The Soul of New Fast Food

By John Feffer, AlterNet. Posted October 20, 2005.

I've just ordered the Mixed Message salad at McDonald's. That's the Caesar salad of mostly iceberg lettuce, a couple grape tomatoes, a sprinkle of shredded parmesan, croutons, and a generous slab of fried chicken strips. The salad part is not bad for me, particularly since I opt for the low fat vinaigrette, courtesy of Paul Newman. The fried chicken strips, however, remind me that I'm in a fast food restaurant.

It's lunchtime, and I'm the only one in the place who seems to have ordered a salad. Should I feel good about my choice to forego a Big Mac and fries? Or should I feel guilty that I succumbed to the crispy chicken when I could have ordered the grilled version?

The crispy chicken Caesar is an apt metaphor for what's been going on in the world of fast food. Quick-service restaurants -- that's the official name for McDonald's, Burger King, and the like -- have long flirted with healthier options like salads and lower fat sandwiches. But in the last couple years, they've kicked their efforts up a notch. They've spent millions of dollars on splashy new product campaigns and have partnered with exercise gurus to get you off your butt and exercising.

Still, it's not like they've turned themselves into fat-free emporiums. Hamburgers, fried chicken, and greasy fries remain front and center in promotions and sales. And even the healthier options, with their gratuitous additions of fat or sugar, seem to have taken on the protective coloring of their environment.

Put Ronald McDonald on the couch and he'd confess to a serious identity crisis. "What am I, doc?" he'd ask his therapist. "Apple slices and aerobics or French fries and couch potatoes? Can you tell me what healthy fast food is, Doc? I'm worried that I've become just another oxymoron of popular culture, like educational television and eco-cruises."

The struggle within the fast food world may well be the latest chapter in the "cultural contradictions of capitalism" that sociologist Daniel Bell identified thirty years ago. Our Protestant ancestors whisper in one ear that we should scrimp and save and embrace austerity. Our modern corporate managers whisper in the other ear that if we don't shop, our economy will drop. Ronald McDonald oscillates between the two extremes, not Ronald light and dark, but Ronald lite and heavy. How will he resolve his very American McDilemma?

The Year of Eating Less Dangerously

Last year, America seemed to wake up from its fat-induced stupor. 2004 was the year of obesity lawsuits and reports that Big Food was poised to go the way of Big Tobacco. The movie Super Size Me engrossed and grossed out millions. The Center for Disease Control made headlines with its charge that America's fat problem was costing us over $100 billion a year. The Big Loser debuted on television and scored high enough in the ratings to prove that viewers prefer watching their fellow citizens lose weight to watching paint dry (hitherto considered a toss-up). Conservatives claimed that, like global warming and teenage pregnancy, America's expanding waistline was all a matter of personal responsibility. Everyone else pointed fingers at the logical suspects: the purveyors of burgers, fries and sodas.

Without acknowledging responsibility -- for that would cost big bucks in our litigious culture -- the chain restaurants did make some changes. McDonald's convinced celebrity dietician Bob Greene to walk and bike across the United States to promote its new adult happy meals. Burger King partnered with the President's Challenge Physical Activity Fitness Awards Program to encourage kids to exercise more. Ruby Tuesday put nutritional information all over its menu. With low fat, low sugar, and low carb diets each attracting their own sectarian followings, dieters and diabetics seemed to be the new, hot demographic.

But that was last year, and a year is a long time in the minds of marketers and media mavens, both of whom make a living by sifting through the tea leaves of popular culture to identify often spurious trends. Now, according to several high-profile reports, the chains have reverted to form. The turning point was Hardee's Monster Thickburger, which came on line at the end of 2004. "People were blown away by the audaciousness of it," says Jeff Mochal, public relations manager of Hardee's. "That's how we positioned it -- a monument to decadence. It was a time when a lot of people were going low carb, low fat or low something. But here we came out with a big, bold, audacious burger."

Hardee's was catering to a young male audience, the tried-and-true constituency for fast food. With its tie-ins with Sports Illustrated, Hardee's was suggesting that eating its megaburger was some kind of X-treme sport. In Jarhead, Anthony Swofford's memoir of the first Gulf War, the new recruits interpret even the most anti-war war movies as celebrations of combat. Similarly, a generation of young hungry guys sees Super Size Me as a how-to manual, its scare tactics on the level of Reefer Madness. For them, ordering Monster Thickburgers becomes the culinary equivalent of cliff jumping.

John Feffer is working on a book about the global politics of food.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Environment! Sign up now »