Text 2. Fast Food or Slow Food?

In North America people are always in a hurry. Children have special lessons or sports activities after school. Parents often work late and don’t get home until 7 or 8 o’clock at night. More than 50 percent of women work at full-time jobs, and many people do shift work. It isn’t a surprise that the average North American family doesn’t have the time to eat many meals together.

When a family takes the time to eat a meal together, often there isn’t enough time to prepare the food. That is why "fast food" is so popular in North America. People spend about 40 percent of their food dollars on fast food.

Fast food is food such as hamburgers, pizza, submarine sandwiches, or fried chicken. People usually buy this food from a restaurant chain such as Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Fast food saves work and time, but it is not very nutritious.

Fast food is popular in many countries. American fast-food companies now have restaurants all over the world. There are McDonald’s restaurants in Bangkok, Beijing, Moscow, Kyiv, and Mexico City, as well as in Paris, London, and Rome.

Not everyone is happy about the spread of North American fast food. A group of people in Italy wants to fight the spread of American fast food. They do not want any more fast-food chains to open restaurants in their country. Their organization is called the Slow Food Movement. This group wants to fight against the spread of fast food everywhere.

They fight not only against the spread of North American eating habits. According to scientists, overeating and a weakness for fast food and sweet carbonated drinks (soda pop) are not simply a question of tradition or self-discipline. People who like hamburgers, French fries, soda pop and other fast food can become addicted to these products, which have been proven to be as addictive as drugs.

Regular consumption of products with a high fat content and carbohydrates can cause such changes in the human brain that will make it very difficult for a person to refuse such products. By stimulating the production of opiates, large doses of frozen foods can cause a state of narcotic intoxication, weaker yet similar to a person’s state under the influence of heroine or cocaine.

A team of scientists at Princeton University proved that rats kept for a certain period on a diet with a 25% sugar content showed withdrawal symptoms like shaking and gritting their teeth after they were taken off the diet. When the rats were given a dose of medicine, which blocked their opiate receptors, their condition returned to normal.

The scientists say that neurochemical activity in drug addicts going through withdrawal changes along exactly the same patterns. Experts studying the problems of excess weight or obesity believe that eating fast food and sweets stimulates a cycle in the body known as "immediate satiation". This is characterized by an acute rise in blood sugar content and, hence, the desire to eat more. Once there, the path to pathological dependence continues.