These days you would be hard pressed to walk around a city or town without seeing a McDonalds or a Burger King.  Fast food joints like these have become as normal a sight for Americans as grocery stores, banks, or post offices. 

 Mostly concentrated in the U.S., these restaurants have spread internationally as well.  But while nearly every country in the world has some kind of fast food, America still tends to be the unhealthiest.  For example in many European countries, including England and Switzerland, McDonalds offers vegetarian options for their customers.  This could be partially an appeal to the larger vegetarian community in Europe, but it also shows that the menu is somewhat healthier.

 Interestingly, McDonald’s French fries were only recently made vegetarian friendly.  It sounds weird, I know, but the fries used to be cooked in so much grease and animal fat that they couldn’t be considered vegetarian. 

Here in America, the “Dollar Menu” or “Value Menu” is commonplace in fast food joints, but in other parts of the world, that’s nothing more than a pipe dream.  Having to pay the full (and sometimes higher) price for food causes many Europeans to shy away from eating fast food on a regular basis, and so making them healthier by default. 

One of the worst things that people consume with their fast food is soda.  Most don’t even think about the health consequences, but a medium Coca-Cola contains 210 calories, which is almost as much as a cheeseburger!  This is another place where America differs from the rest of the world, because American soft drink sizes are actually bigger than in Europe.

At this point, I probably sound like a broken record.  We’ve all heard about how bad fast food is for us.  But it’s important for us to realize how poor things are here where we live.  With these stark differences, it’s pretty clear to see how big of an issue this has really become.