Fast Food Facts

Every month, approximately nine out of 10 American children visit a McDonald's restaurant.

In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food. In 2006, the spending rose to nearly $142 billion.

During the early 1900s, the hamburger was thought to be polluted, unsafe to eat, and food for the poor. Street carts, not restaurants,
typically served them.

Proportionally, hash browns have more fat and calories than a cheeseburger or Big Mac.

Today, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products are sold in every country in the world, except North Korea.

In 2005, Advertisting Age cited Ronald McDonald as the number two top-10 advertising icon of the twentieth century. The Marlboro Man was number one.

The first located printed reference to hamburgers appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 1894.

There are more than 300,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S. alone.

The popularization of the automobile resulted in “flashier” fast food restaurant architecture to catch the attention of drivers.

A&W Root Beer is named after Roy Allen and Frank Wright, the founders of the company. A&W was one of the first fast food franchises.

Television greatly expanded the ability of advertisers to reach children and try to develop brand loyalty early in life. Today the

average American child sees more than 10,000 food advertisements each year on television.

Advertising Age selected the McDonald’s slogan “You Deserve a Break Today” as the best advertising campaign of the twentieth century.

Other notable slogans were Burger King’s “Burger King, Home of the Whopper” and Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?”

In 1949, Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald's restaurant in San Bernardino, California: the McDonald Brothers Burger Bar Drive-In.

McDonald's is Brazil’s largest employer.

When McDonald's opened an outlet in Kuwait shortly after the end of the Gulf War, the line of cars waiting to eat there was seven miles long.

In 1949, Forrest Raffel and his younger brother Leroy created a restaurant that sold roast beef sandwiches. They spelled out the initials “Raffel Brothers (RB) to create the name “Arby’s.”

The popularization of the drive-thru led car manufacturers in the 1990s to install cup holders in the dashboards. As fast food drinks became larger, so did the cup holders.

Coca-Cola originally included coca derivatives such as cocaine in their sodas, which at the time was not illegal. It was originally served as a “brain tonic and intellectual soda fountain beverage.”

Two fast food chains claim to have opened the first drive-ins: Pig Stand, which opened in 1921 in Texas, and A&W Root Beer, which launched in California in 1919.

White Castle, started by J. Walter Anderson and Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram, is considered to be the first fast food restaurant. Its

major product was a hamburger, which had been sold as sandwiches by street vendors since the 1890s.

Burger King’s Double Whopper with cheese contains 923 calories. A man would need to walk for about nine miles to burn it off.

The combination of french fries and hamburgers is a continuation of the “meat and potatoes” mentality that has been the core of American food since the eighteenth century.

French fries are the single most popular fast food in America. In 1970, french fries surpassed regular potato sales in the United

States. In 2004, Americans ate 7.5 billion pounds of frozen french fries.

In-N-Out Burger is one of the few fast food restaurants that actually slice each potato by hand shortly before it is placed in the deep fryer.

Hamburgers are not served in India out of respect for Hindu religious beliefs, and beer is served at McDonald's in Germany.

The invention of the meat grinder in the mid nineteenth century gave rise to the hamburger. Currently, between 40,000 and 50,000

meatpackers, many of whom pack meat for fast food chains, are injured every year, making meatpacking one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States.

Among the first fast food mascots was Big Boy, a plump boy with red-and-white checkered overalls with the words “Big Boy” spread across

his chest. The first McDonald’s mascot was “Speedee,” a little chef with a hamburger hat. McDonald's later settled on the iconic Ronald McDonald—and today 96% of American children recognize him.

McDonald's is the largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes and the second largest purchaser of chicken in the world. Its annual orders for french fries constitute 7.5% of America’s entire potato crop.

By the end of the twentieth century, one out of eight American workers had at some time been employed by McDonald's and 96% of

Americans had visited McDonald's at least once. It was also serving an estimated 22 million Americans every day and even more abroad.e

A McDonald’s’ corn muffin has more calories than a glazed donut. A small packet of Wendy’s honey mustard dressing has 280 calories.

In 1965, a college student named Fred De Luca and family friend Dr. Peter Buck started Subway in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The first

restaurant was called Pete’s Super Submarines. Subway currently is located in 87 countries.