Fast-Food: Is It Really Convenient? - Comments

Why is this here? If you don't have something interesting to say, don't say it. We all know fast-food is a plague. A few little facts shouldn't merit you a front page IMO.

Hi there! I really enjoyed your article. :) I rarely eat fast food and its great to once in a while to refresh my brain on why :) I didn't know that fast food originated in Rome, that's very interesting! Also, I had no idea only 1.9 million Americans worked in food service. I guess with as many places to eat as there are, I would have suspected more :)

You did a really good job showing the pros and cons of fast food without sounding biased. I wish you had gone more in-depth and given a source for that cancer statistic, but overall, this was a nice article.

To answer your article's title, "is fast-food really convenient?", when the definition of 'convenient' is 'handy' and 'involving little effort or trouble', hell yeah it's convenient. No doubt about it.

As for whether it's good for you? Whole 'nother story.

Regardless of the 'goodness' of fast-food, I think your pointing out of the benefits of fast-food establishments to employment was really great, especially since it's something people can easily overlook.It's especially true regarding the Americas, where fast-food restaurants are like wild fire. They're a good starting point for getting a job - every teenager knows someone, even a friend, who works in the industry. In that way, fast-food joints are an excellent source of retail training and an entry into the hospitality industry, regardless of pay. (In Australia, we have a really generous minimum wage even for teenagers, at least.)

Sure is an interesting topic!

To answer your article's title, "is fast-food really convenient?", when the definition of 'convenient' is 'handy' and 'involving little effort or trouble', hell yeah it's convenient. No doubt about it.

As for whether it's good for you? Whole 'nother story.

Regardless of the 'goodness' of fast-food, I think pointing out of the benefits of fast-food establishments to employment should be recognised. Especially in the Americas, where fast-food restaurants are like wild fire. They're a good starting point for getting a job - every teenager knows someone, even a friend, who works in the industry. In that way, fast-food joints are an excellent source of retail training and an entry into the hospitality industry, regardless of pay. (In Australia, we have a really generous minimum wage even for teenagers, at least.)

Sure is an interesting topic!

Okay, so, I've had people up my ass about how harsh I can get. So, I'll just say a few things right now to throw everything else into context: I am very critical of writing because it's a key way to convey our thoughts and express our emotions, ideas and needs. I recently graduated, but I was my HS newspaper Editor-in-Chief for two years and I pre-graded essays for the English department at my school for a small but varied group every year beginning my sophomore year. I don't get on here to troll. I get on here because I love language and communication. It always should get better, mine included.

Now that that's out of the way:

An article, even if it's an opinion article, is never supposed to have pronouns. Any and all use of "I," "me," "you," etc... is always looked down upon in formal writing. Instead of having an informative piece, pronoun usage takes down work to a very personal level, which is inappropriate because I, a reader, has no real relationship with you, the author. This isn't a conversation, it's supposed to be a base of knowledge for me to soak up--regardless if it's opinionated, it's still a place for information, not a real-life conversation.

"it will give you the energy that you need and a stomach refill "
^That's actually very, very incorrect. Fast food and other garbage food does not provide actual sources of good nutrition, nor does it provide an actual reserve of energy. It pumps the body with sugars that create a false sense of energy, which causes "crashes" and the heavy, sickly feeling people often get several hours afterwards. Fast food can physically fill a stomach, but since there are few nutrients, the stomach is essentially a bag until one can shit out the shit he just ate.

"Of course, it’s never bad to go visit your usual fast-food chain for breakfast, lunch or supper. What we all need to do is minimize it, even just a little bit. According to experts, some fast-foods can even give you cancer"

What? I.... It's never bad but it can cause cancer? Then it's pretty bad. I THINK I see what your opinion is, but when it's coupled so closely with a pretty negative punch, it takes away credibility to your personal points.
Seeing as fast food has little to no actual nutritional benefit, it's bad to have it as a day starter for breakfast--it's still bad to have for any other meal, but I'd think even more so in the morning to fill one's body up with empty calories and detrimental-to-health products, such as the heavily sugared foods and the poor quality of ingredients.

"...it would be best if we eat the stuff in minimal quantities. After all, it wouldn’t be that bad if we at least try to cook our own food every once in a while."

The pronoun use not only makes this too personal, but it creates the tone and illusion that we all eat fast food in huge quantities and never really cook for ourselves. It's too broad of a statement that can be avoided if pronouns aren't used. Once "we" is thrown into the mix, it sounds like everyone has the same exact habit.

"One of the good things that fast-food gave us is employment. According to the American Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 1.9 million American workers are employed in food establishments. And with the fast growth of the industry, comes a great need for workers. Although the pay for working at such establishments isn’t that good, it does help, especially to college students who are in great need of money."

I have a lot of problems with this conclusion paragraph. Firstly, it's too short and doesn't really hit any of your previous points. It sounds more like a defense for the fast food industry more than a wrap up of your article. The grammatical structure isn't really enforced--unnecessary punctuation then lack of necessary punctuation, then a fragment is thrown in there. To me, the idea that it gives people jobs doesn't really make it any better. Drug cartels give people jobs, too, but that isn't really a good feature of the business. lololol What many people don't take into account is that fast food chains can employ so many people and have such booming business because their basic products and ingredients are subsidized by the government and, in turn, is at artificially low prices. So, the employment isn't really the result of the fast food chain as much as it is that the government subsidizes corn and other cash crops that go straight to fast food and junk food industry. If the government subsidized organic farms or really just healthy and practical crops, jobs would be booming in other industries instead.

All in all, I think you could do some more research in order to validate your opinions. I think this piece is a draft or two away from being really pretty good. Hopefully I didn't come across as mean--I'm just really passionate about communication and want people to be able to be as clear and concise as possible. I know I'm not a saint in that department either, but people give me critiques too, so I figure it's my job to help others as well.

I didn't know some fast food places could give you cancer if you eat a lot of it.

I don't think you said anything in this article that most people don't already know. Except for the bit of history that you put in there. That was interesting. Otherwise I thought you could have gone deeper instead of staying on such a surface level, or you could have narrowed in on a certain specific topic instead of the whole thing.

I think you could really go more in-depth with this article. To me, this sounded like a blog post on your thoughts about what you read about. There's no rule against using personal statements ("I", "me", etc.) in articles, but for something you're trying to prove - is fast food really convenient? - a formal writing style would be more appropriate. Another thing is that I'm not entirely sure what your opinion is on the subject, and you also don't really try to answer the question posed in the title. Though the bit about the Romans was pretty neat, I didn't know that.

"I’m actually quite amazed that people actually bothered researching the origin of something like fast-food but I guess everything should eventually be thrown into the light."

There's research done about EVERYTHING, the eating habits of an ancient civilization are far from the weirdest things you'll find.

Anyway, you're off to a good start, I hope I can help. :)

Fast-food may not be good for you, but I love it! Great article. You did heavy research on it and it was nice to read about how fast-food came into the world. Great writing once again!

Wonderful article! I'm surprised that I'm the first to comment. It was very well-written, overall. I especially liked how you pinpointed your opinion in it, such as how it doesn't pay good money, and how it wouldn't be bad to cook our own food. This is an article--which requires facts, and usually not much else--but your opinion was a shared one. I've heard your opinion everywhere, and many people agree, so that really pointed out things that we can agree with and keeps us favored and interested in the article. Also, I like how you did research about how the fast-food started--I've never really thought about the origin, and it was quite fascinating to learn about it.

Great job on the article! :)