Redirected from Fast food restaurant
There are also simpler fast-food outlets, like just a stand or kiosk, with or without shelter for customers, and with or without a few chairs to eat sitting.
Because of its convenience, fast food (also known as take-away food or take-out food) is very popular in many modern societies, but is often criticized on grounds of poor nutritional value (often contributing to obesity, derogatorily called junk food), exploitative advertising (especially directed at children), and other issues. A recent unsuccessful court case in the US over obesity raised this as a legal matter of liability, but was rejected on the grounds that the defendant should have known that fast food may be unhealthy.
Very often they are implicated in environmental damage, e.g., Burger King's use of beef raised in former Amazon Rainforest lands that had been cleared for cattle production. Some fast food restaurants have also become targets for opponents of globalization and for anti-American demonstrations.
Within the United States, fast food restaurants have been losing market share to so-called fast casual restaurants which offer somewhat better and more expensive foods. In 2002, the McDonald's Corporation posted its first quarterly loss.
Because of this reliance on monoculture, on foodstuffs purchased on global commodity markets and on its displacement of local eating habits, the fast-food industry is seen by many as destroying local styles of cuisine. It is often a focus of resistance (e.g., José Bové's bulldozing a McDonald's which made him a folk hero in France, or the "McShit" campaign in the UK).
For all these reasons, the Slow Food movement seeks to preserve local cuisines and ingredients, and directly opposes laws and habits that favor fast-food choices. Among other things, it strives to educate consumers' palates to prefer the richer and more varied local tastes of fresh ingredients harvested in season.
Although fast-food restaurants are often seen as a mark of modern technological culture, they are probably as old as cities themselves, with the style varying from culture to culture. Ancient Roman cities had bread-and-olive stands, East Asian cultures feature noodle shops, flat bread and falafel are characteristic of the Middle East.
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