Fast food restaurants, a love-hate relationship! Just from the headline people start to frown. Yet, some might start to feel hungry. Are the traditional fast food chains just a big evil trying to impose their fat dripping junk on us, or do they fill a real need? No, they are not paying me for this article!

Special needs

Me and my son both suffers from Celiac Disease, also known as Gluten Intolerance. This means we cannot eat anything made from wheat, Rye, Barley or Oats. This makes travelling a challenge. During his teens he was a promising sport dancer and we traveled all around Sweden and even Europe for competitions. Training hard he needed food and the big fast food restaurants offered Gluten Free dishes.

Fast food chains

Is it tasty? No, not really but it is fast and it is consistent. If we just put the health aspect aside we came up with pros and cons for the three major chains along the roads in Sweden.

First the Swedish company Max who has the best fries. Actually tastes good and are not so greasy. A bit expensive but the serving speed is good. Best burgers, you will find at Burger King. Not really sure they qualify as fast food as the serving is quite slow. It is all in the sauce right. McDonalds, or the Donk, has the best Barbecue sauce. Very plain but the serving is generally fast.

Music and noise

Fast food restaurants is very noisy. Beeping cocking machines and loud guests. To top this of, loud music is also played. I do not know if this annoys me because I am from the country side. Are people in cities immune to background noise? The Donk plays modern music with somebody wailing away to a children’s chant. In BK it is similar while Max sticks out playing music from 70- and 80-ties, the decades when wailing was invented.

Why this stressful music? To get a fast flow of customers? Some may like this. Sit and listen to calmly digest their meal not build up to much flatulence? At any other restaurant you will probably hear some calm classical music. Check out my type of music, here.

Environment

So fast food chains are very fast on picking up on trends, or even creates them, and it is not all bad. More and more dishes are plant based and there are more healthy alternatives. Efforts are made to reduce food waste by cocking to order. Offering charging for electric cars. Some adoptions to trends seems more dishonest like not offering plastic straws. Still the plastic cup cover is there and they still fill up half the cup with ice.

So I think there is a place for the fast food restaurants but we need be aware of the choices we make with our health and the environment just as when we go to the local restaurant. Like, Subscribe, share and Comment.

• National Day
• Acrobat
• Smooth rock
• Spring green
• Backlit