Fast food is unhealthy. But so damn tasty! The best known comes from McDonald’s, the company that celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2020. anniversary. To mark the occasion, we take a closer look at the red and yellow giant – and with 34,000 stores worldwide, 1.8 million employees and 75 hamburgers sold every second, that’s no easy task. If the sight of so many numbers makes you dizzy, stabilize your circulation with a Happy Meal. Or even a Big Mac.
On 15. On May 1940, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the “Dick & Mac McDonald – McDonald’s Bar-B-Q” in San Bernardino (California). They became famous in 1948 when they rationalized the preparation of hamburgers and introduced self-service.
McDonald’s stands for globalization like almost no other company. Since 1986, The Economist has been running the Big Mac Index, which compares the cost of a Big Mac internationally. In January 2015, the cheapest Big Mac cost the equivalent of $1.20 in Ukraine and the most expensive-who would be surprised-was $7.54 in Switzerland.
McDonalds introduced the “Happy Meal” in 1979. Today, McDonald’s is the world’s largest toy manufacturer. Every year, 1.5 billion toys are added to menus.
The origin of McDonald’s
The Big Mac is the most famous burger in the world. According to McDonald’s, 550 million are eaten every year in the USA alone – that’s almost 17 per second. It was invented in 1967 by Jim Deligatti, a franchisee from Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The composition of the sauce is said to be based on a Russian recipe and remains a secret. On average, there should be 178 sesame seeds on a Big Mac. If you do a recount, please let us know if it’s correct.
For his documentary “Supersize Me”, Morgan Spurlock ate exclusively McDonald’s products for a month at the beginning of the noughties. With devastating consequences: He put on a lot of weight, his cholesterol level rose by 65 points and his liver values became as bad as those of an alcoholic. You can find out more about the documentary “Supersize Me” here.
In 1953, the very first McDonald’s franchise restaurant opened in Phoenix, Arizona. More followed, first in the USA and then internationally from 1967. Today, 21,000 franchisees operate more than 34,000 stores in 118 countries, where around 1.8 million employees serve over 68 million customers every day.
McDonald’s serves approx. 68 million people, which corresponds to almost 1% of the entire world population. The company sells 75 hamburgers every second worldwide, that’s 6.48 million a day and 2.3652 billion in a year.
Wages in the fast food industry are poor worldwide. Between 2007 and 2011, American fast food workers had to be supported by the state to the tune of 7 billion dollars a year because their wages were not enough to live on. On the now closed employee website “McResource”, McDonald’s gave tips on how to deal with starvation wages – including these: Cutting food into smaller pieces increases the feeling of fullness… resell received Christmas presents in their original packaging… Selling valuables online… and also very nice: stop complaining, as this can increase your stress level by up to 15%.
The risks and side effects of visiting McDonald’s
High blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, respiratory diseases, breast, prostate and colon cancer, metabolic disorders, fatty liver hepatitis, insulin resistance, asthma, menstrual cycle disorders, polycystic ovary syndrome, impaired fertility and adult-onset diabetes are some of the diseases that can be caused by eating too much fast food.
Sharon Stone, Shania Twain, Jay Leno, Rachel McAdams and Pink were employed at McDonalds before their careers.
The man who made McDonald’s big was Ray Croc. As a kitchen appliance salesman, he was so enthusiastic about the fast-food concept that he became a franchisee in 1954. As he had bigger plans than the McDonald brothers, he bought the entire business from them in 1961 for dollars.
Hamburgers, fries and cola: the production of a single fast-food meal consumes 6,000 liters of water, including the cultivation of potatoes and grain, livestock feed and beverage production.
all photos: Pixabay
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