ten minute periods where Americans try to relieve their hunger while also getting essential nutrients. American food habits are tied to a whole host of other phenomenon including cars (fast food), ideas about efficiency, technology (eating in front of the TV, microwaved food), ideas about how expensive food should be, and more. And these are patterns that start young.

The question of whether all of this could be changed through governmental intervention or through other means is another controversy for another day.

(Another thought: how come McDonald’s is the most common target of such actions? It is kind of like the attention that Walmart draws – neither McDonalds or Walmart are the only games in town and yet their size and reputation tends to draw the most attention.)

American life can’t be too bad if people can spend lots of time tracking down a fast food sandwich

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Times are dire, bad, fraught with difficulty. This is now what we have heard, and many have experienced, for months.

But it struck me today that American life is not that terrible if there are some people who are very devoted to tracking down McDonald’s McRib sandwich. It is this sort of quotidian hobby or interest that is only possible in societies where people have extra time and money on their hands.

So what exactly is going on here? Couple this story with the fervor that Chick-fil-A has inspired in the Chicago region with the opening of new stores and it is clear that many Americans love their fast food.

“I was lovin’ it”: battling over fast food

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McDonald’s is a favorite target for those opposed to fast-food culture and typical American eating patterns. Amidst discussions in many municipalities about allowing fast-food restaurants, a new advertisement to run in Washington, D.C. adds to the debate:

In the commercial, produced by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a woman weeps over a dead man lying in a morgue. In his hand is a hamburger. At the end, the golden arches appear over his feet, followed by the words, “I was lovin’ it,” a play on McDonald’s longtime ad slogan, “I’m lovin’ it.” A voiceover says, “High cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian.”

Americans tend to eat a lot of fast food: Gallup found in 2006 that 23% of Americans eat fast food several times a week or more with another 33% claiming to eat fast food about once a week.

Another option being discussed would allow for extra taxes on fast food and soft drinks. In another survey, Harris found “Over half of Americans (56%) are opposed to [an obesity] tax going into effect with two in five (42%) being strongly opposed. Three in ten (31%) support this tax being imposed.” There were some differences: people living in the South and Midwest or with lower incomes or with less education were more opposed to such measures.

Zagat rates fast food and full service chains

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Zagat, the restaurant rating firm, has recently released results of a survey of 6,500 fast-food fans. The survey covers both fast food and full-service chains and has a variety of ratings including best burger and best value.

This quantification of the fast food and full service chain industry is interesting. Such food is considered by some to barely be real food. Zagat’s reputation is generally based on reviewing fine restaurants, not popular chains. So is the goal to help Zagat reach a broader audience? This is an example of an odd pairing of high-brow and low-brow culture.

After observing Dairy Queen’s 5th place spot in the popular quick-refreshment chains, one commentator says, “Of course, I can’t help but wonder: will we begin to see “Zagat rated” stickers adorning the take-out window at Dairy Queen?

Quick review: In-N-Out Burger

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Prior to traveling to California, my wife and I kept hearing good things about In-N-Out Burger, a California based fast-food chain.

After having two meals there (once outside Sacramento, once in Burbank), we both agree that the good reviews are justified. The hamburgers are excellent – juicy and fresh-tasting with crispy lettuce and fresh tomatoes and onion. The vanilla milkshakes are quite thick and the french fries are good but slightly different than the crispy fries one typically finds at fast-food places.

Several downsides: a limited menu (no chicken, fish, special burgers), a longer wait for your food as it is prepared fresh, and the restaurants are only limited to four Western states.

Overall: very good and fresh fast-food.