August 18, 2021 • 47 mins
The idea of convenient snacks is as old as human civilization itself -- for example, excavations at ancient sites across the planet have recovered evidence of food stalls in markets and community hubs. But the modern age of fast food has taken convenience to unprecedented levels. In the first part of this week's two-part episode, the guys unpack the the history of fast food, along with why some critics seem dead-set against this gigantic global industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Paul,
Mission controlled dec and most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Oh well, it's been a pretty
interesting couple of weeks for us over here, fellow conspiracy realists.
(00:49):
Our collective day to day has been kind of like
a never ending action montage, and for many of us
listening today, the modern world is one example of that.
Sometimes it feels like you never get a break, despite
what the kit Cat commercials would have you believe, and
there's there's never enough time to do the things you
(01:10):
want to do or to do the things you need
to do. You know, we've got a lot of people
with kids in the audience to date not not know
you both are fathers yourselves, And do you ever get
to a point where you're like, I've gotta I gotta
feed this kid I gotta do something, who's gonna you know,
but I also have to do these other twelve things
(01:31):
before I cook. YEP, I call that nug time. Well yeah,
and it really is a problem because as a parent,
you want to feed your child the healthiest thing you
possibly can, but that takes time a lot of the time. No, no, no,
no, no no, that's accurate, Matt. But not only that. Like,
I don't know if a lot of nonparents out there
(01:51):
know this, but kids are very picky eaters. And my
kid's diet consists largely of things that I hide and
a ghetty, uh, and spaghetti and chicken nuggets. Try to
get the organic ones, you know, from the store, but
occasionally we'll go for those you know, weird molded McDonald's nugs,
(02:12):
which I think you're delicious, But um, there's a whole
lot to do that. Yeah, and those there, there's a
whole lot to those nuggets. Specifically, we have a poultry
episode in the future, don't we. But uh, this this
is something that doesn't just apply to those of us
in the audience who have children. This applies to everybody
(02:33):
who lives in most of modern society. I mean, consider
that post industrial age, people have regimented lunch breaks, right
if they're lucky enough to have a lunch break at all, uh,
And that's that means that at some point you'll have
what thirty minutes to eat and if you are like
(02:55):
many many people, that's just enough time to run to
the closest, fastest thing, and you know that sells stuff
to shove in your mouth. Shove that in your mouth,
and then maybe use the restroom, will wash your hands
before you go back to making widgets. And then you
you know, you have the alternative, which is you could
take out of your personal your free time another you know,
(03:19):
thirty minutes whatever to make yourself something to brown bag
into work. What we're saying is that people have historically
felt like there were not enough hours in the day
at some point, and this has only accelerated in the
modern age, which is, you know, if you're listening to
(03:41):
this podcast when it comes out, or if you're listening
to it hundreds of years from now. We hope it
doesn't sound silly when we call this the modern age,
but that's where we're at. Since ancient times, human beings
have been searching for more convenient solutions to this problem.
Of time in terms of like the necessity people have
to satisfy every twenty four hours. Food is no exception.
(04:04):
And that is why today all the conspiracy realist we're
talking about fast food. Uh, here are the facts. And
this is also, by the way, a side plug for
our weekly Strange News segment. Yeah. Recently we talked about
a new installation of sorts and historical installation that's going
(04:27):
to be available for tourists in Pompeii. It's just a
great example of an early fast food like store or
a stall right where you could quickly go up to
a counter, get what you needed in food form, and
then take it away. And it was just fascinating for
us to look at that something that exists for us
(04:50):
right now still existed two thousand years ago, not in
exactly the same form, but in a similar enough way
that we could recognize it easily. And uh, it made
us think about the future for sure. Yeah, Thermo Polium
I think it was called, right, Uh, hot food and
drink shop. That was the one where if the wine
(05:13):
was tasting off, they had these fermented fava beans they
would throw it. So people were still trying to get
over on each other even back then. You know, one
thing this reminds me of two in terms of fast
food is something that we've come across in our other show,
Been Ridiculous History. There was something, I think it was
called like forever stew where like taverns would literally just
(05:34):
have this constant boiling pot of whatever and they would
just add to it and it never depleted. They would
just keep putting garbage into it, and people would just
get a lad love it when they'd come in and
stay for the night. But it like literally was just
out all the time. Um. And that's you know, not
too far off form what's done in fast food restaurants.
(05:55):
I mean, okay, obviously there are sanitary more sanitary conditions
and protocols and all of that, but you know, it's
the same deal with if you think about like the
burgers that stay out under those heat lamps you know,
all day, or the nugs that stay in those like
giant bins or those trays and those like racks. Yeah,
and it's really interesting, you guys. Yeah, I see exactly
what you're saying there, and all I just was trying
(06:17):
to visualize this, Ben, and I want to put this
out there, see what you think about this picture I
want to paint because we're really talking about as humans
go from gathered somewhere in a small even a village
like before, village very a very small amount of area
covered by the group of humans living in one place,
(06:38):
and the food sources are usually right outside of that
area or even within contained within in some places where
if you've got you know, cattle or sheep or chickens
or whatever you're keeping. Um As as humans develop into
more and more dense living conditions, right with industrialization these
kinds of things, the food sources are pushed further and
(07:00):
further from the center of where the humans are gathering, right,
So then you have to have that food source kind
of push. It has to come into the city, into
the village, into the town, the castle, whatever it is.
And that's why you need these places like that stall
in Pompeii where the food is now available in here,
but it's not in the same form that it was
(07:22):
when it was you know where it's originating in that
more raw form. Yet you nailed it, Matt. That's very
I mean, very well said. First, Also, uh, you know
you're right about you're right about the stew and if
we're going to be optimistic, we have to say that statistically,
you know, food, uh, sanitation aside, right, hygiene aside, there
(07:44):
had to be at least a few a few moments
where that stew was unexpectedly the bomb. You know, it
was good stew. It reminds me of Carl Weathers and
UH in Arrested Development, where he he saves the ball
from his chicken and then he says, well it does
you take this? You put it a little, put it
(08:04):
in a pot of hot water. You got yourself a
stew going I do that? Yeah, but but but yes,
guys are absolutely right the because there there is something
that the stew and the transportation problem have in common,
which is, uh, something must be kept edible somehow. So
(08:24):
when we're talking about this, this transportation problem starting shortly
after human beings uh started adapting stationary lifestyles, meaning no
longer nomadic hunter gathering. But now it's like, hey, we're
farming stuff. We could just stay here and build things
and live in them. This uh, this is the beginning
(08:47):
of urban development, and that's really the beginning of fast
food as we know it today. The related to each
other the same way that maybe a t rex is
related to a chicken. There's a lot out in between.
But like you're saying, Matt, you're living in a city,
whether an ancient city or a city today. And if
(09:09):
you're like the majority of human beings today, you live
in an urban area. You are running into the same
problem as the ancient Romans, as people in the ancient
Middle East ancient China, which is you have less personal space,
and that has become accelerated in huge metro areas like Tokyo.
You probably aren't going to have room to raise your
(09:31):
own chickens or grow your own rue to begas uh.
There's also less room to prepare food in your average
domicile or a house, and there's a lot at stake
with that. S T a k e. Because you know,
if you're cooking in a really small area and it's
not ventilated, you and you know you're fried and something oil, etcetera, etcetera.
(09:52):
If something goes wrong, you could have a smell that
stinks up the whole apartment building, like a macro cosmic
leve bowl of the old what's the thing people complain
about in office working situation, microwaving seafood. It's like that,
but now it's everybody's house, or you could actually burn
(10:13):
that structure down. And of course, like you were saying
that people lived in cities far far before the Industrial Revolution,
ancient Rome actually had these cramped, multi story apartments where
these people, the people living in them, did visit foodstalls constantly.
It was like a daily thing, because where are you
(10:35):
gonna do. You're not gonna cook it, You're not gonna
grow those beans you got you got room to make
wine and these in your squat exactly. And that's the
thing too, Ben, I think me and you in particular,
I know that you also like to cook, but we
sometimes take for granted that some people either don't have
the time or the interest or the wherewithal to cook
(10:56):
or learn to cook, or they're just playing not good
at it. Um. So I've definitely met people who are
just mystified by cooking and just literally eat all of
their meals in prepackaged form or out. Uh. And then
if if out is your thing, then oftentimes you're not
gonna always be able to do a sit down meal
for you know, lunch breaks for example, So you are
(11:16):
gonna end up doing fast food quite often. And it's
very much become part of this kind of like you know,
uh rat racey kind of American lifestyle. But it's also
become a big part of at least recently since the pandemic.
Choosing not necessarily fast food, but choosing to eat food
from a prepared restaurant or or a fast food chain
(11:37):
right near you is a way of supporting your own
community in a cool way, I would say. And everybody
got into baking, right, making bread? Uh yeah, I mean
it is. It is a good a very good point.
And you can make a point if if you want
to be a little more philosophical about it, you can
(11:59):
make a point about my fullness, right and how we
how we approach uh, the necessities of life. Because you
can talk about people cooking their own food, but we
know that, with some exceptions, a lot of a lot
of folks should probably know aren't making their own clothes,
They're not building their own houses, you know what I mean?
(12:21):
So where where is the line of the mindfulness versus
the convenience versus the investment, the the idea of buying
uh for a the idea of buying food for a purpose?
Also philosophical right to support one's community is is not new,
but it definitely encountered a resurgence here in Atlanta for sure,
(12:44):
but in many places throughout the US. Matt, I think
you're specifically talking about when a local restaurant that usually
had people come in and eat would sell like here
is a prepackaged family meal for four people, right, just exactly,
But really it's it's um from where the foods originating
(13:05):
to where it ends up to that stew to how
we're supporting our local communities is really interesting. How this
thing food and how to get it quickly to yourself
and your family, just everything touches it or destroying your
local communities. So yeah, so long story short, a cities
(13:28):
were around way before the Industrial Revolution. Be people who
lived in those cities, which were all across the world,
you know, on the continent of Africa and the continent
of Asia or in western Europe, parts of the Middle East.
People who lived in these dense urban agglomerations had access
(13:49):
to pre made foods from stalls and vendors. These were
not apartment buildings where everybody was like growing their own
stuff and only eating that that is silly. So basically
street food. Street food has been around for a long time.
So fast food maybe fast, but it is not new.
(14:09):
The emergence, though, of what we call modern fast food
is tied one to one with the Industrial Revolution and
in the US very much to World War two. UM
is when we see a huge takeoff. And I propose
that we take a moment, uh for a word from
(14:30):
our sponsors, and uh I will return with more on
the history of fast food and it's troubling future. We
are back the evolution of fast food. UH. This you
(14:50):
can trace it in a couple of different ways. First,
there's the idea of what is called the self served restaurant.
The first of these, Noel, since you were once upon
a time a small German boy, let's see stuck auto
mattin restaurant nailed it, nailed it. So that's that's that's
(15:14):
an automat. That's what they would call it. The U
s right. That was in Berlin in eight the very
first one. And you guys, can we briefly describe an
automatt I literally have no idea what this is? Yeah,
you do, Matt. It's sort of like a retro uh
futuristic kind of form of like you know, a restaurant, um,
where you have either a conveyor belt situation that's feeding
(15:38):
some kind of grab and go type situation, right, or
it's these little windows where you put in a buck
and then you open the window and you pull out
the sandwich or a piece of pie. Um. The modern
equivalent to us here would maybe be that Kura Sushi
franchise that they have out in an area here in
Atlanta called Buford Highway, where it is literally a conveyor
(15:58):
belt with different plates sushi that come around and you
grab the one you want, and then you are charged
based on the plates that you feed into this little dispenser.
So it's very you get prizes, you gotta get the prizes,
and there's like a little animated character that does cool
things the more you get um. But yeah, it's an
interesting concept, and it does feel like at the time
(16:20):
they're like, this is the wave of the future. But
I'm sure those sandwiches would sit in there for quite
some time, probably not under the best refrigeration conditions, and
I bet you they were kind of gross unless you
had like people constantly refreshing them and hanging out behind
the scenes. That's just my theory. I hate gas station
sandwiches all the time. When I'm on the road. Uh
(16:41):
like that's exactly y yeah. Yeah. So all you do
is like in the beginning, you you know, you put
in your nickel or quarter or whatever your inflation rate is,
and then you would push the button and you'd open
the little glass window like, Hi, here's my piece of pie.
I'm so lonely or whatever they say. At a place
like The Dark City has a great example. I just
wander yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. It reminds me of
(17:05):
the maybe the modern full equivalent to that is in
the airport. They've got a lot of these stations where
there it's just like you're talking about a convenience store
where there's a bunch of sandwiches that you just grab
one you pay for right there. But that's it. That's
literally the transactions. You grab it and you pay for it. Yeah,
so that's that's. Uh, that's one of the evolutions of
modern fast food. But there's the other idea, the idea
(17:28):
of a fast food outlet the way we understand them today.
I'm in a hurry, I gotta go to work. My
kid won't be quiet, and they only eat one of
three things, so I've got to zip in, zip out,
of this place. It's not going to be like a restaurant.
I don't have to sit down. I don't have to,
(17:49):
you know, contemplate a menu. What will be the appetizer,
what will be dessert? What are the specials? Could you
tell me about a little more about this tomato calum fee? No,
I'm gonna go up to this counter. I'm gonna I'm
probably gonna have like a numbered list of things I
can pick from. Right, a combo meal there set. Uh.
(18:12):
This this is what we think of when you think
of modern fast food, and you'll often hear people call
White Castle the first fast food outlet. It began in Wichita, Kansas,
nineteen sixteen as a bunch of like Hamburger stalls. Hamburgers
are still, by the way, the number one like most
consumed fast food. Uh. And then it was officially founded
(18:33):
as White Castle in one. Selling burgers at this point
was not a big deal, you know what I mean? Like,
it wasn't. They weren't like to the first. They weren't
the first people to the the uh to do the
moon landing equivalent here, They didn't. They weren't the first
people serving hamburgers. But what they were was the first
(18:54):
people standardizing absolutely everything first time in history. You go
from one White Castle to the next, they did their
best to make them indistinguishable. Yeah, and that's the thing
about fast food and the whole franchise and the larger
the scaling rather is what you would refer to this
as like the larger the company is, the more important
it is that their practices be identical and that their
(19:17):
hours be predictable, and that it would be something that
everyone knows no matter which insert fast food chain x
here you go to and whatever part of the country
or even the world. Though in the world there are
going to be some smaller changes um in terms of
like the types of menu items. There might be some
like regional things available in certain you know spots, but
in general, uh, it's all about that predictability and that
(19:40):
ritualization of going to your fast food chain of choice
and knowing exactly what you're going to get. Yeah. The chain,
I think is the most important word there, right because
really what the what White Castle did, what all of
these fast food companies do, is they build a supply
chain where or they're getting everything from. And it's because
(20:02):
it's not just the meat, it's not standardized meat or
you know whatever that is that goes inside. It's the buns,
it's the equipment that's used to make those things, right,
to cut the French fries or to get the French
fries already cut in a factory somewhere. It's it's how
all of that stuff moves into each individual outlet that
(20:23):
becomes standardized. Yeah. Yeah, it's the paper products, right, It's
it's the uniforms. It's the predictability of the hours. And
that's strange because there's an anonymization of this. You know,
the person at that counter could be ending. Is every person.
(20:44):
It's it's very different from the idea, the prevail prevailing
idea of local restaurants at the time, where they would
it would be like I always know that um, Thelma
or Janice or Ernie or Oscar is going to be
at the counter, and they always know how I like
my uh the coffee and uh the coffee and and
(21:09):
burger whatever they have coffee to burger at the same time.
For me, that's the diner experience and maybe I just
have a soft spot in my heart for it. But
like somebody you know that knows what you like, and
it's still a pretty fast turnaround for food, but it's
it's way more. Yeah, the the being anonymized like that
you are no longer a human being who is who
(21:33):
knows my stuff? You just as a company. Know what
I like, and all I have to do is say
a number and then say make it a large. Yeah,
I like. I like a restaurant where they treat me
like a meme, you know, where like the door dings
and you hear somebody softly say, oh lord, he's coming,
and then then they're like, just throw in the French fries,
(21:54):
throw in the chicken wings, put on hollow Mountain King.
This is a very weird diner are describing. But anyway,
you're right, you're right. This is what happened. They made
the first fast food supply chain, and we'll have to
explore that in this or a future episode. This was
objectively impressive. Not necessarily good for the world, but objectively impressive.
(22:17):
It's kind of like when Henry Ford choked out his
anti semitism just long enough to really figure out the
assembly line, Like he took an afternoon off and and
and focused on something else for like just a second,
and now we have the assembly line and the fast
Food Um operation was very very much like this a
(22:40):
white Castle, and they even had a specialized wing of
the company dedicated just to building white castles so that
they can make sure every building looked kind of the same.
And today there's a guy you may have heard of,
Ray Kroc k r o C. It's a lot of
(23:00):
attention for doing the same thing with McDonald's through something
they called the Speedy Service System sp E E d
e E. Crucial crucial branding there, right, crucial branding. Uh,
And that's I don't know if you yeah, I wouldn't
call it a rip off, but it's definitely heavily inspired
by and built a pond what White Castle had already
(23:22):
been doing back in the twenties and thirties. That standardization,
that is the whole mark of modern fast food. But
that's that's fast food history and there's nothing necessarily conspiratorial
about that today. It's just it's just a pattern of
people wanting faster solutions to the problem of I don't
(23:43):
have enough time. So that problem is still with people
in what does it mean? What does it mean now?
Is fast food is fast food of fat? You guys, Yeah,
I don't think so. I think it's become like ingrained
in our very culture. Um, like we were talking about earlier,
but in many ways by necessity. I mean, you know,
(24:05):
the area of town here in Atlanta that I live
in is what you would call a food desert um,
where there are very few fresh produce you know stores.
I mean there's you know, there's a Publix, and there's Kroger,
but they're a big, good ten minute drive away. And
if you don't have a vehicle, um, and you're just
on foot. The immediate area where I live, Uh, it's
(24:25):
largely populated with gas stations and fast food joints. Um.
So yeah, exactly. So it really is kind of you know, uh,
potentially nefarious, um, you know, an opportunistic because some areas
that have less developments and are may be con seen
as being a little more dangerous you know by the
(24:45):
powers that be, You're not going to see as much
development of those types of restaurants. But fast food joints
they look at that as an opportunity. Yeah. Fast food
is a leviathan because it directly addresses one of the
fun to mental needs of existence for human beings. Uh.
And it is profitable despite a global pandemic. Actually, fast
(25:09):
food did pretty well during the pandemic. Global fast food
revenue right now is greater than five hundred and seventy
billion dollars. For comparison, when we talked about advertising in
a past episode, Uh, that global revenue ran into about
three hundred something well around round about three and three
(25:34):
hundred fifty ish during sixties billion dollars. Uh. Fast food
dwarfs that and the US fast food industry alone, their
revenue is about a hundred and ten billion dollars a year.
And we have people who work in the fast food
service and associated service industries listening to the show today
(25:57):
rightly thinking a hundred and ten billion dollar dollars a year.
Uh what what? What? Where is all that money going, right,
because it's certainly not going to me and my coworkers,
and that is another problem with fast food. Here's a
statistic that I think I read the book this that
(26:18):
states this statistic, and I originally didn't believe it, but
it does check out. If you live in the United States,
of children in your country between the age of three
and nine go to McDonald's at least once a month. Yeah,
it's just to get the new toy the happy Meal.
(26:39):
Oh man, I love him. I love and they still
let you buy those if you're an adult. But uh,
you know, you get some looks. The move is to
pretend you have a kid at home. Yeah, but but
you're right that the reason why we even bring that
up is because it sounds pretty crazy. That's that's a
lot of McDonald's eating at least one a month, right
(27:01):
for for nine of children, because there are a lot
of kids, And um, I wonder if it yeah, anyway,
we don't, we don't have to get into some of
the stuff that I want to talk about right now,
let's keep let's continue going down this line. So that
book is Fast Food Nation, The Dark Side of the
All American Meal, by an author named Eric Schlausser, highly recommended.
(27:24):
You should be able. It's been used as a textbook
in colleges, which why am I bringing that up. That
means that there are going to be a lot of
very inexpensive copies of that book because a lot of
people just got rid of it when they were done
with school. And so we'll pause for a moment for
a word from our sponsors to give you time to
(27:47):
read the book in its entirety. And we're back. How
about that book? Good job, y'all. Are some speed readers
out there, part of the part of the helicopter in
the background their votes as well. I don't know if
(28:07):
I don't know if anybody can't hear it, But we're
not an ideal sound set up at at this moment,
at least on my end. But we are in reach
of fast food because there are very few places in
the US that are not in reach of fast food,
or very few places where humans habitually live that don't
have some kind of fast food um fast food outlet
(28:30):
near them. As a matter of fact, as of twenty nineteen,
all of the top ten fast food brands in the
world come from the good old US of A. We're
not just talking to McDonald's. We're talking the Starbucks. We're
talking the subways. Subway, by the way, has the highest
amount of physical locations the planet, more than the dods. Yeah,
(28:56):
it makes sense because they seem to find their ways
in two places like wall marts and other larger stores.
There's why is there subway here to the pedagon but
they closed it. I think I wonder how that deal works.
You're right, though, there always are subways in Walmart stores
and and no others. That's really really interesting. Um yeah,
(29:18):
I mean, and I didn't realize Ben, you you found
this amazing stat about the three largest companies, one of
which is a Chinese holding company um that deal in
fast food McDonald's, Starbucks, and Yum China Holdings, which hold
the market caps in the business McDonald's being number one
with one hundred and forty four point six billion, Starbucks
(29:41):
being number two with eighty eight point three billion, and
Yum China Holdings with nineteen point seven billion. And that
one is really fascinating me because I looked it up
and they you know, they have a lot of like
traditional kind of more like Chinese hot pot type places
that you'd only find in Asia. But they obviously cornered
the market and bought the frame shines rights to Pizza
hut Uh and Taco bell Um and if you and
(30:06):
KFC excuse me, which which is huge in in Asia
as we know, right, Ben, we did an episode on
Ridiculous History about the Metholic sization got that out of
Colonel Sanders Um in Japan in particular, and like, uh yeah,
it was. It was a whole thing. There was Ristmas meal.
Christmas meal, That's what it was. Ben, Thank you. But
I love this. If you go to Young China holder
(30:28):
it's uh, it's uh I are dot Young China dot
com and you look at their brands uh Pizza Hu.
I love the story behind Pizza Hut. It says Pizza
Hut is the leading casual dining restaurant brand in China
as measured by system sales. It started from humble beginnings
over sixty years ago when the Carney brothers borrowed six
hundred dollars from their mom and set out to change
(30:49):
the way the world experiences pizza. Um. Pizza Hut came
to China and Beijing in nine and now there are
over twenty four hundred Pizza Huh restaurants and over five
hundred cities. But it literally it was the thing that
introduced uh fast casual American kind of pizza dining to Asia.
I mean Pizza Hut. I know we are going to uh,
(31:14):
we're going to say some disturbing and true things about
fast food in general in uh this this two part series.
But thanks for book it, Pizza Hut. Thanks thanks for
giving me the free pizzas and and the books. Dude,
it was worth it, you know, cheese spiracy aside book,
(31:35):
it made it worth it. Oh and then uh, let's
see what else, Yes, cheese spiracy. Oh. I guess what
you should say is thank you Yum Brands, because they're
they're one of those companies that owns a bunch of
things like fingers on a hand, that seemed to compete
(31:56):
with each other until you realize they all go back. Gosh,
but that's eight is true. And speaking of that, by
the way, Uh, A market cap, if anyone's confused, is
the total dollar value of a company's stock shares. That's
how big McDonald's is. That's how big Starbucks and Young
(32:17):
China are, their leviathans, their behemoths. Uh. Number four, by
the way, and just like any other sort of corporate list, uh,
number one is alway is outsized, Number three gets is
a distant third, and number four here is smaller comparatively
but still in the billions. This I thought was interesting.
(32:38):
It's a company, an outfit called Darden Restaurants, and they're
just like the way Noll you described Yum. They own
a ton of stuff you might have thought of as
separate companies. You're driving down a street, a main street
and any town, USA, and you see the olive garden,
you see the long corns. You might see the yardhouse,
(32:58):
and you might think those are by different people. They're not.
It's all. It's all the same company at the top.
It's all Darten, and Darden used to be part of
something even bigger. He used to be part of General Mills.
Uh yeah, I know this goes all the way to
the top of the cereal box. Wait a second, is
(33:19):
Appleby's a subsidiary of some other company? To no comment? No,
you know you guys. I had one good comedy idea
years and years ago when I was like in like
elementary school. We were doing like a talent show, and
I didn't really it was just an idea with nothing
to back it up, really, but it was General Mills
(33:39):
nine O two one oh um, where it was going
to be different cereals, like in a high school kind
of like romance type situation. It didn't really have any
further development from that, but I will always remember that idea,
General Mills night two one out. Let's make it. Let's
film the you know the way you get around that
and keep it as a sketchman. We just film it
(34:00):
as a trailer for the new season, as long as
it's not season one. Let's get really it's like season four. Yes, okay,
we're sorry, fellow conspiracy realists, please let us do that
one because it was Knowle's idea, So don't take it
from us, and don't take it from us the way
McDonald's took Whitecastle's idea, which they totally did well. But
(34:23):
it's one of those things, where is that really an
idea that one can own? Right? I mean it's sort
of like, uh, can you really own the wind? You know?
I mean, can you own standardization of food service? It's
certainly there was the first one to do it, but
it's hard to trade marker copyright a process like that.
You know. That's an interesting that's an interesting argument. Uh
(34:45):
it goes against preserving your awesome sketch idea. No, no,
that's no, that's pure intellectual property. And I have trademarked
that with the Library of Congress already. So let's see
if we get patent sketch commedy. So today the US also,
in addition to having the world's most successful fast food brands,
(35:07):
it has the world's largest fast food industry. You can
find American fast food restaurants in well over a hundred countries,
and it touches on geopolitics in a really weird way.
Have you guys ever heard the idea that it's called
the Golden Arches doctrine. Have you ever heard the idea
(35:29):
that if two countries both have McDonald's, they will not
go to war? Interesting, like like by some sort of
secret pact or just sort of by like the fact
that it represents something culturally. Well, it's the Yeah, it's
the idea that represents some cultural or capitalist criminality. Yeah. Yeah.
(35:54):
The idea here is that this was first proposed by
an economist who isn't perfect named Thomas Friedman. Was called
the Golden Arches theory of conflict prevention. And his argument said, uh,
people who live in McDonald's countries, as he called him,
(36:14):
don't like to fight wars. They like to wait in
line for burgers. And his his real argument was that
if you're a country that has a middle class large
enough to sustain something like that, they've reached a level
of prosperity that makes war risky and unpalatable. However, I'm
only bringing this up to completely bust it, to debunk it,
(36:40):
because look at the Kosovo War, those countries involved there
had McDonald's. But if you want to learn more about
this idea that has been debunked, do check out his
book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Anyway, it's a
really interesting idea. I would say it probably has more
to do with kind of what you said there, and
(37:02):
again I'm not an economist discuss probably very much right
for me, it would be more about the supply chain
that we've been describing here where in order to have
a McDonald's, you probably have a pretty good trade agreement
with another country. Uh maybe it's you know, but again
that wouldn't That would only be if we're talking about
war with the United States and or you know, whichever country,
(37:25):
like let's say it's McDonald's China maybe. Uh yeah, So
you know what, I just poked holes in my own argument.
Let's forget no, no, no, no, I think you would.
I think the best way to say it is it
hinges on one's definition of war. Right, the concept of
war is changing as well, So I don't thought war
never changes. I don't know, all right, Well, it didn't
(37:47):
until the most recent upgrade. You have to install the update.
Did you put in did you install your war update you? No?
I didn't. I think we're at three point oh now,
but dang, keep up, but keep up with war updates.
Jay's so the reason I bring this up is is
kind of set up for part two of our series
(38:09):
here when we Thomas Freeman is not correct in his
assertion that countries can be prevented from open warfare just
because they like the same fast food. But it is
true that fast food has a much larger, much more profound,
and perhaps much more insidious effect on economies than people
(38:34):
might believe. On economies and on culture and ultimately on
human beings. In some situations, fast food actually seems economically bulletproof.
We mentioned at the top of today's episode the coronavirus,
the COVID nineteen pandemic. Millions and millions and millions of businesses,
little mom and pop places had to close, They were
(38:56):
forced out, they had to shutter their door words even
even in countries that provided economic assistance um not like
the US, not like countries that pretended to provide economic
assistance to mom and pop places, but countries that actually
did that still wasn't enough for a lot of people,
(39:19):
and the opposite was true for fast food places. Just
like Matt said earlier, the idea of buying something prepackaged
was in terms of fast food, uh, it was seen
as healthier, more sanitary. You minimized your interaction with people
by going to a drive through. That's true, but also
(39:39):
like I mean, you know, fast food workers are handling
things and there is potential for you know, sneezes and such.
So to me, there was still some consternation around that
at first, I think, but then people kind of warmed
up the idea realized things weren't to be be transmitted
as much over surfaces. I'd to know, it's a weird
(40:00):
one that they were able to dodge that. I would
have personally thought, given that maybe some of these restaurants
maybe do take some shortcuts here and there, that people
maybe would have been a little more cautious, But apparently
that wasn't the case. I would say, it goes back
to standardizing things, right, So I'm imagining, and I saw
this in real time, that the standardizing of safety procedures
(40:23):
occurred across let's say McDonald's. My family went to McDonald's
while we were you know, locked down pretty heavily, and
it felt freely safe just when I mean, and when
you're just observing it, right, I have no idea what
exactly is happening happening back in the kitchen there, but
you know, according all the signage, according to what I'm
(40:44):
seeing the employees wearing, what they're doing, it felt very safe.
And then you imagine that that's being spread out across
the franchises as much as possible, very quickly, very quickly,
and very methodically. Now, and you're right, and they would
have been the first types of companies to institute mask
mandates for all of their employees instantly because they needed
(41:05):
to not lose that um confidence in the public. They
needed people to feel comfortable or else they could have
lost their bottom line very quickly. That is a fantastic point.
You know that, that's a profound point because the infrastructure,
the communications, the logistics were already there. Uh. These these
outfits already probably had a clear you know, um supply
(41:29):
chain opportunity for things like mask. So here's another problem
with this, though. The folks who worked in these in
these uh, for these companies, in these situations throughout the pandemic.
They were called essential workers. They were they were called
heroes because calling them heroes was a hell of a
(41:50):
lot easier than treating them like human beings or helping
them survive. You know what I mean, you can like
the make no mistake this, people who are posting stuff
on social media, at least in several instances, the same
people who are posting stuff on social media say here
are the real heroes, were probably treating those folks like
(42:11):
they were not human. When it came to the drive through,
why did I have to wait so long for my
number three? You know what I mean? I ordered the
small chicken nuggets. It's basically you and Hitler, you monstrous
cashier at the drive through. That's that's where we are like,
because you know, people are very very self centered. So
(42:33):
what we're saying, the reason this pandemic example is so
important is because we see a situation which the workers
were struggling, the customers were struggling, and the fast food outfit,
the company itself, the Capital C company, continued doing well.
It thrived. So to like, that's that's an interesting situation,
(42:57):
isn't it, Because usually for business to have to do well,
the customers would have to be doing okay. The employees
would probably be I don't know. Maybe the employees always
have to do well for company to do well. Actually
they don't, that's true. I talked to myself out of
my own point. There keep doing that, We keep doing that.
But in short, fast food has been around a long
(43:21):
long time. It has only grown, it continues to do.
So there's a very quick, very quick here's where it
gets crazy for today's episode, and it's this. You needed
to know the history of how we got here today
to know exactly what is going crazy, how it's going crazy,
(43:45):
and why it's going crazy now and in the future.
So tune in for part two of this series, where
we're going to talk a little bit more about the
present and the future. Uh the allegations true and untrue
about the fast food industry at large, assuming, of course,
(44:06):
we don't get pulled by uh big Fast, Big Fast. Okay,
is there someone named big Fast? Yeah, just just like
your favorite fast food chain. This episode is a combo meal.
You just have to wait, you know, a while before
(44:27):
you get the second part. The fries are coming later,
or maybe this was the fries. You're gonna get your
chicken sandwich, whichever one you like the best, because now
everybody's got a competing chicken sandwich. It's it's coming next week.
And uh, speaking of things on the way, we've got
part two of this series on the way to you.
In the meantime, we'd like you to have something on
(44:49):
the way to us. What is if you've made a
fast food restaurant, what would it be, what would it serve?
What do you think about fast food during the pandemic?
What do you think about the way people working at
those jobs were treated during the pandemic. We want to
hear from you. We try to make it easy to
find us online. That's right. You can find us on
(45:11):
the internet in the usual social media places of note
we are conspiracy stuff on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. On YouTube,
you can find daily video clips from each of our
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it on the internet, why not pop over to Apple
Podcasts and leave us a nice review. We would really
(45:32):
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(45:53):
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(46:14):
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(46:34):
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(46:57):
Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Paul,
Mission controlled dec and most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Oh well, it's been a pretty
interesting couple of weeks for us over here, fellow conspiracy realists.
(00:49):
Our collective day to day has been kind of like
a never ending action montage, and for many of us
listening today, the modern world is one example of that.
Sometimes it feels like you never get a break, despite
what the kit Cat commercials would have you believe, and
there's there's never enough time to do the things you
(01:10):
want to do or to do the things you need
to do. You know, we've got a lot of people
with kids in the audience to date not not know
you both are fathers yourselves, And do you ever get
to a point where you're like, I've gotta I gotta
feed this kid I gotta do something, who's gonna you know,
but I also have to do these other twelve things
(01:31):
before I cook. YEP, I call that nug time. Well yeah,
and it really is a problem because as a parent,
you want to feed your child the healthiest thing you
possibly can, but that takes time a lot of the time. No, no, no,
no, no no, that's accurate, Matt. But not only that. Like,
I don't know if a lot of nonparents out there
(01:51):
know this, but kids are very picky eaters. And my
kid's diet consists largely of things that I hide and
a ghetty, uh, and spaghetti and chicken nuggets. Try to
get the organic ones, you know, from the store, but
occasionally we'll go for those you know, weird molded McDonald's nugs,
(02:12):
which I think you're delicious, But um, there's a whole
lot to do that. Yeah, and those there, there's a
whole lot to those nuggets. Specifically, we have a poultry
episode in the future, don't we. But uh, this this
is something that doesn't just apply to those of us
in the audience who have children. This applies to everybody
(02:33):
who lives in most of modern society. I mean, consider
that post industrial age, people have regimented lunch breaks, right
if they're lucky enough to have a lunch break at all, uh,
And that's that means that at some point you'll have
what thirty minutes to eat and if you are like
(02:55):
many many people, that's just enough time to run to
the closest, fastest thing, and you know that sells stuff
to shove in your mouth. Shove that in your mouth,
and then maybe use the restroom, will wash your hands
before you go back to making widgets. And then you
you know, you have the alternative, which is you could
take out of your personal your free time another you know,
(03:19):
thirty minutes whatever to make yourself something to brown bag
into work. What we're saying is that people have historically
felt like there were not enough hours in the day
at some point, and this has only accelerated in the
modern age, which is, you know, if you're listening to
(03:41):
this podcast when it comes out, or if you're listening
to it hundreds of years from now. We hope it
doesn't sound silly when we call this the modern age,
but that's where we're at. Since ancient times, human beings
have been searching for more convenient solutions to this problem.
Of time in terms of like the necessity people have
to satisfy every twenty four hours. Food is no exception.
(04:04):
And that is why today all the conspiracy realist we're
talking about fast food. Uh, here are the facts. And
this is also, by the way, a side plug for
our weekly Strange News segment. Yeah. Recently we talked about
a new installation of sorts and historical installation that's going
(04:27):
to be available for tourists in Pompeii. It's just a
great example of an early fast food like store or
a stall right where you could quickly go up to
a counter, get what you needed in food form, and
then take it away. And it was just fascinating for
us to look at that something that exists for us
(04:50):
right now still existed two thousand years ago, not in
exactly the same form, but in a similar enough way
that we could recognize it easily. And uh, it made
us think about the future for sure. Yeah, Thermo Polium
I think it was called, right, Uh, hot food and
drink shop. That was the one where if the wine
(05:13):
was tasting off, they had these fermented fava beans they
would throw it. So people were still trying to get
over on each other even back then. You know, one
thing this reminds me of two in terms of fast
food is something that we've come across in our other show,
Been Ridiculous History. There was something, I think it was
called like forever stew where like taverns would literally just
(05:34):
have this constant boiling pot of whatever and they would
just add to it and it never depleted. They would
just keep putting garbage into it, and people would just
get a lad love it when they'd come in and
stay for the night. But it like literally was just
out all the time. Um. And that's you know, not
too far off form what's done in fast food restaurants.
(05:55):
I mean, okay, obviously there are sanitary more sanitary conditions
and protocols and all of that, but you know, it's
the same deal with if you think about like the
burgers that stay out under those heat lamps you know,
all day, or the nugs that stay in those like
giant bins or those trays and those like racks. Yeah,
and it's really interesting, you guys. Yeah, I see exactly
what you're saying there, and all I just was trying
(06:17):
to visualize this, Ben, and I want to put this
out there, see what you think about this picture I
want to paint because we're really talking about as humans
go from gathered somewhere in a small even a village
like before, village very a very small amount of area
covered by the group of humans living in one place,
(06:38):
and the food sources are usually right outside of that
area or even within contained within in some places where
if you've got you know, cattle or sheep or chickens
or whatever you're keeping. Um As as humans develop into
more and more dense living conditions, right with industrialization these
kinds of things, the food sources are pushed further and
(07:00):
further from the center of where the humans are gathering, right,
So then you have to have that food source kind
of push. It has to come into the city, into
the village, into the town, the castle, whatever it is.
And that's why you need these places like that stall
in Pompeii where the food is now available in here,
but it's not in the same form that it was
(07:22):
when it was you know where it's originating in that
more raw form. Yet you nailed it, Matt. That's very
I mean, very well said. First, Also, uh, you know
you're right about you're right about the stew and if
we're going to be optimistic, we have to say that statistically,
you know, food, uh, sanitation aside, right, hygiene aside, there
(07:44):
had to be at least a few a few moments
where that stew was unexpectedly the bomb. You know, it
was good stew. It reminds me of Carl Weathers and
UH in Arrested Development, where he he saves the ball
from his chicken and then he says, well it does
you take this? You put it a little, put it
(08:04):
in a pot of hot water. You got yourself a
stew going I do that? Yeah, but but but yes,
guys are absolutely right the because there there is something
that the stew and the transportation problem have in common,
which is, uh, something must be kept edible somehow. So
(08:24):
when we're talking about this, this transportation problem starting shortly
after human beings uh started adapting stationary lifestyles, meaning no
longer nomadic hunter gathering. But now it's like, hey, we're
farming stuff. We could just stay here and build things
and live in them. This uh, this is the beginning
(08:47):
of urban development, and that's really the beginning of fast
food as we know it today. The related to each
other the same way that maybe a t rex is
related to a chicken. There's a lot out in between.
But like you're saying, Matt, you're living in a city,
whether an ancient city or a city today. And if
(09:09):
you're like the majority of human beings today, you live
in an urban area. You are running into the same
problem as the ancient Romans, as people in the ancient
Middle East ancient China, which is you have less personal space,
and that has become accelerated in huge metro areas like Tokyo.
You probably aren't going to have room to raise your
(09:31):
own chickens or grow your own rue to begas uh.
There's also less room to prepare food in your average
domicile or a house, and there's a lot at stake
with that. S T a k e. Because you know,
if you're cooking in a really small area and it's
not ventilated, you and you know you're fried and something oil, etcetera, etcetera.
(09:52):
If something goes wrong, you could have a smell that
stinks up the whole apartment building, like a macro cosmic
leve bowl of the old what's the thing people complain
about in office working situation, microwaving seafood. It's like that,
but now it's everybody's house, or you could actually burn
(10:13):
that structure down. And of course, like you were saying
that people lived in cities far far before the Industrial Revolution,
ancient Rome actually had these cramped, multi story apartments where
these people, the people living in them, did visit foodstalls constantly.
It was like a daily thing, because where are you
(10:35):
gonna do. You're not gonna cook it, You're not gonna
grow those beans you got you got room to make
wine and these in your squat exactly. And that's the
thing too, Ben, I think me and you in particular,
I know that you also like to cook, but we
sometimes take for granted that some people either don't have
the time or the interest or the wherewithal to cook
(10:56):
or learn to cook, or they're just playing not good
at it. Um. So I've definitely met people who are
just mystified by cooking and just literally eat all of
their meals in prepackaged form or out. Uh. And then
if if out is your thing, then oftentimes you're not
gonna always be able to do a sit down meal
for you know, lunch breaks for example, So you are
(11:16):
gonna end up doing fast food quite often. And it's
very much become part of this kind of like you know,
uh rat racey kind of American lifestyle. But it's also
become a big part of at least recently since the pandemic.
Choosing not necessarily fast food, but choosing to eat food
from a prepared restaurant or or a fast food chain
(11:37):
right near you is a way of supporting your own
community in a cool way, I would say. And everybody
got into baking, right, making bread? Uh yeah, I mean
it is. It is a good a very good point.
And you can make a point if if you want
to be a little more philosophical about it, you can
(11:59):
make a point about my fullness, right and how we
how we approach uh, the necessities of life. Because you
can talk about people cooking their own food, but we
know that, with some exceptions, a lot of a lot
of folks should probably know aren't making their own clothes,
They're not building their own houses, you know what I mean?
(12:21):
So where where is the line of the mindfulness versus
the convenience versus the investment, the the idea of buying
uh for a the idea of buying food for a purpose?
Also philosophical right to support one's community is is not new,
but it definitely encountered a resurgence here in Atlanta for sure,
(12:44):
but in many places throughout the US. Matt, I think
you're specifically talking about when a local restaurant that usually
had people come in and eat would sell like here
is a prepackaged family meal for four people, right, just exactly,
But really it's it's um from where the foods originating
(13:05):
to where it ends up to that stew to how
we're supporting our local communities is really interesting. How this
thing food and how to get it quickly to yourself
and your family, just everything touches it or destroying your
local communities. So yeah, so long story short, a cities
(13:28):
were around way before the Industrial Revolution. Be people who
lived in those cities, which were all across the world,
you know, on the continent of Africa and the continent
of Asia or in western Europe, parts of the Middle East.
People who lived in these dense urban agglomerations had access
(13:49):
to pre made foods from stalls and vendors. These were
not apartment buildings where everybody was like growing their own
stuff and only eating that that is silly. So basically
street food. Street food has been around for a long time.
So fast food maybe fast, but it is not new.
(14:09):
The emergence, though, of what we call modern fast food
is tied one to one with the Industrial Revolution and
in the US very much to World War two. UM
is when we see a huge takeoff. And I propose
that we take a moment, uh for a word from
(14:30):
our sponsors, and uh I will return with more on
the history of fast food and it's troubling future. We
are back the evolution of fast food. UH. This you
(14:50):
can trace it in a couple of different ways. First,
there's the idea of what is called the self served restaurant.
The first of these, Noel, since you were once upon
a time a small German boy, let's see stuck auto
mattin restaurant nailed it, nailed it. So that's that's that's
(15:14):
an automat. That's what they would call it. The U
s right. That was in Berlin in eight the very
first one. And you guys, can we briefly describe an
automatt I literally have no idea what this is? Yeah,
you do, Matt. It's sort of like a retro uh
futuristic kind of form of like you know, a restaurant, um,
where you have either a conveyor belt situation that's feeding
(15:38):
some kind of grab and go type situation, right, or
it's these little windows where you put in a buck
and then you open the window and you pull out
the sandwich or a piece of pie. Um. The modern
equivalent to us here would maybe be that Kura Sushi
franchise that they have out in an area here in
Atlanta called Buford Highway, where it is literally a conveyor
(15:58):
belt with different plates sushi that come around and you
grab the one you want, and then you are charged
based on the plates that you feed into this little dispenser.
So it's very you get prizes, you gotta get the prizes,
and there's like a little animated character that does cool
things the more you get um. But yeah, it's an
interesting concept, and it does feel like at the time
(16:20):
they're like, this is the wave of the future. But
I'm sure those sandwiches would sit in there for quite
some time, probably not under the best refrigeration conditions, and
I bet you they were kind of gross unless you
had like people constantly refreshing them and hanging out behind
the scenes. That's just my theory. I hate gas station
sandwiches all the time. When I'm on the road. Uh
(16:41):
like that's exactly y yeah. Yeah. So all you do
is like in the beginning, you you know, you put
in your nickel or quarter or whatever your inflation rate is,
and then you would push the button and you'd open
the little glass window like, Hi, here's my piece of pie.
I'm so lonely or whatever they say. At a place
like The Dark City has a great example. I just
wander yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. It reminds me of
(17:05):
the maybe the modern full equivalent to that is in
the airport. They've got a lot of these stations where
there it's just like you're talking about a convenience store
where there's a bunch of sandwiches that you just grab
one you pay for right there. But that's it. That's
literally the transactions. You grab it and you pay for it. Yeah,
so that's that's. Uh, that's one of the evolutions of
modern fast food. But there's the other idea, the idea
(17:28):
of a fast food outlet the way we understand them today.
I'm in a hurry, I gotta go to work. My
kid won't be quiet, and they only eat one of
three things, so I've got to zip in, zip out,
of this place. It's not going to be like a restaurant.
I don't have to sit down. I don't have to,
(17:49):
you know, contemplate a menu. What will be the appetizer,
what will be dessert? What are the specials? Could you
tell me about a little more about this tomato calum fee? No,
I'm gonna go up to this counter. I'm gonna I'm
probably gonna have like a numbered list of things I
can pick from. Right, a combo meal there set. Uh.
(18:12):
This this is what we think of when you think
of modern fast food, and you'll often hear people call
White Castle the first fast food outlet. It began in Wichita, Kansas,
nineteen sixteen as a bunch of like Hamburger stalls. Hamburgers
are still, by the way, the number one like most
consumed fast food. Uh. And then it was officially founded
(18:33):
as White Castle in one. Selling burgers at this point
was not a big deal, you know what I mean? Like,
it wasn't. They weren't like to the first. They weren't
the first people to the the uh to do the
moon landing equivalent here, They didn't. They weren't the first
people serving hamburgers. But what they were was the first
(18:54):
people standardizing absolutely everything first time in history. You go
from one White Castle to the next, they did their
best to make them indistinguishable. Yeah, and that's the thing
about fast food and the whole franchise and the larger
the scaling rather is what you would refer to this
as like the larger the company is, the more important
it is that their practices be identical and that their
(19:17):
hours be predictable, and that it would be something that
everyone knows no matter which insert fast food chain x
here you go to and whatever part of the country
or even the world. Though in the world there are
going to be some smaller changes um in terms of
like the types of menu items. There might be some
like regional things available in certain you know spots, but
in general, uh, it's all about that predictability and that
(19:40):
ritualization of going to your fast food chain of choice
and knowing exactly what you're going to get. Yeah. The chain,
I think is the most important word there, right because
really what the what White Castle did, what all of
these fast food companies do, is they build a supply
chain where or they're getting everything from. And it's because
(20:02):
it's not just the meat, it's not standardized meat or
you know whatever that is that goes inside. It's the buns,
it's the equipment that's used to make those things, right,
to cut the French fries or to get the French
fries already cut in a factory somewhere. It's it's how
all of that stuff moves into each individual outlet that
(20:23):
becomes standardized. Yeah. Yeah, it's the paper products, right, It's
it's the uniforms. It's the predictability of the hours. And
that's strange because there's an anonymization of this. You know,
the person at that counter could be ending. Is every person.
(20:44):
It's it's very different from the idea, the prevail prevailing
idea of local restaurants at the time, where they would
it would be like I always know that um, Thelma
or Janice or Ernie or Oscar is going to be
at the counter, and they always know how I like
my uh the coffee and uh the coffee and and
(21:09):
burger whatever they have coffee to burger at the same time.
For me, that's the diner experience and maybe I just
have a soft spot in my heart for it. But
like somebody you know that knows what you like, and
it's still a pretty fast turnaround for food, but it's
it's way more. Yeah, the the being anonymized like that
you are no longer a human being who is who
(21:33):
knows my stuff? You just as a company. Know what
I like, and all I have to do is say
a number and then say make it a large. Yeah,
I like. I like a restaurant where they treat me
like a meme, you know, where like the door dings
and you hear somebody softly say, oh lord, he's coming,
and then then they're like, just throw in the French fries,
(21:54):
throw in the chicken wings, put on hollow Mountain King.
This is a very weird diner are describing. But anyway,
you're right, you're right. This is what happened. They made
the first fast food supply chain, and we'll have to
explore that in this or a future episode. This was
objectively impressive. Not necessarily good for the world, but objectively impressive.
(22:17):
It's kind of like when Henry Ford choked out his
anti semitism just long enough to really figure out the
assembly line, Like he took an afternoon off and and
and focused on something else for like just a second,
and now we have the assembly line and the fast
Food Um operation was very very much like this a
(22:40):
white Castle, and they even had a specialized wing of
the company dedicated just to building white castles so that
they can make sure every building looked kind of the same.
And today there's a guy you may have heard of,
Ray Kroc k r o C. It's a lot of
(23:00):
attention for doing the same thing with McDonald's through something
they called the Speedy Service System sp E E d
e E. Crucial crucial branding there, right, crucial branding. Uh,
And that's I don't know if you yeah, I wouldn't
call it a rip off, but it's definitely heavily inspired
by and built a pond what White Castle had already
(23:22):
been doing back in the twenties and thirties. That standardization,
that is the whole mark of modern fast food. But
that's that's fast food history and there's nothing necessarily conspiratorial
about that today. It's just it's just a pattern of
people wanting faster solutions to the problem of I don't
(23:43):
have enough time. So that problem is still with people
in what does it mean? What does it mean now?
Is fast food is fast food of fat? You guys, Yeah,
I don't think so. I think it's become like ingrained
in our very culture. Um, like we were talking about earlier,
but in many ways by necessity. I mean, you know,
(24:05):
the area of town here in Atlanta that I live
in is what you would call a food desert um,
where there are very few fresh produce you know stores.
I mean there's you know, there's a Publix, and there's Kroger,
but they're a big, good ten minute drive away. And
if you don't have a vehicle, um, and you're just
on foot. The immediate area where I live, Uh, it's
(24:25):
largely populated with gas stations and fast food joints. Um.
So yeah, exactly. So it really is kind of you know, uh,
potentially nefarious, um, you know, an opportunistic because some areas
that have less developments and are may be con seen
as being a little more dangerous you know by the
(24:45):
powers that be, You're not going to see as much
development of those types of restaurants. But fast food joints
they look at that as an opportunity. Yeah. Fast food
is a leviathan because it directly addresses one of the
fun to mental needs of existence for human beings. Uh.
And it is profitable despite a global pandemic. Actually, fast
(25:09):
food did pretty well during the pandemic. Global fast food
revenue right now is greater than five hundred and seventy
billion dollars. For comparison, when we talked about advertising in
a past episode, Uh, that global revenue ran into about
three hundred something well around round about three and three
(25:34):
hundred fifty ish during sixties billion dollars. Uh. Fast food
dwarfs that and the US fast food industry alone, their
revenue is about a hundred and ten billion dollars a year.
And we have people who work in the fast food
service and associated service industries listening to the show today
(25:57):
rightly thinking a hundred and ten billion dollar dollars a year.
Uh what what? What? Where is all that money going, right,
because it's certainly not going to me and my coworkers,
and that is another problem with fast food. Here's a
statistic that I think I read the book this that
(26:18):
states this statistic, and I originally didn't believe it, but
it does check out. If you live in the United States,
of children in your country between the age of three
and nine go to McDonald's at least once a month. Yeah,
it's just to get the new toy the happy Meal.
(26:39):
Oh man, I love him. I love and they still
let you buy those if you're an adult. But uh,
you know, you get some looks. The move is to
pretend you have a kid at home. Yeah, but but
you're right that the reason why we even bring that
up is because it sounds pretty crazy. That's that's a
lot of McDonald's eating at least one a month, right
(27:01):
for for nine of children, because there are a lot
of kids, And um, I wonder if it yeah, anyway,
we don't, we don't have to get into some of
the stuff that I want to talk about right now,
let's keep let's continue going down this line. So that
book is Fast Food Nation, The Dark Side of the
All American Meal, by an author named Eric Schlausser, highly recommended.
(27:24):
You should be able. It's been used as a textbook
in colleges, which why am I bringing that up. That
means that there are going to be a lot of
very inexpensive copies of that book because a lot of
people just got rid of it when they were done
with school. And so we'll pause for a moment for
a word from our sponsors to give you time to
(27:47):
read the book in its entirety. And we're back. How
about that book? Good job, y'all. Are some speed readers
out there, part of the part of the helicopter in
the background their votes as well. I don't know if
(28:07):
I don't know if anybody can't hear it, But we're
not an ideal sound set up at at this moment,
at least on my end. But we are in reach
of fast food because there are very few places in
the US that are not in reach of fast food,
or very few places where humans habitually live that don't
have some kind of fast food um fast food outlet
(28:30):
near them. As a matter of fact, as of twenty nineteen,
all of the top ten fast food brands in the
world come from the good old US of A. We're
not just talking to McDonald's. We're talking the Starbucks. We're
talking the subways. Subway, by the way, has the highest
amount of physical locations the planet, more than the dods. Yeah,
(28:56):
it makes sense because they seem to find their ways
in two places like wall marts and other larger stores.
There's why is there subway here to the pedagon but
they closed it. I think I wonder how that deal works.
You're right, though, there always are subways in Walmart stores
and and no others. That's really really interesting. Um yeah,
(29:18):
I mean, and I didn't realize Ben, you you found
this amazing stat about the three largest companies, one of
which is a Chinese holding company um that deal in
fast food McDonald's, Starbucks, and Yum China Holdings, which hold
the market caps in the business McDonald's being number one
with one hundred and forty four point six billion, Starbucks
(29:41):
being number two with eighty eight point three billion, and
Yum China Holdings with nineteen point seven billion. And that
one is really fascinating me because I looked it up
and they you know, they have a lot of like
traditional kind of more like Chinese hot pot type places
that you'd only find in Asia. But they obviously cornered
the market and bought the frame shines rights to Pizza
hut Uh and Taco bell Um and if you and
(30:06):
KFC excuse me, which which is huge in in Asia
as we know, right, Ben, we did an episode on
Ridiculous History about the Metholic sization got that out of
Colonel Sanders Um in Japan in particular, and like, uh yeah,
it was. It was a whole thing. There was Ristmas meal.
Christmas meal, That's what it was. Ben, Thank you. But
I love this. If you go to Young China holder
(30:28):
it's uh, it's uh I are dot Young China dot
com and you look at their brands uh Pizza Hu.
I love the story behind Pizza Hut. It says Pizza
Hut is the leading casual dining restaurant brand in China
as measured by system sales. It started from humble beginnings
over sixty years ago when the Carney brothers borrowed six
hundred dollars from their mom and set out to change
(30:49):
the way the world experiences pizza. Um. Pizza Hut came
to China and Beijing in nine and now there are
over twenty four hundred Pizza Huh restaurants and over five
hundred cities. But it literally it was the thing that
introduced uh fast casual American kind of pizza dining to Asia.
I mean Pizza Hut. I know we are going to uh,
(31:14):
we're going to say some disturbing and true things about
fast food in general in uh this this two part series.
But thanks for book it, Pizza Hut. Thanks thanks for
giving me the free pizzas and and the books. Dude,
it was worth it, you know, cheese spiracy aside book,
(31:35):
it made it worth it. Oh and then uh, let's
see what else, Yes, cheese spiracy. Oh. I guess what
you should say is thank you Yum Brands, because they're
they're one of those companies that owns a bunch of
things like fingers on a hand, that seemed to compete
(31:56):
with each other until you realize they all go back. Gosh,
but that's eight is true. And speaking of that, by
the way, Uh, A market cap, if anyone's confused, is
the total dollar value of a company's stock shares. That's
how big McDonald's is. That's how big Starbucks and Young
(32:17):
China are, their leviathans, their behemoths. Uh. Number four, by
the way, and just like any other sort of corporate list, uh,
number one is alway is outsized, Number three gets is
a distant third, and number four here is smaller comparatively
but still in the billions. This I thought was interesting.
(32:38):
It's a company, an outfit called Darden Restaurants, and they're
just like the way Noll you described Yum. They own
a ton of stuff you might have thought of as
separate companies. You're driving down a street, a main street
and any town, USA, and you see the olive garden,
you see the long corns. You might see the yardhouse,
(32:58):
and you might think those are by different people. They're not.
It's all. It's all the same company at the top.
It's all Darten, and Darden used to be part of
something even bigger. He used to be part of General Mills.
Uh yeah, I know this goes all the way to
the top of the cereal box. Wait a second, is
(33:19):
Appleby's a subsidiary of some other company? To no comment? No,
you know you guys. I had one good comedy idea
years and years ago when I was like in like
elementary school. We were doing like a talent show, and
I didn't really it was just an idea with nothing
to back it up, really, but it was General Mills
(33:39):
nine O two one oh um, where it was going
to be different cereals, like in a high school kind
of like romance type situation. It didn't really have any
further development from that, but I will always remember that idea,
General Mills night two one out. Let's make it. Let's
film the you know the way you get around that
and keep it as a sketchman. We just film it
(34:00):
as a trailer for the new season, as long as
it's not season one. Let's get really it's like season four. Yes, okay,
we're sorry, fellow conspiracy realists, please let us do that
one because it was Knowle's idea, So don't take it
from us, and don't take it from us the way
McDonald's took Whitecastle's idea, which they totally did well. But
(34:23):
it's one of those things, where is that really an
idea that one can own? Right? I mean it's sort
of like, uh, can you really own the wind? You know?
I mean, can you own standardization of food service? It's
certainly there was the first one to do it, but
it's hard to trade marker copyright a process like that.
You know. That's an interesting that's an interesting argument. Uh
(34:45):
it goes against preserving your awesome sketch idea. No, no,
that's no, that's pure intellectual property. And I have trademarked
that with the Library of Congress already. So let's see
if we get patent sketch commedy. So today the US also,
in addition to having the world's most successful fast food brands,
(35:07):
it has the world's largest fast food industry. You can
find American fast food restaurants in well over a hundred countries,
and it touches on geopolitics in a really weird way.
Have you guys ever heard the idea that it's called
the Golden Arches doctrine. Have you ever heard the idea
(35:29):
that if two countries both have McDonald's, they will not
go to war? Interesting, like like by some sort of
secret pact or just sort of by like the fact
that it represents something culturally. Well, it's the Yeah, it's
the idea that represents some cultural or capitalist criminality. Yeah. Yeah.
(35:54):
The idea here is that this was first proposed by
an economist who isn't perfect named Thomas Friedman. Was called
the Golden Arches theory of conflict prevention. And his argument said, uh,
people who live in McDonald's countries, as he called him,
(36:14):
don't like to fight wars. They like to wait in
line for burgers. And his his real argument was that
if you're a country that has a middle class large
enough to sustain something like that, they've reached a level
of prosperity that makes war risky and unpalatable. However, I'm
only bringing this up to completely bust it, to debunk it,
(36:40):
because look at the Kosovo War, those countries involved there
had McDonald's. But if you want to learn more about
this idea that has been debunked, do check out his
book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Anyway, it's a
really interesting idea. I would say it probably has more
to do with kind of what you said there, and
(37:02):
again I'm not an economist discuss probably very much right
for me, it would be more about the supply chain
that we've been describing here where in order to have
a McDonald's, you probably have a pretty good trade agreement
with another country. Uh maybe it's you know, but again
that wouldn't That would only be if we're talking about
war with the United States and or you know, whichever country,
(37:25):
like let's say it's McDonald's China maybe. Uh yeah, So
you know what, I just poked holes in my own argument.
Let's forget no, no, no, no, I think you would.
I think the best way to say it is it
hinges on one's definition of war. Right, the concept of
war is changing as well, So I don't thought war
never changes. I don't know, all right, Well, it didn't
(37:47):
until the most recent upgrade. You have to install the update.
Did you put in did you install your war update you? No?
I didn't. I think we're at three point oh now,
but dang, keep up, but keep up with war updates.
Jay's so the reason I bring this up is is
kind of set up for part two of our series
(38:09):
here when we Thomas Freeman is not correct in his
assertion that countries can be prevented from open warfare just
because they like the same fast food. But it is
true that fast food has a much larger, much more profound,
and perhaps much more insidious effect on economies than people
(38:34):
might believe. On economies and on culture and ultimately on
human beings. In some situations, fast food actually seems economically bulletproof.
We mentioned at the top of today's episode the coronavirus,
the COVID nineteen pandemic. Millions and millions and millions of businesses,
little mom and pop places had to close, They were
(38:56):
forced out, they had to shutter their door words even
even in countries that provided economic assistance um not like
the US, not like countries that pretended to provide economic
assistance to mom and pop places, but countries that actually
did that still wasn't enough for a lot of people,
(39:19):
and the opposite was true for fast food places. Just
like Matt said earlier, the idea of buying something prepackaged
was in terms of fast food, uh, it was seen
as healthier, more sanitary. You minimized your interaction with people
by going to a drive through. That's true, but also
(39:39):
like I mean, you know, fast food workers are handling
things and there is potential for you know, sneezes and such.
So to me, there was still some consternation around that
at first, I think, but then people kind of warmed
up the idea realized things weren't to be be transmitted
as much over surfaces. I'd to know, it's a weird
(40:00):
one that they were able to dodge that. I would
have personally thought, given that maybe some of these restaurants
maybe do take some shortcuts here and there, that people
maybe would have been a little more cautious, But apparently
that wasn't the case. I would say, it goes back
to standardizing things, right, So I'm imagining, and I saw
this in real time, that the standardizing of safety procedures
(40:23):
occurred across let's say McDonald's. My family went to McDonald's
while we were you know, locked down pretty heavily, and
it felt freely safe just when I mean, and when
you're just observing it, right, I have no idea what
exactly is happening happening back in the kitchen there, but
you know, according all the signage, according to what I'm
(40:44):
seeing the employees wearing, what they're doing, it felt very safe.
And then you imagine that that's being spread out across
the franchises as much as possible, very quickly, very quickly,
and very methodically. Now, and you're right, and they would
have been the first types of companies to institute mask
mandates for all of their employees instantly because they needed
(41:05):
to not lose that um confidence in the public. They
needed people to feel comfortable or else they could have
lost their bottom line very quickly. That is a fantastic point.
You know that, that's a profound point because the infrastructure,
the communications, the logistics were already there. Uh. These these
outfits already probably had a clear you know, um supply
(41:29):
chain opportunity for things like mask. So here's another problem
with this, though. The folks who worked in these in
these uh, for these companies, in these situations throughout the pandemic.
They were called essential workers. They were they were called
heroes because calling them heroes was a hell of a
(41:50):
lot easier than treating them like human beings or helping
them survive. You know what I mean, you can like
the make no mistake this, people who are posting stuff
on social media, at least in several instances, the same
people who are posting stuff on social media say here
are the real heroes, were probably treating those folks like
(42:11):
they were not human. When it came to the drive through,
why did I have to wait so long for my
number three? You know what I mean? I ordered the
small chicken nuggets. It's basically you and Hitler, you monstrous
cashier at the drive through. That's that's where we are like,
because you know, people are very very self centered. So
(42:33):
what we're saying, the reason this pandemic example is so
important is because we see a situation which the workers
were struggling, the customers were struggling, and the fast food outfit,
the company itself, the Capital C company, continued doing well.
It thrived. So to like, that's that's an interesting situation,
(42:57):
isn't it, Because usually for business to have to do well,
the customers would have to be doing okay. The employees
would probably be I don't know. Maybe the employees always
have to do well for company to do well. Actually
they don't, that's true. I talked to myself out of
my own point. There keep doing that, We keep doing that.
But in short, fast food has been around a long
(43:21):
long time. It has only grown, it continues to do.
So there's a very quick, very quick here's where it
gets crazy for today's episode, and it's this. You needed
to know the history of how we got here today
to know exactly what is going crazy, how it's going crazy,
(43:45):
and why it's going crazy now and in the future.
So tune in for part two of this series, where
we're going to talk a little bit more about the
present and the future. Uh the allegations true and untrue
about the fast food industry at large, assuming, of course,
(44:06):
we don't get pulled by uh big Fast, Big Fast. Okay,
is there someone named big Fast? Yeah, just just like
your favorite fast food chain. This episode is a combo meal.
You just have to wait, you know, a while before
(44:27):
you get the second part. The fries are coming later,
or maybe this was the fries. You're gonna get your
chicken sandwich, whichever one you like the best, because now
everybody's got a competing chicken sandwich. It's it's coming next week.
And uh, speaking of things on the way, we've got
part two of this series on the way to you.
In the meantime, we'd like you to have something on
(44:49):
the way to us. What is if you've made a
fast food restaurant, what would it be, what would it serve?
What do you think about fast food during the pandemic?
What do you think about the way people working at
those jobs were treated during the pandemic. We want to
hear from you. We try to make it easy to
find us online. That's right. You can find us on
(45:11):
the internet in the usual social media places of note
we are conspiracy stuff on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. On YouTube,
you can find daily video clips from each of our
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(45:32):
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(45:53):
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You have three minutes to leave a message after you
(46:14):
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(46:34):
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(46:57):
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