Fast Food: Is Haste Waste?

A few weeks ago while vacationing at the beach I was watching television and came across an hour long show about the recent explosion of development in and general history of fast food technology. Needless to say, I was intrigued. On one level, it struck me as very impressive that fast food chains have reached the point where they can get you your meal, in many cases, within a single minute of ordering. I felt some sense of pride, being that many of these companies are American-based. However, it also seemed odd to me that so much money is going into research and development of new technologies aimed to shave seconds off of the fast food’s production time, while a vast number of the people in the world are undernourished, much less able to go to a fast food restaurant.

I realized that I know very little about what research is in progress and what technology exists in the context of feeding those who cannot acquire food themselves. I have made the assumption that at least some attention is being given to this issue, but to what degree I am quite unsure.

In 2010, surveys revealed that nearly a billion people in the world were hungry ^[1].  That being said, billions of dollars were, and continue to be, poured into research and development of faster and more efficient fast food technology. This issue raises some questions with ranges of arguable answers. First, should money be spent on the impoverished people of the world which are unable to eat, if they have no money of their own with which to provide an economic incentive for companies to do so? Staunch capitalists would tend to argue against provision of money for the benefit of these people, but those with a more humanitarian outlook on the matter would undoubtedly want to take some sort of action towards helping this large fraction of the world’s population. This brings us to our second important question: what exactly should be done about this problem? At least to me, there is no clear solution to a problem in which much money needs to be spent but there is little to no chance of recovery of capital. This seems like it should be a hotly debated issue but I believe it is eclipsed by more “urgent” issues. As widespread hunger has been present for a very long time, people may actually consider it normal and may therefore be less inclined to seek out a solution.

I would love to be corrected if my assumption (that the research regarding the feeding of the hungry is being done on a much smaller scale than that of making a cheeseburger three percent juicier or cooking fries 2.8 seconds faster per batch). I have not been able to find much evidence to suggest my assumption is wrong, but I would be happy if it existed somewhere. I don’t feel quite right about this neglect of those in need in favor of servicing those who are too impatient to wait thirty more seconds for their meal.