Fast Food in American Culture

Abstract

美国，如同其他国家一样，拥有自己的文化特色。这其中，在我看来，最能代表美国文化特色的应该是其快餐文化。吃快餐吃出来的快餐文化，不仅在典型的美国生活方式构架中具有明显的象征意义，同时也冲破了地域、国度、民族的文化差异及其饮食传统习惯的阻隔，堂而皇之的作为一种生活时尚、一种文化样式风靡全球，畅销于世界各国。

本文浅略地描述了美国的快餐文化，其主体主要由三部分构成：第一部分阐明了快餐的意义及其主要构成，描述了美国的快餐就餐环境特点；第二部分阐述了美国快餐文化的发展现状及其流行程度；第三部分则紧接第二部分说明此现状的产生原因，主要归结为美国大量的移民及美国人强烈的时间观念和时间利用率，而后者则是其主要原因。

然而，美国的快餐文化如此流行，又是否可能产生一些负面影响呢?在本文的结论部分，我对此作了简单的剖析。

Fast Food in American Culture

Ⅰ.Introduction

What has the fast food industry done to American? Fast food has been around for a long time but in the past few years' people have been eating out at these fast food franchises quite. The average American probably eats out at a fast food restaurant four to five times a week. People now are getting lazy and are not cooking nutritious meals for their families. Instead those families are going out eating fatty and greasy foods. There are many factors that have caused Americans to eat out such as advertisement. It is obvious that in today's society more heath problems are now arising due to this fast food craze. But how fast food became such a popular way of eating and living in American? Is there any problems of it?

Ⅱ.

2.1 The meaning of Fast food

When it comes to fast food, I can call some famous fast food instantly, such as McDonald、KFC and so on. All of them are American fast food. So we can see how important and popular the fast food are in American culture.

2.1.1 Food content

What American fast food consist of mainly?Most of these places that provide fast food work on a similar principle. There is a long counter , above which is displayed a list（often with pictures）of the items available, and behind which several people are serving．Individual queues form in front of each assistant .You receive what you order more or less immediately and take it on a tray to a table, picking up thing like straws, pepper, salt, ketchup, pickles and napkins（usually paper napkins）on the way. If you can’t see any knives and forks ,this means you are supposed to eat with your hands. If you can’t see any straws, that’s because they are hiding in the straw dispenser that you have to fiddle with the bottom of it to get a straw（one at a time）to emerge. When you’ve finished, you yourself throw away everything except the tray. And the food, almost consist of hamburger、sandwich、Pizzas、Ice-Cream、and Soft Drinks.

2.2.2 Eating conditions

The main idea of designing a fast food restaurant is to pursue the normal human feelings. The designers pay more attention to the emotion feelings of customs, especially give them a good impression on tidy, roomy and comfortable. In the fast-food restaurants, behind the counters, amid the plastic seats, in the changing landscape outside their windows, you can see all the virtues and destructiveness of the whole city.

2.2 Current situation of fast food in America

Now we know about some details and eating conditions of fast food in America, and what is the current situation of it? Ler’s see it.

Americans now spend more money on fast food than they do on higher education, personal computers, software or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos and recorded music.

The rapid growth of the fast-food industry has been driven by fundamental changes in the U.S. economy. Fast-food employees are the largest group of low-paid workers in the United States today. The nation has about a million farm workers, who earn an average of $5.58 an hour - and 2.5 million fast-food workers, who earn an average of $5.74 an hour. Although picking strawberries is far more difficult than cooking french fries, both jobs are filled by people who are generally young and unskilled. Moreover, the turnover rates for both jobs are among the highest in the American economy. The annual turnover rates in the fast-food industry now range from 200 percent to 400 percent, meaning that the typical fast-food worker quits or is fired in three to six months. Teenagers have long provided the fast-food industry with most of its work force. The industry's rapid growth coincided with the baby-boom expansion of that age group. Teenagers were in many ways the ideal candidates for such jobs. Since most teenagers still lived at home, they could afford to work for wages too low to support an adult, and until recently their limited skills attracted few other employers. A job at a fast-food restaurant became an American rite of passage, a first job soon left behind for better things. The flexible terms of employment in the fast-food industry also attracted many housewives who needed extra income. As the number of baby boomers declined, the fast-food companies began to recruit other marginalized workers: recent immigrants, the elderly and the handicapped. The fast-food industry has

created millions of new jobs at a time when other businesses have been firing workers. It now employs some of the poorest, most disadvantaged members of American society. It often teaches basic job skills to people who can barely read, whose lives have been chaotic or shut off from the mainstream. But the fast-food industry's attitude toward unions, overtime pay and the minimum wage suggests that its motives in employing the poor and the handicapped are not entirely altruistic.

In much the same way that the fast-food industry changed our retail economy, eliminating small businesses and encouraging the spread of uniformity, fast food has transformed American agriculture.

2.3 The reason that why fast food is so popular in America

Have you ever thought that why fast food is so popular in America? In my eyes, there are many reasons to it.

2.3.1 Immigrants

"You are what you eat." Nutrition experts often use this saying to pro mote better eating habits.

What we put in our mouths does become a part of us. But we can look at thi s statement another way. What we eat reflects who we are--as people and a s a culture.

The United States is a land of immigrants. So Americans eat food from many different countries. When people move to America, they bring their c ooking styles with them. That’s why you can

find almost every kind of ethnic food in America. But in some cases, Americans have adopted foods from other countries as favorites. So I consider , maybe the fast food have its specific taste for any people in the world.

2.3.2 Time

The second reason is the main reason. The American way of life is built around speed and efficiency. Every new advance in technology is built around being just a little faster and a little more connected. No wonder, time is scarce and worth saving in the United State. So they need for speed has changed not only what they eat and how they eat it, but also the way in which they view food. Instead of being something to be enjoyed and savored, it has become a means to an end. It is the means to temporarily removing hunger before they move on to the next task on our to-do list.

Quality has become less important than it used to be. Perhaps this is why McDonald's satisfies now, when many years ago a mother would have viewed it as a diversion for her children or a cheap substitution instead of a real meal. Of course our taste buds have not become completely extinct which is perhaps another reason why McDonald's is so appealing: it's tasty.

Americans living at a fast pace often just "grab a quick bite." Fast food restaurants offer people on the run everything from fried chicken to fried ri ce. Microwave dinners and instant foods make cooking at home a snap. Of course, one of the most common quick American meals is a sandwich. If it can fit between two slices of bread, Americans probably make a sandwic h out of it.Peanut

butterand jelly is an all-time American favorite. Americans on the go also te nd to eat a lot of "junk food." Potato chips, candy bars, soft drinks and othe r goodies are popular treats. Many people eat too many of these unhealthy s nacks.

Ⅲ.Conclusion

Throughout the world, American fast-food chains have become symbols of Western economic development, opening everywhere from Bulgaria to Western Samoa. They are often the first multinational corporations to enter a new market. As the fast-food industry has grown much more competitive in the United States, the major chains have looked to overseas markets as the source of their future growth. Unlike movies, bluejeans and pop music, fast food is the only form of American mass culture that people literally consume. By embracing an American diet, other countries are bound to experience many of the health problems that go with it. Perhaps a third of the American people are now overweight, a proportion that has greatly increased over the last quarter-century along with the consumption of fast food.

All in all, because of their fast-paced society they have lost not only the time to cook a good meal, but also the ability to really appreciate a quality meal. While they may have a better understanding of nutrition, they rarely make use of that knowledge. Will America be the nation that is remembered for its need for speed and its dependence on fast food or is their hope that maybe they can change the way they live and eat. While they may never return to the glory days of the fifties when every meal was

lovingly prepared by the quintessential house wife, perhaps they can reshape their current culture to be more health conscious, not only in terms of what they eat but also in terms of how they live their day to day lives.

Bibliography

American Culture by Rachel L. 2002

Eating and Fast Food by Brian Peter P. 2002 Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser 2001 Monitor Staff by Bridget Murray 2001

The Fast Food Industry by Sara J. 2002

《家具与室内装饰》史雯桦2004