There are not so many things human beings could live without and among them probably the most important is food. Traditionally, food preferences vary from country to country because practically each nation has its peculiar national cuisine. But, unfortunately, nowadays, the situation is going to change dramatically because of the process of globalization which overwhelms everything even the food industry which tends to unify peoples’ tastes and likes in the sphere of food consumption. The food production and the process of eating itself acquire characteristics of the conveyer. Fast food restaurants gain more and more popularity all over the world and the presence of such giants as McDonald’s, Starbuck’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and many others on the market of the third world’s countries proves the fact that food became a serious part of international corporations’ interests.

Naturally, as any other international corporations fast food ‘monsters’ contribute to the process of globalization and moreover they may be treated as the ‘engine’ of this ambiguous process. We can hardly estimate that this process has only negative side but as for food traditions and food culture we can definitely say so because all national peculiarities disappear with the development of fast food restaurants all over the world. It is already obvious that they destroy national habits in food consumption and in way they change the life style of whole generations of people in different countries even in such conservative ones as China, Japan and many others where international corporation dealing with food industry are in business.

As a part of the process of globalization this phenomenon overcomes all boundaries and spread its influence all over the world making restaurants in different countries alike. As you know it is not a secret that such corporations as McDonald’s are proud of the fact that a person may travel around the world and visit such restaurants without any fear to be confused because the ambiance, products, service here is the same regardless where this or that restaurant is situated.

Now let’s speak in details about the role that such ‘mcdonaldization’ plays in the modern world. As for the term itself, I think, it is quite easy to understand that it is one of the neologisms that is going to become generally accepted and usually people use this term in order to describe that rapid invasion of the world’s food market by giants of fast food industry as well as it denotes the fact of changing eating preferences and even the way of life itself. There is no doubt that fast food changes the face of national, or now it will be more correct to say of international, cuisine and food culture because they really become international and in some countries, to some extent, they has already become. It becomes more obvious when we look at the figures, for example McDonald’s has about 29,000 restaurants in 120 countries all over the world.

Unfortunately, it is very hard to prevent these global changes because old food traditions are or are going to be replaced by new ones common for all people and if in developed countries practically all people have got used to this life style and this way of eating in other countries, mainly the countries of the third world, fast food is the passion of younger generation. For example in Africa it gains more and more popularity and “in many African cities it is considered sophisticated to eat in one of the increasing number of fast food joints” (4). So it becomes quite a problem for a tourist to taste local specialties because when one arrive to such countries he or she is led to fast food restaurants and it is not difficult to understand the feelings of a British tourist who, on visiting Africa, said that “she was taken from one fried chicken shop to another”(4).

Even for tourists it seems abusive and what should then feel local people who are conscious of the fact that they loose their traditions, their culture. But when we come in one of fast food restaurants in any Asian or African country we will see that far not all people realize this fact. So nowadays in Hong Kong, that is a country with great culinary traditions, we can observe the invasion of fast food restaurants, especially McDonald’s which has 158 restaurants among 10,000 others. But here we must pay attention to the size of trade because McDonald’s restaurants are visited by half a million people per day among 7 million population of the city.

Naturally, as I already said, it brings a lot of changes not only in tastes of people but also in traditions and culture. It leads to the change in the social structure of the family because parents do not teach children to national table manners and table etiquette and children don’t even need all the stuff for they prefer to eat fast food in specialized restaurants where they do not need all these manners and rituals. By the way, the same phenomenon may be widely observed in neighboring countries like Japan, Korea and others.

But ‘mcdonaldization’ doesn’t have only spiritual or cultural effect it also has a very serious economical consequences. And I can even say that this cultural shift is the result of economical factors that make people go there and dine there. It is well known that very often, especially in occidental countries, people go to McDonald’s or any other fast food restaurant because they do not have a choice or just because it is there and they have nothing but such types of restaurants. So these economical influence is really great and it is not always positive but mainly quite opposite it has negative results especially for poor countries of the third world.

Despite the fact that fast food international corporations provide a certain employment and money (basically for the owners or investors), it really damages the social and economical life of whole countries, it even can cause starvation and, consequently, a great social tension. The explanation of this problem is quite obvious: the crops of grains and other important products are used to feed animals whose meat is used for burgers and other ‘delicacies’ that leads to the starvation in the poorest country that need to export these products and on opposite it leads to the problem of obesity in well developed countries where scientists have already declared the epidemic character of this disease.

Moreover, such global spread of fast food causes ecological problems in addition to those that were mentioned above. It is quite normal that when there is a demand of meat farmers are forced to develop cattle farming despite the lack of food for animals. That is why an enormous quantity of acres of rain forests is destroyed every year to satisfy their needs in new and larger crops and in pastures.

Naturally, all these problems that become so clear nowadays caused the opposition in the society and now there are a lot of organizations worried about the problem of ‘mcdonaldization’ that has a global character because it concerns so many people around the world and many of them also fights against the process of globalization in general. But, unfortunately, their voices are not always heard by those who take decisions in this world. Though their existence make me hope that the situation may be changed somehow and the problems that were discussed in my work will be solved. As for me it is really unfair and it really deteriorates the life of our planet when a group of international corporations for the sake of their own profit is ready to kill people by starvation, to destroy culture and traditions that were forming for so long time, and, finally, to provoke environmental catastrophes by cutting forests and developing cattle farming. I am sure that all of us must think over this problem and try to find the appropriate solution to save our culture, planet and our lives.

Aaron Schwartz
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