August 20, 2021 • 48 mins
Fast food restaurants have spread across the globe -- and this industry's effect goes far beyond convenient fries or refillable soda. In the second part of this two-part series,
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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 all they call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul. Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. I am still coming to
you from an undisclosed location over the Pacific. Hope to
(00:45):
be returning soon. But it's good to see some familiar
faces here, some familiar voices. This is part two, an
hour two parts maybe ongoing series on fast food conspiracies,
and we talk about some of these before. But in
our first first episode on this series, we needed to
(01:07):
establish some things about the history of fast food, we
needed to establish some things about the present of fast food,
and it was pretty much all a here or the
facts episode. But these facts we're crazy. So when we're
we're going to give you a brief recap here or
give you some time to hear episode one, and there
(01:30):
we go. So you're caught up through the magic of
through the magic of podcasting. This is one of those
episodes that we talked about extensively off air. Uh, and
you know, hopefully you talked about it with your friends,
maybe with your pals on Here's where it gets crazy
extensively as well, primarily because food is one of the
(01:52):
basic needs of human beings, whether prince or pauper, and
it's one of the great commonalities therefore that people discuss.
And here are the facts. When get to the world
of standardization of food, the industrialization, the mass production of food.
We see things that have great potential for for positive
(02:17):
outcomes for human beings, and then great potential for terrible,
terrible things. Guys, what were some of the things that
really stuck with you from part one of this series?
For me, it's all about that supply chain and the
effects that that ends up having on all kinds of things,
from how the chickens are actually produced to make their
(02:39):
way to a KFC, because the chicken that you sell
at KFC has to be uniform, it's got to be
the same chicken. You can't do that from a bunch
of local farms. Uh. That kind of thing is really
going to show up in this episode. It also makes
me think of, like there are exceptions to this, right,
So you have like places like in an out Burger
for example, that UH really own and operating their supply chain,
(03:02):
and it's very they only will build restaurants within driving
distance of their warehouses where they keep their meat because
it's in the insist that it's never frozen, um, which
is you know, a thing. And that's why I like
in and out Burger has kind of also got this
like exclusivity around it because you can't find one everywhere.
There isn't one in every airport, which I think is
kind of an interesting juxtaposition with some of these much
(03:23):
larger scaled kind of chains. Yeah, and then we also
we didn't talk about it too much, but we alluded
to the outsize cultural influence that these financial giants can
have on people. Whether or not you have ever set
foot in uh, you know, in a particular fast food chain,
(03:47):
it can have an effect on you. McDonald's will be
one of those that has an effect on your life
in multiple countries, whether or not you've ever been to
with McDonald's. And if you are for and since a
person identifying its lgbt Q, then you will be affected
(04:07):
by Chick fil A, whether or not you go there,
whether or not you care, because they spend a great
deal of money lobbying to discriminate against people who identify
in that way. This it's bigger than burgers, you know
what I mean. It's it's it's a supersized set of conspiracies.
There we go, and when we look at the future
(04:29):
of fast food, we see a lot of spin. We
see a lot of controversy because at the same time
modern fast food grew into a national and then an
international phenomenon, concerns about this the consequences of this system
began to spread as well. You know, one thing we
didn't do in episode one is we didn't talk about um.
(04:51):
We mentioned very briefly post World War two economic boom,
but we didn't mention how fast food came into play there.
And just to show that up pretty quickly. Part of
it is the emergence of going out to eat as
a normal thing. People used to always eat at home,
and people do still frequently eat a hole as in
(05:14):
like a big meal. You might go out and get
a taco or some you know, some street corn or
rowtie or a stack of some sort in many parts
of the world. But the idea of going out to
a restaurant spending money, you know, outside of a grocery
store or market sold for food, it was pretty extraordinary
(05:36):
to a lot of people. But the post World War
two economic boom in the US, all of a sudden,
you could afford a car, right, you could buy a house.
You could also go out to eat, you know, once
a month, which is pretty predict stefan, if you're one
certain segment of the population. Yes, yeah, that's a good point. Yes, uh.
(05:58):
And we we have to be care not to airbrush
that or look through rose colored glasses when talking about
that time. So critics also in the fast food world
would argue, this is bad for local businesses. You know
what I mean, this is taking money for its resource extraction, right,
it's taking money from a local community which is going
(06:22):
somewhere else. That's not always true necessarily in a franchise model,
which is a franchise model is where someone becomes an
owner operator of just like what's the name of a
fast food place? Made up a reel? I've got a
made up one? When he use that, is it bluba dubble? Yes,
it's blump a Dubba Burger. So so, so Noel, can
(06:45):
I can I get one blub double double please? Yes? Yeah.
So Noel Brown is a in this scenario. He is
an enterprising young man. Uh. He has saved up money,
he's invested stein in a business, and he says, you
know what did really well during the pandemic, blahbla dubba Burgers.
(07:06):
So I am going to start my own blah blah
bubba franchise. And what he does is he pays the company,
you know, Young Brands, China Holdings or whatever that owns
blahbadubba Burgers. Oh sorry, Illumination Global Unlimited ultimately owns blah
blah Bubba, and so he pays them for the right
(07:26):
to have a blah bah dubba Burger bodega located in
in his place. And now he makes he gives them
a cut of the burger, a piece of the burger.
For every dollar he makes, they get a specific amountain
and he takes stuff home. But that also gives him
(07:46):
the ability and gives the company the ability to say, hey,
we know that Global Illumination Unlimited has been implicated in
some other things, but Blahba dubba Burgers is not, They're
just owned by them. And you know, guys, it's me.
(08:08):
I'm no, I'm I'm a small town guy just like you.
You know, I go to the same car wash, I
go to the same cock fights. I put on my pants.
You like back of legs. You know, we're in the
same Ultimate Frisbee League. Yes, so so which is just
(08:28):
a metaphor for being part of the human race, right, yes, yes,
everything at some point becomes a metaphor. Uh. And this
this is interesting now because we see that happening with
the franchise ees in um in controversial things like we
mentioned earlier, Chick fil A has there like they invest
(08:50):
in um in pushing for legislation that discriminates against a
certain portion of the US population. But then if you're
a franchise owner in say a place like Decatur, just
outside of Atlanta, then you'll you'll say, look, I'm not
part of this. We're actually all about investing in our
local community here where your Chick fil A, despite the
(09:14):
fact that we are Chick fil A. And this is crazy.
It's it's an example of how critics will say these
things have too much power. To also say that these
companies these fast food companies target the poor on multiple levels,
as consumers, as employees, as suppliers of produce or live stuck.
(09:35):
And they'll say they also pose serious health risks to consumers.
But it goes deeper than that, and that's what we're
talking about in part two. I mean, Matt, you've been
I've been studying your your facial expressions as as we're
talking through this as I'm kind of like monologueing using
using nol as an example. Uh, and No, I think
(09:57):
you would be an awesome franchise his owner than I
try to be really personal. I try to really be
out there amongst the people, you know, not letting this
soule like fast food and presario deal go to my head.
By the way, I appreciate the study, but really what
I was thinking about the whole time was bloodbacue sauce.
And I really just thought like, there's a way to
(10:18):
work that in, and I was trying to find a
place of working in. But then I was like, you
know what, I'll let it be. No, we needed bloody
que sauce. Uh right, because was that mushoe sauce did
a lot for Rick and Morty and uh, that's it.
(10:38):
So we need we need blumpy que sauce, he flump
it up a burgers. We need to fill this entire
episode with with references too. We're going to talk about
some very disturbing things today, folks. Uh, and equally disturbing
perhaps will be the Bloba Dubba menu that we're building
out here, plump and of a compos Anyway, this what
(11:03):
we're saying is it goes much deeper than the surface concerns.
Today we're asking what's the dark side of fast food?
Here's where it gets crazy very quickly. Twelve minutes in,
twelve minutes in, and we're crazy. Uh. Well, we held
off the whole first episode. I mean, I think the
whole episode is crazy, but we didn't have that turn
(11:24):
of the screw, so we saved that for for right now. Yeah. Well,
and that that turn really is how much is a
fast food chain bringing to your local community in the
form of jobs, in the form you know, of tax
dollars paid to your local community, and how much is
it taking away? So what we've been talking about this
(11:45):
kind of this whole conversation to the top here, but really,
how much is it taking taking away from your local
economy and where does it go. And that's really one
of the major issues with a large national or international
fast food chain. Yeah, let's start there. Let's start with
the true stuff. We'll do the true stuff, we'll do
(12:06):
the fun stuff, will do the that you should be
scared of. Uh, and we'll do them in that order.
So the true stuff exactly to your point, Matt. Spoiler alert,
fellow conspiracy realists, it is everything we just mentioned. Uh,
fast food, like any other big supply chain giant like
a Walmart, can have a damaging effect on local businesses.
(12:29):
And this did accelerate during the pandemic the way we
mentioned during part one of this series. Numerous restaurants, numerous
local restaurants didn't have those corporate level deep pockets. They
weren't able to weather this economic plague. And that made
your taco bells, your subways and so on the only
(12:50):
game and the block on the block that doesn't make
them insidious, you know. And this really isn't this really
isn't necessarily a day get fast food. This is an
examination of things that certain people would rather you not
know about, whether they're at Blahba Dubba or they're at
a boardroom somewhere. Yeah, and I agree, And I think
(13:13):
one of the main reasons why these larger chains with
these depockets made it through is because they aren't relying
specifically on the sales of burgers and chicken and frugs
and drinks. Right. You could argue that secondary to their
to their actual business model, which is sort of like
almost hidden. It is. It's very much hidden from the
(13:34):
consumer level. But if you know you're trading in McDonald's
stock or with some other large fast food chain stock,
you know exactly what's going on, because when revenue reports
come out, it's all about the buildings that they own,
the land that they own, and making money as a
giant corporation that way. So if a an economic downturn occurs,
(13:57):
they're not going to have to do, you know, sell
a bunch of locations because that's where their money is.
Their money is in the location. But for a mom
and pop store, they've got that one brick and mortar, right,
And if you're not making enough money from the product
the hamburgers out of your small fast food chain, even
if it's fast food or a diner or something, if
you're not making enough money week to week month over month,
(14:21):
then you're not going to be able to support your
business and simply pay rent. Yeah, let's drive straight to that.
So you're McDonald's, you're the big clown or the Golden Arches.
I guess big clown is not what you would refer
to yourself, as would you. It would be like move
move aside, Burger King, the big clowns coming. Well, we
(14:42):
call Disney the mouse. I think we could call Mncdonald's
the clown clown. Yeah, that's true. And although you notice
they've moved away from him, and yeah, it's just I
was gonna say they've moved away from the whole pantheon
of characters. But one thing that people should know about
McDonald's is that, just like Matt's example, they have real
(15:04):
estate assets. It's a huge part of the business. Right now,
McDonald's has more than thirty billion dollars in real estate assets.
And this like if you look at numbers. Business Week
did something really interesting. They looked at sales per location
of a McDonald's and they said, all right, that's two
(15:25):
point seven million dollars per store per year one point
seven million in gross profits. So that's where you take
out food paper costs, but then you add other expenses rent, payroll, advertising, etcetera, etcetera,
and so the take home for like the take home
amount of money for a single franchise e was around
(15:47):
a hundred and fifty four thousand a year, but that's
wrapped up in these real estate deals. It's sort of
like how a lot of people don't know that Target
made a ton of money back in the day selling
their security systems to other businesses. I don't know if
you've ever looked at the ceiling of a Target. If
(16:09):
you're in there, but there are cameras everywhere. They're not
they're not playing. They really yeah, they really want to
keep those I don't when they sell it targets, widgets,
widgets and targets they only they used Yeah, they used
to only sell targets. A lot of Legos in there.
There are a lot of Legos. They're very expensive legos. Man. Yeah,
(16:29):
I'm always faking, like I think you mentioned this on
the show recently. I'm always faking like I'm quote unquote
on the phone asking about what I should get some
hypothetical kid that doesn't exist. I always make up a
name that I think is interesting too, you know, I'm
always like, what does Jeremiah want? Like does Archer like
Star Wars Lego? Sometimes I want to turn to the
(16:51):
other adult in the aisle and be like, we both
know I'm Archer. You know, we both know I'm the
Jeremiah here anyway. So what we're saying is that a
lot of these companies are making money in ways that
they do not necessarily. They don't necessarily want to be
publicized to the average person, you know what I mean.
(17:12):
They don't want you. They don't want you to drive
by the billboard and instead of seeing a sign for
you know, the newest Combo or the mic Ribbs back
or something like that, they don't want you to see
a sign that says we make billions off real estate. Also,
we serifries. So I propose we pause for a word
(17:34):
from our sponsor, and then we returned to look at
some more of these true and distressing things and maybe
even talk about the real estate a little bit more,
and we're back. Let's yeah, let's stay on real estate
for just a moment here. I think it's just something
that I never understood. A lot of people didn't understand
(17:56):
until it was for me. I was made aware of
it when I watched that docu mentory about Ray Kroc.
I think it's called the Founder. We've mentioned it before
on this show, but just as a way of illustrating that,
when you've got that large umbrella corporation and you've got
all these franchise ease that want to make some money,
and you can become like Ben said, I think it
(18:17):
is one hundred fifty thousand roughly yearly or something like
that that you'd expect to make as a franchise e
um take home. But you know, people want to have
access to that. That's a great way to you know,
it's a lot of money in a way to build
something for your family, for yourself, whoever you're you're fighting
for there. But when you imagine that that big umbrella
(18:38):
corporation is has a tendril of rent attached to each
one of these franchise ease that they're building out, and
then you realize that McDonald's Corporation is actually deciding what
land is going to be purchased using their algorithms to
figure out the distance between the closest McDonald's, and then
you realize that they're the ones that actually buy that
(18:58):
land and control it. You're just running shop there and
selling some burgers and making some money, and they still
get a nice big on top of whatever you make
on your burgers. Um the situation for the person that
actually runs, they say owns and operates, and we say
total misnomber right, But like they own the concept of
(19:19):
McDonald's in that space, but they do own they're leasing it,
I know, but it's like, it's just it's very strange
to think. I've got a great quote for you guys.
So this is from former McDonald's CFO Chief financial Officer
Harry J. Solnburn Uh. He told investors this quote, we
(19:42):
are not basically in the food business. We're in the
real estate business. The only reason we sell fifteen cent
hamburgers is because they are the greatest producer of revenue
from which our tenants can pay us rent. That is
the CFO saying. It's also also full disclosure we've done
donalds AT's personally. I think it's important to point that out. Also,
(20:04):
I think it's important to note that it is not
illegal for a fast food company to also be a
real estate company. They're not breaking the law. They're just there.
It's not something you're gonna learn at the counter of
that establishment. Well, and it's also a corporation that isn't
just throwing you know, all of those profits away. They're
doing some pretty great stuff with it in the form
of charities. So it's like every every fast food chain,
(20:28):
every big company like that, has a lot of aspects
to it. Doesn't mean we always agree with everything they do.
Doesn't mean we were against everything they do, right, I
thought you said aspects like the jelly stuff that used
to be really popular. Yeah, yeah, so maybe that's something
like maybe that's something for our company. Blah up up
burger aspect? Oh god, who would order that? Did I say?
(20:53):
And you said you clearly said aspects. It's just like
very early in the morning where I am so Matt.
I'm sorry. I think I I derailed the point you
were making there. I'm sorry. No, I just can't get
those jellies out of my head. I know we talked
about you and I talked about eels not long ago. First,
I think, and I think you're ready for this jelly. No, No,
(21:14):
I'm not. Oh man, Yeah, I don't know if we
want to be ready for that jelly. You know what
I mean? This is a pretty pretty heavy, weird stuff.
But what we're what we're saying is that you might
be surprised by how many of these establishments that you
(21:36):
think simply, you know, simply sell an affordable meal. Uh,
you might be surprised by where their fingers are in
different in different corporate interests. And you know it's not
because the whole reason we're talking about this was with
regards to the pandemic, right, and how all these local
businesses just failed, just so many dropped like flies because
(21:59):
they couldn't they couldn't survive to make enough money to
continue paying rent. And like, how else does that affect
a community when it's a big multinational corporation inside your
your town and all of your local businesses are gone.
What does that do? I don't know. I think there's something,
(22:21):
there's something on a level and operating level above just
economics that that does to people when you look around
and there's nothing but all of these logos for chains
and stuff, and there's no like, I don't know, individual character, right,
because we had the whole conversation last episode about when
you go into a diner, there's Oliver, and Oliver knows
(22:43):
exactly what you want to order every time you walk
into that diner. It's an individual experience. Um. Now it's
it is as individual even though it's an individual human
being with a life and a story. At that counter
at the Wendy's, that person is a Wendy's employee, right,
and that that is you're getting the Wendy's menu, the
(23:04):
Wendy's employee, the Wendy's experience. Well, there's a I think
also there's a larger issue of homogeneity at play in
can go to various talents from one inner state, exit
one state to the next, see much the same thing, right,
and UH, as those propagate, Uh, you could argue that
the towns themselves or the communities lose some of what
(23:27):
makes them unique. It's a little bit of a philosophical
rather than a quantitative point. But I don't think that
makes it any less valid. Let's also not forget to
your point, Matt, about the experience or like you're you're
you're buying the experience of the commonality of all of
these different franchises rather than individual personalities. Uh. There is
a statum that oftentimes fast food restaurants UH lose about
(23:50):
a hundred percent of their workers from year to year.
So the turnover is so enormous, largely because they're considered
kind of stop gap jobs for a lot of people, uh,
whether younger people just getting out of high school or
you know, people that are like in kind of a
transitional period. Certainly not something that you would consider a career.
But then of course there are folks that are less
(24:12):
fortunate that do rely on those jobs. But even then
anything that came along would probably be preferable to that.
So you are not going to go in there expecting
to see anybody because from you know, week to week
that those faces could change. And that's in the US,
right correct, where labor laws are different, So there may be, uh,
there may be less of a um brutal rate of
(24:36):
turnover in places with your in countries with different labor
laws that make it more of a long term sustainable position.
That's true. And not to mention that in the US
McDonald's is spending nearly a billion dollars a year they
did in twenty nineteen to order automated kiosks like you
(24:56):
see a grocery stores, So they're trying to do the
best they can to take the human element out of there.
As much as possible. Now that we're in one though,
and we're obviously in a bit of a jobs crisis,
they've sort of pivoted away from that because it wasn't
really could pr look. So now a lot of the
branding and the signage you see from McDonald's is about
how they have uh jobs up to ten dollars an hour,
(25:19):
you know, which is not a whole hell of a lot,
and that's probably more for like manager positions or fifteen
dollars an hour. Yeah, it turned out that, uh, it's
it's not that people don't want to work, it's that
they want to work for something that is worthwhile in
terms of what they see as as compensation. There's a
(25:41):
whole other episode we could do about market influences and
propaganda and so on, um, which is a pretty controversial
hot topic even today. But let's get back to the
true things, the true crazy things here. So, yes, sources
of revenue are being kind of occluded, know, Jedi handwave, Uh,
(26:04):
these are not the profits you're looking for kind of stuff.
But fast food restaurants can also pose health risk. We
discussed something like this earlier in the case of plastics
and recycling, which is when the fossil fuel plastic manufacturers
did something very very clever and they put the blame
(26:26):
for plastic pollution on the consumer uh and said genius, Yeah, yeah,
it's not the nine it's not that of uses statistic
all the time. But it's not that the plastic uh
fluting around the ocean comes from commercial fisheries. It's that
you didn't put the straw in the right bin, you monster,
(26:49):
right uh. And And of course that's understanding like recycle
on a personal level, yes, fine, but um, but there
was a there was definitely a shell game there, and
there was a bait and switch. To be fair, this
example is a little different because if you are a
person in charge of yourself, or you're a person in
(27:10):
charge of another person like a kid or an elderly
person that you're taking care of, then you should be
able to make responsible choices about what you are your
loved ones, the people in your care at least consume.
But the problem there is that fast food outlets, especially
in the US, can sometimes be the only accessible source
(27:31):
of sustenance and impoverished food deserts, meaning people don't have
access to a ton of healthy options. Not everybody lives
near a grocery store that has a decent produce section. Right. Uh,
some people you know you have to you may have
like a h you may have a gas station that
(27:53):
that sometimes sells some healthy stuff. This leads to the
idea I would say these are interrelated the health risk, uh,
and the exploitation of the poor, which is our explanation
for us some of that lack of um lack of accessibility, right,
(28:16):
like why why do some parts of the US only
have gas stations and fast food spots? Why? There's there's
a pretty disturbing partial answer that I found coming from
the New Republic and a book called Supersizing Urban America.
There's a guy writing for New Republic called Max Holleran
(28:38):
who makes a solid case that there is a not
necessarily insidious conspiracy, but there is sort of a hidden
hand that played a role in food deserts. He says
that fast food did not just find its way to
low income neighborhoods, but was brought there by wait for it,
the federal government on purpose, maybe with good intentions. Well yeah.
(29:02):
He points out that obesity seems to be and I
think this is pretty clear in a lot of ways. Uh,
a partially class based issue. UM. He notes in his
Peace quote the rise in obesity in the US is
an epidemic and much of the root causes lie in
poverty UM and he ties the problem of living in
(29:23):
disadvantaged neighborhoods to race as well. The article also gives
a shout out to Supersizing Urban America, which is a
book that was published by a health historian named Chin Jew,
which points out that the problem actually goes all the
way back to the sixties and then after riots in
nineteen sixty eight, in the wake of the Martin Luther
(29:44):
King Jr. Assassination, President Nixon began programs that gave subsidies
UM federal funds to fast food franchises. Yeah, and here's
another quote from that book just mentioned. The administration asserted
that black owned businesses survey fast food would help to
cure urban unrest by promoting an entrepreneurial spirit in poor communities.
(30:10):
Let's just keep going with quotes from that book. It
did make a select group of black entrepreneurs wealthy, but
it was mostly a boon to fast food giants searching
for new market demographics because there's nothing that differentiates the
mom and pops from the big boys in terms of
who gets the money right, well, their ability to lobby
(30:30):
Congress I think would be one of the big differentiations.
So so think about the multiple, multiple birds, single stone
of funding that you're able to pull off there if
you're the president or if you're the people who are
you know, the President's handlers and masters. At this point,
I guess, I guess what I'm saying is just optically
this was designed to be like, oh, this is a
(30:52):
boon for small black owned businesses, but it's the big
guys that can really swoop in and absolutely exploit that,
almost in loophole fashion, all the real estate, like all
the grabbing, grabbing power, right grabbing, lasting multigenerational power, and
then yes, enriching the financial lives of some people, but
(31:15):
not all people. Why didn't that money go to support
the businesses that may have already existed and help and
help those businesses grow. Why did these large corporations need
to be attached to the deal. It's an interesting question, um,
And there's you know, I think the more cynical amongst
us would say that it goes down to lobbying and
(31:38):
backdoor politics. But I don't know what do you think,
what do you guys think? Well, I mean, we do.
We discussed all of this in our lobbying episode UM
that you can listen to as well, that I think
is a really good primer for these kinds of conversations
where you know, I mean, the mom and pops don't
have access to that kind of power to petition lawmakers
directly in that way. And while they certainly may again
(31:59):
back to like my neighborhood where I live, there is
maybe there's one or two um black owned businesses around
here that are that are wonderful and that are really good,
and they do have lots of options and serve healthier food,
but it's absolutely dwarfed by the number of fast food
chain restaurants that you see. It's true same here, well
(32:20):
in these you're you're Buford Highway, though you've got a
lot of yeah, in these parts, it's about though, seriously,
it's about fifty fifty where it's either a big chain
or you know, a family owned or a smaller chain.
And that's that's pretty awesome to have, Like the family
owned restaurants are where I trend toward it, But we
(32:41):
also have to remember that it's the ability to choose
what you would like to eat on a given day
is a tremendous privilege, and it's one that many people
do not possess. But that's that's another thing that doesn't
get mentioned too often. You can clearly trade ace back
how some of these food deserts began, and it be
(33:04):
and it becomes a matter of that public policy. So
the next time, UH, you hear or see somebody cracking
on someone for obesity or their diet, you have to
ask how much of that is, Like, sure, partially there's
personal responsibility, but there's so many factors involved in that
metabolism and so on, you have to acknowledge that part
(33:28):
of that is due to public policy that dates back
decades and decades and decades. Did people know the long
term consequences of this. Maybe probably not. They probably didn't
really think about it, to be honest with you. They
probably thought, Hey, we're helping people, we're looking good, and
we're helping ourselves. Three great things that taste great together.
(33:52):
We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor, UH
and take a break to dive into some some of
the funds stuff, some of the urban legends. Start your campfire.
We're back. That was heavy, Thanks Nixon. Let's let's take
(34:14):
a second unwind. We got some of our favorite fast
food urban legends. Most of these can be conclusively disproven
and full disclosures. Some of these are like greatest hits
for us because we've mentioned them in past episodes. Uh,
and we've talked, we talked about them when we hang out. Um,
mutant chickens, chickens, more, more legs and normal. This is untrue.
(34:36):
Only bringing this one up, you guys, because the poultry
industry is massively messed up, and it is as full
of genuine conspiracies as those poor chickens are full of antibiotics.
Sick burned. That's very kind of you. Yeah, a bit
of a bit of a rotissary, bit of a roast full.
(34:57):
But I can't do that. I was going to do
the striations in the because of that nasty excuse me,
real thing. It's a real thing. And they're all these
there are all these urban legends about fast food because
it is modern. Fast food is such a strange phenomena, right,
Like I think we talked in the past about our
(35:19):
lovely neighbors to the north, saying, hey, Tim Horton's that
coffee is laced with nicotine. We thought this was a
fun story because no one believed it. And then I
don't know if you guys remember on our Facebook page,
here's where it gets crazy, and a couple of emails
and so on, we got people telling us that Tim
Horton's turned into trash. They were like, Tim Hortons used
(35:43):
to be good, but now it's just yeah. But I
literally can't say anything about it because I've never been
to a Tim Hortons. But one day what they're in, like, uh,
the northeast kind of right, They're in Canada. Only in Canada.
There's there's none like up in Pennsylvania. Oh no, that's
a good question. For some reason, I think there are.
But definitely, um, that's pretty easily disprovable. Um, you know.
(36:09):
And then we we've talked a lot about this in
the past as well. I think we did a whole
episode that contained a good bit about sugar, refined sugar
as we know it today, and a lot it's true.
It's it's conclusively true. But I don't think a lot
of people realize how much sugar goes into fast food,
like into the buns you know, for example, or and
(36:30):
even like, I don't know exactly if this is this
is the case, but you know, certain things that you
would not typically think sugar goes into. And the fact
that this refined sugar is largely the bigger culprit in
the obesity epidemic than even high fat content in foods. Yeah,
I wouldn't even say that's an urban legend. That's just
(36:50):
messed up in true. You know, that's not near as
fun as uh as noting your as fun as saying like, uh,
you know they're really I balls and the burgers. That
is also not true. Um yeah, oh man, but one
hamburger patty, single hamburger patty contains five grams of sugar. No, yeah,
(37:14):
the hamburger patty, single patty? Yeah, what a so? I
mean the fries containing a ton of sugar too. That's
why people like it. It's it's got there. They're feeding
the primal urge you wants sugar, fat, and salt. Alright, man,
I really thought, honestly, I'm out of the loop here.
I thought it was mostly the sauce, the sauces that
(37:35):
had the sugar content. You know, we're talking drink sauces,
buns like anything with bread. Salads are heavy on it too,
salad dressing. Uh. That's why folks full of conspiracy realists.
That's why Bluba Dubba Burger is the fast food is
the fast food location for you. Uh. We're known for
our famous Bluba Dubba sugar burgers. You can get them
(37:59):
with extra extra MSG sugar. That's our that's our special blend,
and we we take really great care. We don't know
if you've ever enjoyed a certain dessert, but with every
blood a double sugar burger, we like to write on
the top. We just hit it with a little flame,
little torch action, and it just crisps up just nice.
(38:20):
Yea the Blooba Dubble Bruleys item a Dubble double Bacon
Bruley burger. Yes, yeah um. And for just an extra
three dollars, we will take some of the sugar off
to everybody. Anybody else ever encounter this. I don't know
(38:41):
if this ever happened to you, guys. I went two
years and years ago. I was at a Chick fil a.
I was I was much younger, and I wanted to
just order a chicken sandwich and fries and a drink,
and the think the issue was that that was cheaper
(39:02):
if you ordered it as a combo. And the only
difference was the only difference between what I wanted and
a combo is the combo came a cole slaw and
I said, I'm not gonna eat it. Just don't give
me the cold slaw. And they said, well, you have
to get the number one or number whatever, because if
you order this stuff on its own, then it's more
(39:24):
and and I said, so, wait, so I'm paying extra
to not have to deal with this cole slaw. And
I'm like, well, that's a weird way to put it.
And it's like, that's not how to put it. That's
what's happening at this at this drive through. And this
gets us to like economy of scale, and that's how
that's how a lot of these like urban legends start.
(39:46):
Another urban legend is the idea that the McRib is
uh can't like literally cannot be on menus all the time.
You guys ever heard that one? Yeah, I've heard that
because of the um because the number of pigs. Right,
I don't know what, I don't know what it is.
I don't know, I don't know why but I have
heard that. Uh. The idea that I heard was that
(40:07):
McDonald's is such a gigantic company that when the McRib
comes out, it will affect pork prices. WHOA is it true? Uh? Unlikely? Right,
it's not super likely. There are a lot of other
things that would affect that. But we have to remember
(40:28):
that McDonald's exists in a lot of places where people
generally do not consume pork, So so like the I
think probably what happens, or from what I understand, is
that McDonald's perhaps releases it when pork prices reach a bottom,
but they go low because it makes sense. But that
(40:49):
doesn't mean there are a bunch of people and I
guess big pork, big pig or something we're like, oh no,
the mcrib's back out, get ready? UM wouldn't be more
likely to be something like um manufactured scarcy? Right? Anything
for a limited time? Right? Yes, yes, for a limited time.
(41:11):
We should start adding that to stuff, just wanting I
don't know if I could pull it off in conversation,
could you guys pull it off? Yeah? I think we
should start doing it with the titles of our episodes
only available from seven today until whatever. I was thinking of,
you know, maybe when we're hanging out with with our
(41:32):
friends and stuff of work and someone's like, hey, man,
you know I'm gonna go out grab grab something to
eat later, where are you at? If you respond in
the text with like, well, I'm you know, I'm at
the local chicken wing spot for a limited time, So
(41:52):
act now. I think that could work. I think you
can pull it off. You have to be smoother than me,
but someone could. Man, you're a smooth this liquefied chicken paste,
my friend. Thank you, Thank you. I appreciate the image.
I hope everyone associates that. Thank you, Thank you very much.
I appreciate the visceral image. Uh, you know, that's where
(42:15):
the nugs come from. That's where the nugs truly come from,
not mutant chickens with multiple body parts. And it is
just like a pure ah a sort of what do
you call that? A slurry of chicken paste that is
then molded into I think they are like five or
six different specific nug shapes at Mickey D's. And yet
(42:36):
sometimes there are anomalies like not too long ago. I
don't know if you guys are familiar with the online
game among us there was a chicken nugget that was
shaped like one of the little robot guys and among
us that's sold for like fifty dollars on eBay a
chicken nugget. Oh well, you know, uh, kudos to that.
I hope that everybody finds some kind of Wonka asked
(43:01):
golden ticket chicken nugget, and may your fortunes increase accordingly.
So the last thing we mentioned is quite candidly that
should scare you. And one of the things that we
believe should frighten you as you listen to this episode today,
(43:21):
regardless of where you live or where you plan to
live in the future, is that fast food is only
one aspect of a massive ongoing trend towards the standardization
of life as you know it. Fast food companies often
seem to be competing brands, as we mentioned in Part one,
but they're often owned by the same big corporation at
the top. It's that corporation, not not your friends local
(43:44):
blah blah dubba Burgers or whatever, that controls the supply chain,
that squeezes farmers, that exploits often the poor, that puts
a greasy thumb on the scale of a given market.
But like that, that trend toward homogeneity and towards standardization
(44:05):
doesn't doesn't seem set to slow down, and in many
many places, especially in the US, I mean, what do
you think about that? Guys? How close do you think
we are to a future where you can just drive
up seventy five and see the same town hundreds of times?
What do you think we're there? I think I just
(44:26):
did that, and yes, we're there. No, I'm just joking. Now,
we're really really close. We're really really close. And it
is every aspect of life. It will be the bank,
it will be the fast food restaurant, it will be
the large store where you can get all the things
you need, the grocery store. It'll be your house slash apartment. Yeah,
oh god, the singularity is here everyone. We keep talking
(44:47):
about episodes where the singularity grows closer and closer. I
think you're you're right. Then. This is one tiny little
step in this giant sprint that we're currently in. And
you know, as Er said, you gotta eat. This is
a this is this is a human nature thing. It's
it's not going away. And the people who work in
(45:09):
the fast food industry are people just like you probably
are listening to this unless you are a machine consciousness. Uh.
There people who need a job want a job, right,
and then people going to fast food places, Uh, they
just want to eat and they want to do it,
like we said episode one, in a way that saves time,
(45:31):
right and and full disclosure, the three of us eat
it fast food places. We do. We just know that
there's there's a lot of stuff those companies would rather
you not be aware of. My son wants us to
go to McDonald's tonight for dinner. By the way, do
they still do happy meals? Oh? Yeah? Are the toys, well,
(45:53):
they're they're they're they're they're trafficking in nostalgia. You know
for us as parents, even when you were kids, it
was already they had their hooks in that whole market,
the playgrounds, you know. I mean, we don't even have
to give everybody knows all this, but it's very interesting.
I have very distinct memories of movies and the fast
food toys that were associated with them in my mind,
(46:16):
Like I remember Land Before Time, uh, rubber hand puppets
that that I believe were McDonald's, and also like all
the big Disney tie In's they used to do like
the Little Mermaid like there was like what's the little flounder?
He was a little squirty toy. I remember this stuff
very distinctly. My favorites were the uh were the transformers
(46:37):
that would be food items. But then Canada robots were great,
very clever, and so at this point we want to
hear from you. What's your take on fast food from
you know, however you encounter it as someone who works
in the industry, as someone who goes to fast food places,
(46:58):
as someone who hate or loves them. Um, what are
some of your favorite fast food urban legends? To what
degree do you believe they are true or false? Uh?
And what do you think the future of this strange,
massive industry is. We'd love to hear from you. We
try to be easy to find online. You can find
us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. You
(47:20):
can find us on YouTube under the handle Conspiracy Stuff.
If you also are on the internet, do us a
solid and hand on over to Apple Podcasts and leave
us a review so people like yourselves can discover the show. Uh.
You can also find us on Instagram where we are
at Conspiracy Stuff Show. Yes, and you can use your
phone to use your voice to call us. Our number
(47:41):
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(48:02):
if three minutes isn't enough to put your awesome idea
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We've got a good old fashioned email address. We are
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(48:33):
you to know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
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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 all they call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul. Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. I am still coming to
you from an undisclosed location over the Pacific. Hope to
(00:45):
be returning soon. But it's good to see some familiar
faces here, some familiar voices. This is part two, an
hour two parts maybe ongoing series on fast food conspiracies,
and we talk about some of these before. But in
our first first episode on this series, we needed to
(01:07):
establish some things about the history of fast food, we
needed to establish some things about the present of fast food,
and it was pretty much all a here or the
facts episode. But these facts we're crazy. So when we're
we're going to give you a brief recap here or
give you some time to hear episode one, and there
(01:30):
we go. So you're caught up through the magic of
through the magic of podcasting. This is one of those
episodes that we talked about extensively off air. Uh, and
you know, hopefully you talked about it with your friends,
maybe with your pals on Here's where it gets crazy
extensively as well, primarily because food is one of the
(01:52):
basic needs of human beings, whether prince or pauper, and
it's one of the great commonalities therefore that people discuss.
And here are the facts. When get to the world
of standardization of food, the industrialization, the mass production of food.
We see things that have great potential for for positive
(02:17):
outcomes for human beings, and then great potential for terrible,
terrible things. Guys, what were some of the things that
really stuck with you from part one of this series?
For me, it's all about that supply chain and the
effects that that ends up having on all kinds of things,
from how the chickens are actually produced to make their
(02:39):
way to a KFC, because the chicken that you sell
at KFC has to be uniform, it's got to be
the same chicken. You can't do that from a bunch
of local farms. Uh. That kind of thing is really
going to show up in this episode. It also makes
me think of, like there are exceptions to this, right,
So you have like places like in an out Burger
for example, that UH really own and operating their supply chain,
(03:02):
and it's very they only will build restaurants within driving
distance of their warehouses where they keep their meat because
it's in the insist that it's never frozen, um, which
is you know, a thing. And that's why I like
in and out Burger has kind of also got this
like exclusivity around it because you can't find one everywhere.
There isn't one in every airport, which I think is
kind of an interesting juxtaposition with some of these much
(03:23):
larger scaled kind of chains. Yeah, and then we also
we didn't talk about it too much, but we alluded
to the outsize cultural influence that these financial giants can
have on people. Whether or not you have ever set
foot in uh, you know, in a particular fast food chain,
(03:47):
it can have an effect on you. McDonald's will be
one of those that has an effect on your life
in multiple countries, whether or not you've ever been to
with McDonald's. And if you are for and since a
person identifying its lgbt Q, then you will be affected
(04:07):
by Chick fil A, whether or not you go there,
whether or not you care, because they spend a great
deal of money lobbying to discriminate against people who identify
in that way. This it's bigger than burgers, you know
what I mean. It's it's it's a supersized set of conspiracies.
There we go, and when we look at the future
(04:29):
of fast food, we see a lot of spin. We
see a lot of controversy because at the same time
modern fast food grew into a national and then an
international phenomenon, concerns about this the consequences of this system
began to spread as well. You know, one thing we
didn't do in episode one is we didn't talk about um.
(04:51):
We mentioned very briefly post World War two economic boom,
but we didn't mention how fast food came into play there.
And just to show that up pretty quickly. Part of
it is the emergence of going out to eat as
a normal thing. People used to always eat at home,
and people do still frequently eat a hole as in
(05:14):
like a big meal. You might go out and get
a taco or some you know, some street corn or
rowtie or a stack of some sort in many parts
of the world. But the idea of going out to
a restaurant spending money, you know, outside of a grocery
store or market sold for food, it was pretty extraordinary
(05:36):
to a lot of people. But the post World War
two economic boom in the US, all of a sudden,
you could afford a car, right, you could buy a house.
You could also go out to eat, you know, once
a month, which is pretty predict stefan, if you're one
certain segment of the population. Yes, yeah, that's a good point. Yes, uh.
(05:58):
And we we have to be care not to airbrush
that or look through rose colored glasses when talking about
that time. So critics also in the fast food world
would argue, this is bad for local businesses. You know
what I mean, this is taking money for its resource extraction, right,
it's taking money from a local community which is going
(06:22):
somewhere else. That's not always true necessarily in a franchise model,
which is a franchise model is where someone becomes an
owner operator of just like what's the name of a
fast food place? Made up a reel? I've got a
made up one? When he use that, is it bluba dubble? Yes,
it's blump a Dubba Burger. So so, so Noel, can
(06:45):
I can I get one blub double double please? Yes? Yeah.
So Noel Brown is a in this scenario. He is
an enterprising young man. Uh. He has saved up money,
he's invested stein in a business, and he says, you
know what did really well during the pandemic, blahbla dubba Burgers.
(07:06):
So I am going to start my own blah blah
bubba franchise. And what he does is he pays the company,
you know, Young Brands, China Holdings or whatever that owns
blahbadubba Burgers. Oh sorry, Illumination Global Unlimited ultimately owns blah
blah Bubba, and so he pays them for the right
(07:26):
to have a blah bah dubba Burger bodega located in
in his place. And now he makes he gives them
a cut of the burger, a piece of the burger.
For every dollar he makes, they get a specific amountain
and he takes stuff home. But that also gives him
(07:46):
the ability and gives the company the ability to say, hey,
we know that Global Illumination Unlimited has been implicated in
some other things, but Blahba dubba Burgers is not, They're
just owned by them. And you know, guys, it's me.
(08:08):
I'm no, I'm I'm a small town guy just like you.
You know, I go to the same car wash, I
go to the same cock fights. I put on my pants.
You like back of legs. You know, we're in the
same Ultimate Frisbee League. Yes, so so which is just
(08:28):
a metaphor for being part of the human race, right, yes, yes,
everything at some point becomes a metaphor. Uh. And this
this is interesting now because we see that happening with
the franchise ees in um in controversial things like we
mentioned earlier, Chick fil A has there like they invest
(08:50):
in um in pushing for legislation that discriminates against a
certain portion of the US population. But then if you're
a franchise owner in say a place like Decatur, just
outside of Atlanta, then you'll you'll say, look, I'm not
part of this. We're actually all about investing in our
local community here where your Chick fil A, despite the
(09:14):
fact that we are Chick fil A. And this is crazy.
It's it's an example of how critics will say these
things have too much power. To also say that these
companies these fast food companies target the poor on multiple levels,
as consumers, as employees, as suppliers of produce or live stuck.
(09:35):
And they'll say they also pose serious health risks to consumers.
But it goes deeper than that, and that's what we're
talking about in part two. I mean, Matt, you've been
I've been studying your your facial expressions as as we're
talking through this as I'm kind of like monologueing using
using nol as an example. Uh, and No, I think
(09:57):
you would be an awesome franchise his owner than I
try to be really personal. I try to really be
out there amongst the people, you know, not letting this
soule like fast food and presario deal go to my head.
By the way, I appreciate the study, but really what
I was thinking about the whole time was bloodbacue sauce.
And I really just thought like, there's a way to
(10:18):
work that in, and I was trying to find a
place of working in. But then I was like, you
know what, I'll let it be. No, we needed bloody
que sauce. Uh right, because was that mushoe sauce did
a lot for Rick and Morty and uh, that's it.
(10:38):
So we need we need blumpy que sauce, he flump
it up a burgers. We need to fill this entire
episode with with references too. We're going to talk about
some very disturbing things today, folks. Uh, and equally disturbing
perhaps will be the Bloba Dubba menu that we're building
out here, plump and of a compos Anyway, this what
(11:03):
we're saying is it goes much deeper than the surface concerns.
Today we're asking what's the dark side of fast food?
Here's where it gets crazy very quickly. Twelve minutes in,
twelve minutes in, and we're crazy. Uh. Well, we held
off the whole first episode. I mean, I think the
whole episode is crazy, but we didn't have that turn
(11:24):
of the screw, so we saved that for for right now. Yeah. Well,
and that that turn really is how much is a
fast food chain bringing to your local community in the
form of jobs, in the form you know, of tax
dollars paid to your local community, and how much is
it taking away? So what we've been talking about this
(11:45):
kind of this whole conversation to the top here, but really,
how much is it taking taking away from your local
economy and where does it go. And that's really one
of the major issues with a large national or international
fast food chain. Yeah, let's start there. Let's start with
the true stuff. We'll do the true stuff, we'll do
(12:06):
the fun stuff, will do the that you should be
scared of. Uh, and we'll do them in that order.
So the true stuff exactly to your point, Matt. Spoiler alert,
fellow conspiracy realists, it is everything we just mentioned. Uh,
fast food, like any other big supply chain giant like
a Walmart, can have a damaging effect on local businesses.
(12:29):
And this did accelerate during the pandemic the way we
mentioned during part one of this series. Numerous restaurants, numerous
local restaurants didn't have those corporate level deep pockets. They
weren't able to weather this economic plague. And that made
your taco bells, your subways and so on the only
(12:50):
game and the block on the block that doesn't make
them insidious, you know. And this really isn't this really
isn't necessarily a day get fast food. This is an
examination of things that certain people would rather you not
know about, whether they're at Blahba Dubba or they're at
a boardroom somewhere. Yeah, and I agree, And I think
(13:13):
one of the main reasons why these larger chains with
these depockets made it through is because they aren't relying
specifically on the sales of burgers and chicken and frugs
and drinks. Right. You could argue that secondary to their
to their actual business model, which is sort of like
almost hidden. It is. It's very much hidden from the
(13:34):
consumer level. But if you know you're trading in McDonald's
stock or with some other large fast food chain stock,
you know exactly what's going on, because when revenue reports
come out, it's all about the buildings that they own,
the land that they own, and making money as a
giant corporation that way. So if a an economic downturn occurs,
(13:57):
they're not going to have to do, you know, sell
a bunch of locations because that's where their money is.
Their money is in the location. But for a mom
and pop store, they've got that one brick and mortar, right,
And if you're not making enough money from the product
the hamburgers out of your small fast food chain, even
if it's fast food or a diner or something, if
you're not making enough money week to week month over month,
(14:21):
then you're not going to be able to support your
business and simply pay rent. Yeah, let's drive straight to that.
So you're McDonald's, you're the big clown or the Golden Arches.
I guess big clown is not what you would refer
to yourself, as would you. It would be like move
move aside, Burger King, the big clowns coming. Well, we
(14:42):
call Disney the mouse. I think we could call Mncdonald's
the clown clown. Yeah, that's true. And although you notice
they've moved away from him, and yeah, it's just I
was gonna say they've moved away from the whole pantheon
of characters. But one thing that people should know about
McDonald's is that, just like Matt's example, they have real
(15:04):
estate assets. It's a huge part of the business. Right now,
McDonald's has more than thirty billion dollars in real estate assets.
And this like if you look at numbers. Business Week
did something really interesting. They looked at sales per location
of a McDonald's and they said, all right, that's two
(15:25):
point seven million dollars per store per year one point
seven million in gross profits. So that's where you take
out food paper costs, but then you add other expenses rent, payroll, advertising, etcetera, etcetera,
and so the take home for like the take home
amount of money for a single franchise e was around
(15:47):
a hundred and fifty four thousand a year, but that's
wrapped up in these real estate deals. It's sort of
like how a lot of people don't know that Target
made a ton of money back in the day selling
their security systems to other businesses. I don't know if
you've ever looked at the ceiling of a Target. If
(16:09):
you're in there, but there are cameras everywhere. They're not
they're not playing. They really yeah, they really want to
keep those I don't when they sell it targets, widgets,
widgets and targets they only they used Yeah, they used
to only sell targets. A lot of Legos in there.
There are a lot of Legos. They're very expensive legos. Man. Yeah,
(16:29):
I'm always faking, like I think you mentioned this on
the show recently. I'm always faking like I'm quote unquote
on the phone asking about what I should get some
hypothetical kid that doesn't exist. I always make up a
name that I think is interesting too, you know, I'm
always like, what does Jeremiah want? Like does Archer like
Star Wars Lego? Sometimes I want to turn to the
(16:51):
other adult in the aisle and be like, we both
know I'm Archer. You know, we both know I'm the
Jeremiah here anyway. So what we're saying is that a
lot of these companies are making money in ways that
they do not necessarily. They don't necessarily want to be
publicized to the average person, you know what I mean.
(17:12):
They don't want you. They don't want you to drive
by the billboard and instead of seeing a sign for
you know, the newest Combo or the mic Ribbs back
or something like that, they don't want you to see
a sign that says we make billions off real estate. Also,
we serifries. So I propose we pause for a word
(17:34):
from our sponsor, and then we returned to look at
some more of these true and distressing things and maybe
even talk about the real estate a little bit more,
and we're back. Let's yeah, let's stay on real estate
for just a moment here. I think it's just something
that I never understood. A lot of people didn't understand
(17:56):
until it was for me. I was made aware of
it when I watched that docu mentory about Ray Kroc.
I think it's called the Founder. We've mentioned it before
on this show, but just as a way of illustrating that,
when you've got that large umbrella corporation and you've got
all these franchise ease that want to make some money,
and you can become like Ben said, I think it
(18:17):
is one hundred fifty thousand roughly yearly or something like
that that you'd expect to make as a franchise e
um take home. But you know, people want to have
access to that. That's a great way to you know,
it's a lot of money in a way to build
something for your family, for yourself, whoever you're you're fighting
for there. But when you imagine that that big umbrella
(18:38):
corporation is has a tendril of rent attached to each
one of these franchise ease that they're building out, and
then you realize that McDonald's Corporation is actually deciding what
land is going to be purchased using their algorithms to
figure out the distance between the closest McDonald's, and then
you realize that they're the ones that actually buy that
(18:58):
land and control it. You're just running shop there and
selling some burgers and making some money, and they still
get a nice big on top of whatever you make
on your burgers. Um the situation for the person that
actually runs, they say owns and operates, and we say
total misnomber right, But like they own the concept of
(19:19):
McDonald's in that space, but they do own they're leasing it,
I know, but it's like, it's just it's very strange
to think. I've got a great quote for you guys.
So this is from former McDonald's CFO Chief financial Officer
Harry J. Solnburn Uh. He told investors this quote, we
(19:42):
are not basically in the food business. We're in the
real estate business. The only reason we sell fifteen cent
hamburgers is because they are the greatest producer of revenue
from which our tenants can pay us rent. That is
the CFO saying. It's also also full disclosure we've done
donalds AT's personally. I think it's important to point that out. Also,
(20:04):
I think it's important to note that it is not
illegal for a fast food company to also be a
real estate company. They're not breaking the law. They're just there.
It's not something you're gonna learn at the counter of
that establishment. Well, and it's also a corporation that isn't
just throwing you know, all of those profits away. They're
doing some pretty great stuff with it in the form
of charities. So it's like every every fast food chain,
(20:28):
every big company like that, has a lot of aspects
to it. Doesn't mean we always agree with everything they do.
Doesn't mean we were against everything they do, right, I
thought you said aspects like the jelly stuff that used
to be really popular. Yeah, yeah, so maybe that's something
like maybe that's something for our company. Blah up up
burger aspect? Oh god, who would order that? Did I say?
(20:53):
And you said you clearly said aspects. It's just like
very early in the morning where I am so Matt.
I'm sorry. I think I I derailed the point you
were making there. I'm sorry. No, I just can't get
those jellies out of my head. I know we talked
about you and I talked about eels not long ago. First,
I think, and I think you're ready for this jelly. No, No,
(21:14):
I'm not. Oh man, Yeah, I don't know if we
want to be ready for that jelly. You know what
I mean? This is a pretty pretty heavy, weird stuff.
But what we're what we're saying is that you might
be surprised by how many of these establishments that you
(21:36):
think simply, you know, simply sell an affordable meal. Uh,
you might be surprised by where their fingers are in
different in different corporate interests. And you know it's not
because the whole reason we're talking about this was with
regards to the pandemic, right, and how all these local
businesses just failed, just so many dropped like flies because
(21:59):
they couldn't they couldn't survive to make enough money to
continue paying rent. And like, how else does that affect
a community when it's a big multinational corporation inside your
your town and all of your local businesses are gone.
What does that do? I don't know. I think there's something,
(22:21):
there's something on a level and operating level above just
economics that that does to people when you look around
and there's nothing but all of these logos for chains
and stuff, and there's no like, I don't know, individual character, right,
because we had the whole conversation last episode about when
you go into a diner, there's Oliver, and Oliver knows
(22:43):
exactly what you want to order every time you walk
into that diner. It's an individual experience. Um. Now it's
it is as individual even though it's an individual human
being with a life and a story. At that counter
at the Wendy's, that person is a Wendy's employee, right,
and that that is you're getting the Wendy's menu, the
(23:04):
Wendy's employee, the Wendy's experience. Well, there's a I think
also there's a larger issue of homogeneity at play in
can go to various talents from one inner state, exit
one state to the next, see much the same thing, right,
and UH, as those propagate, Uh, you could argue that
the towns themselves or the communities lose some of what
(23:27):
makes them unique. It's a little bit of a philosophical
rather than a quantitative point. But I don't think that
makes it any less valid. Let's also not forget to
your point, Matt, about the experience or like you're you're
you're buying the experience of the commonality of all of
these different franchises rather than individual personalities. Uh. There is
a statum that oftentimes fast food restaurants UH lose about
(23:50):
a hundred percent of their workers from year to year.
So the turnover is so enormous, largely because they're considered
kind of stop gap jobs for a lot of people, uh,
whether younger people just getting out of high school or
you know, people that are like in kind of a
transitional period. Certainly not something that you would consider a career.
But then of course there are folks that are less
(24:12):
fortunate that do rely on those jobs. But even then
anything that came along would probably be preferable to that.
So you are not going to go in there expecting
to see anybody because from you know, week to week
that those faces could change. And that's in the US,
right correct, where labor laws are different, So there may be, uh,
there may be less of a um brutal rate of
(24:36):
turnover in places with your in countries with different labor
laws that make it more of a long term sustainable position.
That's true. And not to mention that in the US
McDonald's is spending nearly a billion dollars a year they
did in twenty nineteen to order automated kiosks like you
(24:56):
see a grocery stores, So they're trying to do the
best they can to take the human element out of there.
As much as possible. Now that we're in one though,
and we're obviously in a bit of a jobs crisis,
they've sort of pivoted away from that because it wasn't
really could pr look. So now a lot of the
branding and the signage you see from McDonald's is about
how they have uh jobs up to ten dollars an hour,
(25:19):
you know, which is not a whole hell of a lot,
and that's probably more for like manager positions or fifteen
dollars an hour. Yeah, it turned out that, uh, it's
it's not that people don't want to work, it's that
they want to work for something that is worthwhile in
terms of what they see as as compensation. There's a
(25:41):
whole other episode we could do about market influences and
propaganda and so on, um, which is a pretty controversial
hot topic even today. But let's get back to the
true things, the true crazy things here. So, yes, sources
of revenue are being kind of occluded, know, Jedi handwave, Uh,
(26:04):
these are not the profits you're looking for kind of stuff.
But fast food restaurants can also pose health risk. We
discussed something like this earlier in the case of plastics
and recycling, which is when the fossil fuel plastic manufacturers
did something very very clever and they put the blame
(26:26):
for plastic pollution on the consumer uh and said genius, Yeah, yeah,
it's not the nine it's not that of uses statistic
all the time. But it's not that the plastic uh
fluting around the ocean comes from commercial fisheries. It's that
you didn't put the straw in the right bin, you monster,
(26:49):
right uh. And And of course that's understanding like recycle
on a personal level, yes, fine, but um, but there
was a there was definitely a shell game there, and
there was a bait and switch. To be fair, this
example is a little different because if you are a
person in charge of yourself, or you're a person in
(27:10):
charge of another person like a kid or an elderly
person that you're taking care of, then you should be
able to make responsible choices about what you are your
loved ones, the people in your care at least consume.
But the problem there is that fast food outlets, especially
in the US, can sometimes be the only accessible source
(27:31):
of sustenance and impoverished food deserts, meaning people don't have
access to a ton of healthy options. Not everybody lives
near a grocery store that has a decent produce section. Right. Uh,
some people you know you have to you may have
like a h you may have a gas station that
(27:53):
that sometimes sells some healthy stuff. This leads to the
idea I would say these are interrelated the health risk, uh,
and the exploitation of the poor, which is our explanation
for us some of that lack of um lack of accessibility, right,
(28:16):
like why why do some parts of the US only
have gas stations and fast food spots? Why? There's there's
a pretty disturbing partial answer that I found coming from
the New Republic and a book called Supersizing Urban America.
There's a guy writing for New Republic called Max Holleran
(28:38):
who makes a solid case that there is a not
necessarily insidious conspiracy, but there is sort of a hidden
hand that played a role in food deserts. He says
that fast food did not just find its way to
low income neighborhoods, but was brought there by wait for it,
the federal government on purpose, maybe with good intentions. Well yeah.
(29:02):
He points out that obesity seems to be and I
think this is pretty clear in a lot of ways. Uh,
a partially class based issue. UM. He notes in his
Peace quote the rise in obesity in the US is
an epidemic and much of the root causes lie in
poverty UM and he ties the problem of living in
(29:23):
disadvantaged neighborhoods to race as well. The article also gives
a shout out to Supersizing Urban America, which is a
book that was published by a health historian named Chin Jew,
which points out that the problem actually goes all the
way back to the sixties and then after riots in
nineteen sixty eight, in the wake of the Martin Luther
(29:44):
King Jr. Assassination, President Nixon began programs that gave subsidies
UM federal funds to fast food franchises. Yeah, and here's
another quote from that book just mentioned. The administration asserted
that black owned businesses survey fast food would help to
cure urban unrest by promoting an entrepreneurial spirit in poor communities.
(30:10):
Let's just keep going with quotes from that book. It
did make a select group of black entrepreneurs wealthy, but
it was mostly a boon to fast food giants searching
for new market demographics because there's nothing that differentiates the
mom and pops from the big boys in terms of
who gets the money right, well, their ability to lobby
(30:30):
Congress I think would be one of the big differentiations.
So so think about the multiple, multiple birds, single stone
of funding that you're able to pull off there if
you're the president or if you're the people who are
you know, the President's handlers and masters. At this point,
I guess, I guess what I'm saying is just optically
this was designed to be like, oh, this is a
(30:52):
boon for small black owned businesses, but it's the big
guys that can really swoop in and absolutely exploit that,
almost in loophole fashion, all the real estate, like all
the grabbing, grabbing power, right grabbing, lasting multigenerational power, and
then yes, enriching the financial lives of some people, but
(31:15):
not all people. Why didn't that money go to support
the businesses that may have already existed and help and
help those businesses grow. Why did these large corporations need
to be attached to the deal. It's an interesting question, um,
And there's you know, I think the more cynical amongst
us would say that it goes down to lobbying and
(31:38):
backdoor politics. But I don't know what do you think,
what do you guys think? Well, I mean, we do.
We discussed all of this in our lobbying episode UM
that you can listen to as well, that I think
is a really good primer for these kinds of conversations
where you know, I mean, the mom and pops don't
have access to that kind of power to petition lawmakers
directly in that way. And while they certainly may again
(31:59):
back to like my neighborhood where I live, there is
maybe there's one or two um black owned businesses around
here that are that are wonderful and that are really good,
and they do have lots of options and serve healthier food,
but it's absolutely dwarfed by the number of fast food
chain restaurants that you see. It's true same here, well
(32:20):
in these you're you're Buford Highway, though you've got a
lot of yeah, in these parts, it's about though, seriously,
it's about fifty fifty where it's either a big chain
or you know, a family owned or a smaller chain.
And that's that's pretty awesome to have, Like the family
owned restaurants are where I trend toward it, But we
(32:41):
also have to remember that it's the ability to choose
what you would like to eat on a given day
is a tremendous privilege, and it's one that many people
do not possess. But that's that's another thing that doesn't
get mentioned too often. You can clearly trade ace back
how some of these food deserts began, and it be
(33:04):
and it becomes a matter of that public policy. So
the next time, UH, you hear or see somebody cracking
on someone for obesity or their diet, you have to
ask how much of that is, Like, sure, partially there's
personal responsibility, but there's so many factors involved in that
metabolism and so on, you have to acknowledge that part
(33:28):
of that is due to public policy that dates back
decades and decades and decades. Did people know the long
term consequences of this. Maybe probably not. They probably didn't
really think about it, to be honest with you. They
probably thought, Hey, we're helping people, we're looking good, and
we're helping ourselves. Three great things that taste great together.
(33:52):
We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor, UH
and take a break to dive into some some of
the funds stuff, some of the urban legends. Start your campfire.
We're back. That was heavy, Thanks Nixon. Let's let's take
(34:14):
a second unwind. We got some of our favorite fast
food urban legends. Most of these can be conclusively disproven
and full disclosures. Some of these are like greatest hits
for us because we've mentioned them in past episodes. Uh,
and we've talked, we talked about them when we hang out. Um,
mutant chickens, chickens, more, more legs and normal. This is untrue.
(34:36):
Only bringing this one up, you guys, because the poultry
industry is massively messed up, and it is as full
of genuine conspiracies as those poor chickens are full of antibiotics.
Sick burned. That's very kind of you. Yeah, a bit
of a bit of a rotissary, bit of a roast full.
(34:57):
But I can't do that. I was going to do
the striations in the because of that nasty excuse me,
real thing. It's a real thing. And they're all these
there are all these urban legends about fast food because
it is modern. Fast food is such a strange phenomena, right,
Like I think we talked in the past about our
(35:19):
lovely neighbors to the north, saying, hey, Tim Horton's that
coffee is laced with nicotine. We thought this was a
fun story because no one believed it. And then I
don't know if you guys remember on our Facebook page,
here's where it gets crazy, and a couple of emails
and so on, we got people telling us that Tim
Horton's turned into trash. They were like, Tim Hortons used
(35:43):
to be good, but now it's just yeah. But I
literally can't say anything about it because I've never been
to a Tim Hortons. But one day what they're in, like, uh,
the northeast kind of right, They're in Canada. Only in Canada.
There's there's none like up in Pennsylvania. Oh no, that's
a good question. For some reason, I think there are.
But definitely, um, that's pretty easily disprovable. Um, you know.
(36:09):
And then we we've talked a lot about this in
the past as well. I think we did a whole
episode that contained a good bit about sugar, refined sugar
as we know it today, and a lot it's true.
It's it's conclusively true. But I don't think a lot
of people realize how much sugar goes into fast food,
like into the buns you know, for example, or and
(36:30):
even like, I don't know exactly if this is this
is the case, but you know, certain things that you
would not typically think sugar goes into. And the fact
that this refined sugar is largely the bigger culprit in
the obesity epidemic than even high fat content in foods. Yeah,
I wouldn't even say that's an urban legend. That's just
(36:50):
messed up in true. You know, that's not near as
fun as uh as noting your as fun as saying like, uh,
you know they're really I balls and the burgers. That
is also not true. Um yeah, oh man, but one
hamburger patty, single hamburger patty contains five grams of sugar. No, yeah,
(37:14):
the hamburger patty, single patty? Yeah, what a so? I
mean the fries containing a ton of sugar too. That's
why people like it. It's it's got there. They're feeding
the primal urge you wants sugar, fat, and salt. Alright, man,
I really thought, honestly, I'm out of the loop here.
I thought it was mostly the sauce, the sauces that
(37:35):
had the sugar content. You know, we're talking drink sauces,
buns like anything with bread. Salads are heavy on it too,
salad dressing. Uh. That's why folks full of conspiracy realists.
That's why Bluba Dubba Burger is the fast food is
the fast food location for you. Uh. We're known for
our famous Bluba Dubba sugar burgers. You can get them
(37:59):
with extra extra MSG sugar. That's our that's our special blend,
and we we take really great care. We don't know
if you've ever enjoyed a certain dessert, but with every
blood a double sugar burger, we like to write on
the top. We just hit it with a little flame,
little torch action, and it just crisps up just nice.
(38:20):
Yea the Blooba Dubble Bruleys item a Dubble double Bacon
Bruley burger. Yes, yeah um. And for just an extra
three dollars, we will take some of the sugar off
to everybody. Anybody else ever encounter this. I don't know
(38:41):
if this ever happened to you, guys. I went two
years and years ago. I was at a Chick fil a.
I was I was much younger, and I wanted to
just order a chicken sandwich and fries and a drink,
and the think the issue was that that was cheaper
(39:02):
if you ordered it as a combo. And the only
difference was the only difference between what I wanted and
a combo is the combo came a cole slaw and
I said, I'm not gonna eat it. Just don't give
me the cold slaw. And they said, well, you have
to get the number one or number whatever, because if
you order this stuff on its own, then it's more
(39:24):
and and I said, so, wait, so I'm paying extra
to not have to deal with this cole slaw. And
I'm like, well, that's a weird way to put it.
And it's like, that's not how to put it. That's
what's happening at this at this drive through. And this
gets us to like economy of scale, and that's how
that's how a lot of these like urban legends start.
(39:46):
Another urban legend is the idea that the McRib is
uh can't like literally cannot be on menus all the time.
You guys ever heard that one? Yeah, I've heard that
because of the um because the number of pigs. Right,
I don't know what, I don't know what it is.
I don't know, I don't know why but I have
heard that. Uh. The idea that I heard was that
(40:07):
McDonald's is such a gigantic company that when the McRib
comes out, it will affect pork prices. WHOA is it true? Uh? Unlikely? Right,
it's not super likely. There are a lot of other
things that would affect that. But we have to remember
(40:28):
that McDonald's exists in a lot of places where people
generally do not consume pork, So so like the I
think probably what happens, or from what I understand, is
that McDonald's perhaps releases it when pork prices reach a bottom,
but they go low because it makes sense. But that
(40:49):
doesn't mean there are a bunch of people and I
guess big pork, big pig or something we're like, oh no,
the mcrib's back out, get ready? UM wouldn't be more
likely to be something like um manufactured scarcy? Right? Anything
for a limited time? Right? Yes, yes, for a limited time.
(41:11):
We should start adding that to stuff, just wanting I
don't know if I could pull it off in conversation,
could you guys pull it off? Yeah? I think we
should start doing it with the titles of our episodes
only available from seven today until whatever. I was thinking of,
you know, maybe when we're hanging out with with our
(41:32):
friends and stuff of work and someone's like, hey, man,
you know I'm gonna go out grab grab something to
eat later, where are you at? If you respond in
the text with like, well, I'm you know, I'm at
the local chicken wing spot for a limited time, So
(41:52):
act now. I think that could work. I think you
can pull it off. You have to be smoother than me,
but someone could. Man, you're a smooth this liquefied chicken paste,
my friend. Thank you, Thank you. I appreciate the image.
I hope everyone associates that. Thank you, Thank you very much.
I appreciate the visceral image. Uh, you know, that's where
(42:15):
the nugs come from. That's where the nugs truly come from,
not mutant chickens with multiple body parts. And it is
just like a pure ah a sort of what do
you call that? A slurry of chicken paste that is
then molded into I think they are like five or
six different specific nug shapes at Mickey D's. And yet
(42:36):
sometimes there are anomalies like not too long ago. I
don't know if you guys are familiar with the online
game among us there was a chicken nugget that was
shaped like one of the little robot guys and among
us that's sold for like fifty dollars on eBay a
chicken nugget. Oh well, you know, uh, kudos to that.
I hope that everybody finds some kind of Wonka asked
(43:01):
golden ticket chicken nugget, and may your fortunes increase accordingly.
So the last thing we mentioned is quite candidly that
should scare you. And one of the things that we
believe should frighten you as you listen to this episode today,
(43:21):
regardless of where you live or where you plan to
live in the future, is that fast food is only
one aspect of a massive ongoing trend towards the standardization
of life as you know it. Fast food companies often
seem to be competing brands, as we mentioned in Part one,
but they're often owned by the same big corporation at
the top. It's that corporation, not not your friends local
(43:44):
blah blah dubba Burgers or whatever, that controls the supply chain,
that squeezes farmers, that exploits often the poor, that puts
a greasy thumb on the scale of a given market.
But like that, that trend toward homogeneity and towards standardization
(44:05):
doesn't doesn't seem set to slow down, and in many
many places, especially in the US, I mean, what do
you think about that? Guys? How close do you think
we are to a future where you can just drive
up seventy five and see the same town hundreds of times?
What do you think we're there? I think I just
(44:26):
did that, and yes, we're there. No, I'm just joking. Now,
we're really really close. We're really really close. And it
is every aspect of life. It will be the bank,
it will be the fast food restaurant, it will be
the large store where you can get all the things
you need, the grocery store. It'll be your house slash apartment. Yeah,
oh god, the singularity is here everyone. We keep talking
(44:47):
about episodes where the singularity grows closer and closer. I
think you're you're right. Then. This is one tiny little
step in this giant sprint that we're currently in. And
you know, as Er said, you gotta eat. This is
a this is this is a human nature thing. It's
it's not going away. And the people who work in
(45:09):
the fast food industry are people just like you probably
are listening to this unless you are a machine consciousness. Uh.
There people who need a job want a job, right,
and then people going to fast food places, Uh, they
just want to eat and they want to do it,
like we said episode one, in a way that saves time,
(45:31):
right and and full disclosure, the three of us eat
it fast food places. We do. We just know that
there's there's a lot of stuff those companies would rather
you not be aware of. My son wants us to
go to McDonald's tonight for dinner. By the way, do
they still do happy meals? Oh? Yeah? Are the toys, well,
(45:53):
they're they're they're they're they're trafficking in nostalgia. You know
for us as parents, even when you were kids, it
was already they had their hooks in that whole market,
the playgrounds, you know. I mean, we don't even have
to give everybody knows all this, but it's very interesting.
I have very distinct memories of movies and the fast
food toys that were associated with them in my mind,
(46:16):
Like I remember Land Before Time, uh, rubber hand puppets
that that I believe were McDonald's, and also like all
the big Disney tie In's they used to do like
the Little Mermaid like there was like what's the little flounder?
He was a little squirty toy. I remember this stuff
very distinctly. My favorites were the uh were the transformers
(46:37):
that would be food items. But then Canada robots were great,
very clever, and so at this point we want to
hear from you. What's your take on fast food from
you know, however you encounter it as someone who works
in the industry, as someone who goes to fast food places,
(46:58):
as someone who hate or loves them. Um, what are
some of your favorite fast food urban legends? To what
degree do you believe they are true or false? Uh?
And what do you think the future of this strange,
massive industry is. We'd love to hear from you. We
try to be easy to find online. You can find
us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. You
(47:20):
can find us on YouTube under the handle Conspiracy Stuff.
If you also are on the internet, do us a
solid and hand on over to Apple Podcasts and leave
us a review so people like yourselves can discover the show. Uh.
You can also find us on Instagram where we are
at Conspiracy Stuff Show. Yes, and you can use your
phone to use your voice to call us. Our number
(47:41):
is one eight three three st d w y t K.
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(48:02):
if three minutes isn't enough to put your awesome idea
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(48:33):
you to know is a production of I heart Radio.
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