Fast Food Restaurant Research

10 points

Love is many things,
but more than anything
it is a disturbance of the digestive system.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez
February 14, 1995



Each day approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population eats at a fast food restaurant. The reasons for partonizing such establishments are convenience (they are everywhere), perceived lack of time to shop and prepare meals at home, fast food's taste and texture, the need to mollify nagging children, and cost.

Since fast food is so popular and prevalent, it is healthful to know the nutrient content of the fast food you consume. So...

Go to your favorite fast food restaurant and ask the service-person for a copy of the brochure listing the nutritional content of that establishment's foods. Follow the Instructions below and submit to the instructor your responses to the questions. (If you do not patronize such establishments, do the assignment as a service to someone who does and share the information with her or him).

Instructions

  1. Choose a fast food meal that is typical for you and list meal's components
  2. Refer to the restaurant's brochure, and for each of the meal's components list...
    • total calories
    • grams of protein
    • total grams of fat
    • total grams of saturated fat
    • mg of cholesterol
    • mg of salt
    • grams of fiber
  3. Calculate the dollar cost of the energy content of the meal (divide total calories by the total cost). This tells you how much bang (ie: energy) you are getting for your buck.
  4. Referring to Question 6 of Personal Vital Statistics, what percentage of your estimated daily calories is contributed by this meal?
  5. Describe your experience obtaining the company's brochure at the restaurant.
  6. List the reasons you patronize this establishment.
  7. How frequently do you patronize fast food restaurants?
  8. What did you learn from this assignment?

Note: Fast Food Nutrition Facts lists the nutrient composition of fast foods. Whereas it is possible to analyze the data for this assignment with that web-tool, it is more interesting and makes you a better health consumer if you go personally to the restaurant and ask for the data.