I was interested in the discussion on Radio 4 about McDonalds - who have now been in the UK for 40 years. I think it's particularly interesting the idea that they have caused (or at least significantly contributed to) a change of the nation's palette. It perhaps shows how if you don't take control of what you eat, then others will in order to make money out of you!
I do believe that many people do eat too much Salt, Fat and Sugar which both directly and indirectly results in poorer health.
The notion of "fast food" causing a break down in our eating routines, i.e. our meal times, is also pretty interesting. Again, it highlights how easy it is to pawn control of your eating, one way or another, out to commercial and big business interests.
I'm amazed that it's been 40 years. I've never eaten in one, but I can see the attraction of a cheap way of eating out. As you say, they have changed the nations palette. The author Michael Moss writes about how the combination of salt, sugar and fat has been deliberately designed to be addictive, to get you coming back for more.
The American way of eating seems to be set to take over the world!
Yes, I read that too... and it really doesn't surprise me. I have to say that, when my children were small we avoided all fast food and wouldn't afford it either. Unfortunately, once my son went off to uni he didn't resist any of it, with the consequence that now, in his middle years, he is struggling to change his tastes and eat healthily in order to avoid his own children becoming lured by the seductive nature of instant food gratification.
At the risk of sounding like an "old granny" (which I am!), I can remember the problem I had when sweets came off ration after WW2 and how doting grandparents gave me money "for sweets" which did spend every day twice, on the way to and from school at the corner shop. I am still suffering the consequences of that having a very sweet tooth.
Oh yes, it's amazing - when you actually bother to stop and look hard at it - just where you might have picked up 'bad' eating habits!
I often think of the fact that as children we so often were rewarded for 'good' (compliant?) behaviours with rewards that were food such as chocolate, ice-cream, sweets, cakes, etc.
How easy it is to believe that the only 'real' breakfast is a good old traditional English / Scottish / Irish fry-up.
Or to believe, because it happened all the time in your family, that super-sized portions are normal.
And sometimes deeply-entrenched eating habits, however unhealthy, can be hard to ditch. Even though they may be the very things causing you to be overweight.
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