Unhealthy Food Choices We Make Today - Are They Unavoidable?

When you’re hungry, or even if you’re not all that hungry, and you walk over to the fridge to look for something to eat, what are you picturing? A nice, fresh salad, or your favorite snack – maybe some Oreos, a type of candy you haven’t had in a while, or Doritos? By the time you reach the fridge, you are probably most likely to pick the snack – it’s sweet, maybe salty and crunchy, and you know it will electrify your senses, triggering inner satisfaction with every bite.

As Schlosser states in his book Fast Food Nation, “Without the flavor industry, today’s fast food industry could not exist” (Schlosser 684 (Source 1)). As a society, we seem to always be looking for something to instantly satisfy our taste buds. And many processed foods offer just that.

Processed foods have come to make up the majority of our diets. Not all of us are constantly seeking them out, but they have become largely unavoidable and we are faced with no choice but to buy them. They are readily available, so we put them in our mouths without even thinking, and it’s not until then that we realize that the choice we just made probably wasn’t the best. It has become so normal to eat unhealthy food that we don’t really even give a second thought about most of our food – how it was made, where it came from, or why it’s going to expire by the end of the week - so long as it tastes good.

Schlosser states in his Introduction to his novel that buying fast food “has become so routine. . . that it is now taken for granted” (Schlosser 3 (Source 2)). When we want a hamburger, we can get it in the blink of an eye – just whip around the McDonald’s drive-through and you’re off. Healthy, unprocessed, organic food, however, is much harder to find, and we don’t always try to seek it out. Not only that, but organic food tends to hold unfamiliar horizons. As Schlosser states in his Introduction to his book, “Customers are drawn to familiar brands by an instinct to avoid the unknown” (Schlosser 5 (Source 2)). When we walk into the grocery store, we almost always have something in mind if want something sugary, or if we’re craving something cheesy and crunchy. Just go over to the next isle and grab a bag of Cheetos.

Is it all that bad to want something processed, something that’s maybe not the best choice? From the extensive research and evidence dug up over the years, it has been proven that our food choices lead to many consequences.

It isn’t until after we’ve finished our snack or meal that we realize what we just ate, or how much of it we engorged in. The daily, mindless choices we make each mealtime come with larger consequences that are not readily seen. As a result, our nation has developed an unhealthy diet, and many are addicted to fast food. Many people have become obese and developed diabetes. The consequences for our seemingly small splurges in the small picture are actually adding up to very harmful consequences for us all.

Works Cited

Schlosser, Eric. “Fast Food Nation.” American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic

Recipes. Ed. Molly O’Neill. New York, NY: Literary Classics of the United States, 2009.

683-693. Print.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001. Print.