01x01 - 4 Trillion French Fries

[bunniefuu]

(clattering plates)

- How many French fries

have I had in my lifetime?

- Oh man.

- I need a calculator.

- Let's go 124,800, no.

- Carry the two.

- Thousands upon thousands.

- About 48,392 and a half.

- I eat fast food in a year.

- Oh man, like maybe every

morning, every other day.

- 100 times, at least.

- Quarter pounder, poutine,

chocolate milkshake, apple pie.

Double coronary artery

bypass, (laughs) to go.

- 96%, that's how

many Americans visit

fast food restaurants

in the course of a year.

That's more than

Americans go to church,

go to gyms, even

participate on the internet.

- Fast food is a

cultural phenomenon.

It defines our country,

it is us, it's who we are.

- [Narrator] In just one

century, fast food transformed

the American way of life.

- When you look at fast food

over the last 100 years,

it's not possible to

separate American history

from fast food because

of how powerful

and influential it's been and

how much it's an institution

that really explains

where we've been,

where we are and

where we're going.

- [Narrator] And fast food

didn't just conquer America.

It took on the world.

- Almost 1% of the

world's population

eats at McDonald's every day?

Wow.

The globalization of

fast food is the future,

but I do know that we can't

sustain it as a planet.

- [Narrator] This isn't

just the story of fast food.

It's the story of the American

dream, of globalization

and the history of a 100

years in 4 trillion fries.

(rock music begins)

(rockets blare)

- 4 trillion, four, that's

actually eight. (laughs)

Dum dum, dum dum dum dum

dum, dum dum, dum dum dum dum ♪

(ketchup squirts)

4 trillion fries,

that's how many fries

McDonald's has served

since they first open.

(multiple loud bites)

- 4 trillion is a number

that's basically unfathomable

to the human mind.

- 4 Million, I could understand.

Like even 4 billion sounds like

my brain could process that.

- I wonder how it is that we

haven't made potatoes extinct.

- 4 trillion anything?

I can't even fathom what

that would even look like

or how much land the

earth that would occupy.

- [Astronaut]

Command, there appears

to be french fries in orbit.

- [Narrator] If the average

French fry is 2.32 inches.

- [Man] Okay.

- [Narrator] And you

line up 4 trillion fries.

- [Man] And away we go.

- [Narrator] It would

stretch 146,464,646.5 miles.

Ooh, and could wrap around the

earth's equator 5,889 times.

- [Man] Holy moly.

- [Astronaut] Yeah

Command, I've never seen

that many French fries.

(film reel clicks)

(triumphant orchestral music)

- There's a rumor that

even Thomas Jefferson

was eating French

fries when he wrote

the Declaration of Independence.

Obviously, that's

probably not true,

but Jefferson did introduce

French fries to America

in 1802, 1 year before he

bought Louisiana territory

from France so I don't know

if that's a good or bad thing

about French fries.

(clicking metal)

- [Narrator] Fast

forward, 180 years.

The French fry is the most

popular dish in America

and a McDonald's drive-through

will serve 144 cars in an hour.

That's one, every 25 seconds.

- What a statistic like

being able to get your food

in less than a minute says

about how we value time.

In some ways that's a

little bit frightening,

even as it's impressive

and even as there's a lot

of fascinating science

that goes into that.

The need that we feel

to be in such a hurry

says something particular

about American culture.

- Fast food plays on

human convenience.

We want instant gratification.

We want it in every

aspect of our life.

- [Narrator] But fast food

isn't just a reflection

of the modern world.

It's one of the things that

made us who we are today.

(playful techno music begins)

- [Radio] Take yourself

down to Ocean Drive

to enjoy free breakfast.

- [Narrator] Miami 1980,

at McDonald's a 16 year old

high school student begins

his first summer job

in the back kitchen

as a grill man.

- [Boy] Yeah.

- A giant wall mounted

ketchup dispenser dumps

across the floor.

- [Boy] Oh.

- [Narrator] And he's

handed a bucket and a mop

and told to get cleaning.

Looking back, he'll say you

learn a lot as a teenager

working at McDonald's,

it's different

from what you learn in school.

Don't underestimate

the value of that,

and his biggest lesson apart

from how to scramble eggs,

flip burgers, and pull

fries out of the boiling VA

without injuring himself,

is customer service.

I learned that it's really

hard, this teenager's name,

Jeff Bezos, the CEO

and founder of Amazon,

who's now worth 190 billion.

- King of Amazon who used

to work the Saturday shift

at McDonald's still brags

that he can crack an egg

with one hand.

(egg cracks)

(cars honk)

- [Narrator] Easy

access, speedy delivery,

cheap prices and

customer service.

Fast food restaurants are

the roadside embodiments

of the American way.

Just look at a map.

- [Man] Mm.

- [Narrator] There are

more franchise restaurants

in the United States

than there are schools

or family doctors.

- [Man] The doctor

will see you now.

- [Narrator] And you'll

never be more than 115 miles

from the nearest McDonald's.

- [Man] Hm mm.

- [Narrator] In Katy,

Texas, there are a whopping

166 fast food restaurants

to choose from.

- [Man] Yeah.

- [Narrator] That's one

for every 160 people

or a different place

to eat every week

for the next three years.

- [Man] Well whistle me dixie.

- [Narrator] Making it

the fast food capital

of the United States.

- [Crowd] Wow.

- Fast food is deeply

embedded in the culture.

It's to the point where

it's taken for granted

and it's all the things

that America represents.

(salsa music continues)

It's available to

the whole population.

It's democratic in that sense.

- Nothing brings people together

from different backgrounds,

quicker than fast food,

whether you are a millionaire

or someone's

struggling to survive.

You're sitting in the same place

and enjoying the same meal.

- Fast food is

made for everybody.

It's a great equalizer

in terms of food.

- I've seen people

in suits after work,

I've seen mom in sweatpants,

I've seen a homeless

guy not wearing pants.

- I've seen people in teenage

mutant ninja turtle costume,

not on Halloween,

just like day-to-day.

- The guy in the full suit.

The person in

pajamas at 3:00 PM.

- Anything goes in a

fast food restaurant.

- Mm.

- No one's judging me

for eating fast food.

Like fast foods is the

sweatpants of food. (laughs)

(upbeat techno music begins)

- [Narrator] In any given month,

80% of us visit at least

one fast food joint.

And even though we

may think fast foods

origin's story is American,

well, it actually

isn't our invention.

It's been around for as

long as we've craved carbs.

The first fast food

joint was unearthed

in ancient Mesopotamia

more than 5,000 years ago.

- [Man] Mm.

- [Narrator] 80 fast food

restaurants known as Thermapolia

have been found in Roman

Pompeii and 1,500 years ago,

the Julia Child of her

day, wrote down the world's

first ever recipe for a

burger in a Latin manuscript.

- [Man] I think to be yummy.

- Our founding fathers,

our philosophies,

our government was

based on the Romans.

The Romans impact

American history more

than people realize.

Not only are our

governing style,

but our architecture

and also our fast food.

They were extremely indulgent,

but they also had a

fast food service.

They had what would be the

equivalent of food trucks.

(truck honks)

They even add in Pompeii,

a delivery service.

They had ancient Roman GrubHub.

So as advanced as we

like to think we are,

we're just doing a

newer version of stuff

that ancient cultures

have done for a long time.

- [Narrator] But in

the last 100 years,

we've made it uniquely ours,

and it begins in

Wichita, Kansas in 1921.

(harmonica music continues)

When Walter

Anderson, the founder

of White Castle restaurants

has a temper tantrum

at his food stand.

- He's cooking grilled

meatballs on his griddle

and it was taking too long.

- [Man] Come on.

- One day out of frustration,

he grabs the spatula, he

smashes it down on the grill.

- [Man] Ah, fiddle faddle.

- [Adam] He finds that it

cooks the meat really quickly

and also tastes good.

- [Man] Ah ha.

- He starts creating

these patties

and serving them in buns

and the next thing you know,

he's got this product

that nobody else has.

- [Man] Yeah.

- And that becomes the beginning

of his hamburger invention.

- [Narrator] The fast

food hamburger is born

and Walt calls them sliders

because they slide

down the throat.

Soon after, Walt puts

a sign above his door,

hamburgers 5 cents,

and he puts his griddle

in full view where

the customer can see

exactly what's going

into his slider.

- [Man] Oh, you don't

see that everyday.

- [Narrator] Another

bold decision,

because at the start

of the 20th century,

red meat had a bad reputation.

- In the early 1900s,

Americans were generally afraid

of eating ground beef because

they'd read horror stories

about the meat packing industry

in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

It really set off

a lot of alarms.

- [Narrator] The book

is a muckraking expose

of Chicago's union

stockyards cataloging,

the horrors of rotting

meat mixed with sawdust,

dead rats in the meat

grinder and workers

with mysteriously

missing digits.

Eating ground meat

is said to be as safe

as picking your food

out of a trash can.

- The birth of fast

food really comes about

in the early 20th century

following the Progressive Era,

when there was a big scare

around the meat packing

industry and sanitation.

- There was also a lot

of immigrant anxiety

tied up in that,

there's racism tied up in that,

the idea that people who

are recent immigrants

are preparing your food

behind closed doors

and it's not hygienic.

- In the middle of all of

that comes White Castle,

which has the brand new business

model of super transparent,

you know, right where

your burger came from,

not expensive and sanitary.

- White Castle really is

the beginning of fast food.

It spoke to how America

was changing at the time.

The Model T was becoming

much more affordable.

So more people were driving

around and looking for food

that they could pick

up pick up quickly

and at the heart of

it was the hamburger.

(car honks)

- I have had at least

500,000 burgers in my life.

That's like a warm

corporate hug in my mouth.

It's just salty and

there's ketchup happening.

- I'm licking my

lips, I'm salivating.

I take a huge bite,

there's ketchup and mustard

on the sides of my mouth.

- Hm, this is delicious,

maybe some Coca-Cola?

Yeah, okay, great,

now it's a party.

- I'm thinking, wow,

this burger's great.

It's juicy, it's delicious.

- I think there's like

this ratio of salt

and fat and juiciness.

- I want to just feed these

dirty little grabs and blar,

and just (beep) drool

out of our faces.

Sorry for swearing but like

there's a lot of people invested

in making it that way.

(loud chewing)

- [Narrator] Like all primates.

(monkey coos)

Our brains are biologically

programmed to consume carbs,

fats and protein.

- [Man] Mm.

- [Narrator] But in the

course of evolution,

our brains have become

three times bigger

than our closest genetic

cousins, the chimpanzees

and so have our cravings.

(video game beeps)

When we eat fast food,

up to 100 million neurons

fire rapidly, releasing

dopamine and opioids,

the chemicals which

are responsible

for the feelings of pleasure.

- [Woman] Ooh.

- For an early human,

salt, fat, sugar,

are rare in the environment.

So our hunter gatherer brains

just light up in delight

to find something that

contains high amounts

of any of those things and

especially in combination,

which is something that fast

food's taken advantage of.

(squirting ketchup)

- If you're used to whopping

quantities of sugar, fat,

and salt, your whole

system of craving

will be expecting these high

levels, so I'm hungry and oh,

the golden arches,

woof, dopamine rush.

Hallelujah, hallelujah,

hallelujah, hallelujah ♪

That's the dopamine,

that's craving.

- [Man] The craving.

- I don't know if Walt Anderson

would ever expect that,

the one day he was

frustrated at his griddle.

- [Man] Ah fiddle faddle.

- Would unleash this

enormous hamburger craze

that really took

the nation by storm

and eventually the world.

- [Narrator] In the history

of American fast food,

White Castle is

restaurant number one,

but how did one become 196,839

fast food joints in America?

(car engine revs)

Everybody listen

to me, what? ♪

Tell everybody

car you got to see ♪

The other day was

jolly just free ♪

So every Cadillac still ♪

- In the post-w*r

boom of the 1950s,

America discovers the

joys of the open road.

With full employment and

money in our pockets,

we become a nation of car

owners driving three quarters

of all automobiles

on the planet,

along 47,000 miles

of brand new highway.

(jazz music continues)

- Just to sum up the 1950s,

in a few words, the burbs.

(pleasant 50s music plays)

Babies.

(baby coos)

Buicks and burgers.

You were either driving

in or driving through.

- [Announcer] Eat, take in a

movie, do your laundry, shop

go to the library and

bank all without once

having to leave your car.

(radio static)

(rock music begins)

- We spend a lot of our time

in our cars in the 1950s.

It makes perfect sense that

the rise of automobile culture

is synonymous with the

rise of fast foods.

- [Narrator] Teenagers,

liberated housewives,

or the average sized

family can now drive to any

of the fast food joints

that have sprung up

along the highway.

And one of these

restaurants happens to be

a roadside barbecue

joint in San Bernardino,

operated by the

McDonald brothers.

(dramatic orchestral

music begins)

Having already chopped

up a failed movie theater

to their names.

- [Man] I got an idea.

- d*ck and Mac

McDonald repurposed

the usherette uniforms

and employed 20 car

hops to take meals

to their drive-up customers.

- [Announcer] That's right

friends, on roller skates.

- Before drive-thrus

became ubiquitous,

the precursor to that

was the drive in.

People would drive in and

they'd order their food

from a car hop.

- [Narrator] But

they quickly learned

that this squeezes their

margins, it's slow,

besides which, if you've got

20 teenage girls in uniform,

you'll get teenage boys swarming

like bees round a honeypot,

which kills your family market.

So they begin to rethink

the whole fast food model.

Henry Ford has already

(train whistle blows)

revolutionized the

automobile industry.

Prior to his introduction

of the assembly line,

it was taking 12 hours

to manufacture a Model T.

Now it takes precisely

one hour, 33 minutes.

What Ford does for the car,

the McDonald brothers

decide to do for the burger.

- The McDonald's brothers

decided we're going to cut

the cost of everything and that

was unheard of at the time.

That was very unique.

- [Narrator] First off,

they fire the car hops.

Waitress service is

a thing of the past,

like the Great

Depression, the Dust Bowl,

and big band music.

Instead they employ 12 people,

each performing a separate

task to prepare one meal.

From the grill and

deep fat fryer,

to the dressing station

and milkshake dispenser,

to the counter.

40 patties can be

grilled in 110 seconds.

- [Man] Holy moly.

- [Narrator] And a

meal can be prepared

in just 20 seconds flat.

McDonald's burgers are half

the price of their rivals.

- [Man] Good gravy.

- [Narrator] They call it

the speedy service system.

- It was an assembly line.

Every single movement

within the kitchen was timed

down to the step,

down to the pickle,

down to the chopped onion.

It was cheaper and

it was quicker.

- The key to maintaining

speed is to eliminate choice.

- [Man] I got it.

- So the McDonald brothers

reduced the number

of items on the

menu to just nine,

a hamburger, cheeseburger,

fries, milkshake, three flavors,

milk coffee, and a soda.

- [Man] Shazam.

- [Narrator] And on every

burger, there is exactly

two pickles along with

ketchup, mustard and onions.

- [Man] Mm, yes.

- Limited menu served quickly

was revolutionary at the time

and it's something that

struck a chord as car culture

in the 1940s and 50s

was really taking off,

especially in California.

- [Narrator] The new McDonald's

attracts not only customers,

but imitators and one

of the is James McLemore

who will become

founder of Burger King.

Another is Ray

Crock, who in 1954

is a 52 year old

milkshake mixer salesman.

When the McDonald brothers

buy eight of his mixers,

he goes to see what

all the fuss is about.

- [Man] Mm.

- [Narrator] He's

impressed and has a vision

of McDonald's restaurants

dotted across the country.

- [Man] Ah.

(triumphant horns play)

- [Narrator] He convinces

the brothers to let him open

the first McDonald's

franchise in Illinois.

- [Man] Mm hm.

- [Narrator] An empire is born

and more than 60 years later,

the numbers surpasses 14,000.

- Once Ray Crock gets involved,

McDonald's goes from being

a sleepy hamburger stand

in a desert county in

California to the beginnings

of a national institution

and as a result,

hundreds of imitators came

by and tried to create

their own version of

what McDonald's had done.

- [Narrator] And a handful of

these bootstrapping imitators

launch the next wave

of fast-food empires,

which continue to

grow every day.

Including Wendy's, Taco Bell,

Popeye's and Kentucky

Fried Chicken.

But what number do

these fast food pioneers

all have in common?

Zero.

(record scratches)

Zero high school or college

degrees between them.

- Dave Thomas, the founder

of Wendy's was an orphan

who was independent at 12

and started working

at restaurants.

Glen Bell, who was a college

dropout learned how to cook

while serving in the

Pacific during World w*r II

and he found a Taco Bell.

Ray Crock was also a

high school dropout.

Al Copeland grew up in the

first American housing project

in the country and would

amass a huge fortune

by working in

restaurants his life,

and eventually

founding Popeye's.

The same goes for

Colonel Sanders.

(country music plays)

- Harland Sanders leaves

school in grade seven

and begins working

as a farmhand.

He gets a job as a fireman

on the Illinois railroad.

(train whistles)

- [Man] Oh wise guy, aren't ya?

- [Narrator] And is

fired after brawling

with the engine driver.

- [Man] Fired.

- He practices law

without a law degree

in Little Rock, Arkansas.

- [Man] We got a problem?

Overruled.

- [Narrator] Until he has a

fight with his own client.

He delivers babies in

Pennsylvania without

a medical degree.

- [Man] Hit the road.

- [Narrator] Then

he goes on the road,

selling insurance

and promptly quits.

Then he gets a big break.

- [Man] Mm.

- [Narrator] A rent-free lease

on a gas station in Kentucky,

As well as gas, he

starts selling chicken

fried with his secret

11 spice coating.

- I found myself ending the

service station business

and a little restaurant,

little luncheon.

And I developed this special

seasoning of 11 spices

and herbs, and special

method of frying chicken

and I had a product that was

really out of this world.

- [Narrator] It's a hit

and things are looking up

for Harland until he

gets into another fight

with a rival gas station owner.

(g*nsh*t fires)

Who shoots dead his employee

and then along

comes interstate 75,

which bypasses his gas

station altogether.

So he opens a motel in

Asheville, North Carolina,

and it burns down.

- [Man] Oh buggers.

- [Narrator] But

he doesn't give up.

At the age of 65, he

travels the country,

dressed up as a Southern

Colonel cooking his chicken

for restaurant owners.

Finally, it works.

- [Man] That's the best

chicken I've ever tasted.

- [Narrator] The KFC

franchise empire is born.

Harlan is nothing if

not a serial failure

until the moment he isn't.

- [Man] Yeah.

- Well we use fresh

chicken, never frozen.

- He patented this

fried chicken recipe,

that became regionally famous

and then international famous.

Eventually he became the second

most recognizable

figure in the world.

Pretty impressive

accomplishment from a guy

with a middle school education.

- I like seeing people

who have failed and failed

and failed become successful

and I think Harland Sanders

is the epitome of that.

It is never too late

to start your life

or to change the world

or to change fast food.

(disco music begins)

- [Announcer] The desire for

fast, expensive tasty meals

has made convenience

food franchises

the most popular choice

for the new franchisee.

- [Narrator] In the 1960s and

70s, America becomes the land

of franchise opportunity

for aspiring go-getters.

This accessible path

to business ownership

creates a new class

of rich Americans.

- Ray Kroc famously said that

he made more millionaires

in America than anyone else.

Fast food was a way to

succeed in post-w*r America.

- [Announcer] Elk Grove

Village, Illinois is the home

of McDonald's

Hamburger University.

- Ray Crock's an interesting

one because he dropped

out of high school

to started McDonald's

but then he started

Hamburger University.

- [Announcer] These aren't

Ivy league students,

but new franchisees

who are attending

a comprehensive

training program.

- His students, they

graduate with a degree

in Hamburgerology,

Hamburgerology.

- [Narrator] Ray's

three tips for success.

Number one, if any of my

competitors were drowning,

I'd stick a hose in their mouth.

Number two, the gentle

art of salesmanship

is letting the customer

have it your way

and number three, if

you have time to lean,

you have time to clean.

Today, there are an

estimated 50,000 fast food

franchise chains competing

for our attention

and with overwhelming success.

On any given day,

one in four Americans

will visit a fast

food restaurant.

Show you the way out ♪

In a year, we'll

spend $239 billion

and eat approximately

50 billion burgers.

Cooking, cooking some food ♪

And I'm making some food now ♪

But for this world champion,

it's all in a day's work.

- Any time you food that

a lot of people love,

you'll inevitably run into

a competition about it.

- Okay, so I'm

going to press play.

- [Narrator] It's

Wednesday, June 6th, 2018.

- [Crowd] Three, two, one.

- Oh, is it Molly Schuyler.

I follow her, I

don't want to see no,

I'm not ready night now.

- [Crowd] Go.

- [Narrator] Molly Schuyler,

a married mother of four

has flown two and a half

thousand miles across America

to attend the Highway 55

burgers, shakes and fries,

hamburger eating championship.

- Some sort of prize

involved because why,

why would you do this?

Oh my god.

- [Announcer] From inside,

26 for Molly, 24 for Dean.

- She's eating like

cookie monster.

- I feel kind of sick.

- [Narrator] It takes Molly

one minute and 25 seconds

to eat three and a half

pounds of ground beef,

smashing the competition.

In less than a hundred seconds,

she consumes her recommended

daily intake of calories,

sodium and fat for the

next week and a half.

- [Woman] Thank you very much.

- How are you that skinny?

- [Narrator] Molly

is the number one,

independent female competitive

eater in the world.

But the original

burger eating challenge

was an experiment done

in the name of science.

(car honks)

It's 1932, Bernard Flesche

is a student working

his way through med school at

the University of Minnesota

when he sees an ad

asking for volunteers

in the Department of

Physiological Chemistry.

- [Man] Okay.

- [Narrator] He replies and

becomes the world's first

burger eating Guinea pig,

beating Morgan Spurlock

and Molly Schuyler by 80 years.

It's the idea of the

White Castle burger chain.

Co-founded by Walt Anderson,

which wants to prove

to the world that their sliders

are as healthy as

they are delicious.

Bernard keeps a diary

throughout the experiment.

- [Man] Day one.

- [Narrator] He begins by

happily downing 10 burgers

at a single sitting.

- [Man] I ate a whole

lot of burger today.

- [Narrator] By week three,

his enthusiasm begins to wane

but when offered fresh

vegetables, he refuses.

- [Man] No thank you.

- [Narrator] By week 10,

he's back in the zone,

eating 20 to 24

hamburgers a day.

- [Man] I feel fine today.

- [Narrator] At the

end of the experiment.

- [Man] Blood pressure.

- [Narrator] Flesche is

pronounced to be fit.

- [Man] Heart rate.

- [Narrator] And healthy.

- [Man] You're fine.

- [Narrator] Apparently proving

that White Castle customers

if they ate nothing but

our sandwiches and water

and fully develop all their

physical and mental faculties.

- [Man] Well slap my momma.

- That became a way for

White Castle to promote

what they were serving as

not just a healthy lunch,

but family friendly food,

things that you could serve

to your kids without worrying

about the nutritional content.

- [Narrator] Up until

1950, the standard size

of a White Castle slider

is just two ounces.

You could pop them in

your mouth with one hand,

but all that is about to change.

The classic burger

that Americans have

fallen in love with,

is about to grow up and out.

1950 is the year of the big

bang in the burger universe.

When Harmon Dobson opens

his first fast food joint

in Corpus Christi, Texas.

- [Man] Ride 'em cowboy.

- [Narrator] The state

where they don't do small.

He's already tried and

failed to make his fortune

in South African diamonds.

- [Man] Ooh, these are shiny.

- [Narrator] Texan oil and

selling secondhand cars.

- [Man] I'll give

you a great deal.

- [Narrator] But Harmon does

nothing if not dream big.

(harmonica music begins)

Having grown up on

a farm in Arkansas

during the Depression and Dust

Bowl, portion size counts.

- When Harmon Dobson came

along, he decided I want

to have a burger that you

need two hands to eat.

- [Narrator] And he

wants it to taste so good

that when you take

a bite, you'll say.

- [Man] Wow, what a burger.

- [Narrator] Which is

exactly what he calls

his new invention.

- What Whataburger

did differently was

that they created

a hamburger that

was a quarter pound

and at the time, that

was revolutionary.

- [Man] You don't

see that every day.

- [Narrator] It's a four

ounce monster that sells

for a quarter instead

of the standard nickel.

- He needed it to actually

create specialty hamburger buns

because they didn't make

hamburger buns big enough

to support the size of a

burger he was talking about.

Something special about that.

- Harmon's Whataburger

will be quickly followed

by the Big Mac, the double

quarter pounder and the Whopper.

You're the roast to my beef ♪

The Mash to my potato ♪

- Part of market competition,

between different

fast food vendors,

they started to offer

larger and larger

and in the human mind, it

seems like a better deal.

If there's the same

price at one place,

but it's six ounces as

opposed to four ounces,

(squirting ketchup)

that must be a better product,

and so you have this train

that goes off the rails

of size getting

bigger and bigger.

- Mm.

- [Narrator] 20 years ago,

the average serving of fries

used to be 2.4 ounces,

now it's 6.9 ounces.

Soda pop size is tripled.

Instead of 6.5 ounces,

we're getting 20 ounces.

The average cheeseburger

has nearly doubled in size.

That's 800 more

calories in one meal

and to burn off

the extra calories,

the average Joe will have

to go on a 10 mile hike.

- [Man] Too much work.

- [Narrator] Which the

average Joe tends not to do.

- For the companies, this

makes a lot of sense,

consumers like a great deal.

It doesn't cost that much more.

The problem for us is

that we don't eat half.

We think this is dinner

and they're constantly

evolving new options as well.

I don't know what's next step

to the Big Gulp. (laughs)

- [Narrator] By the 1990s,

Americans are gulping down

giant portions of fast

food at an insatiable rate.

- You eat it fast, like so

fast, like in three breaths.

So fast that your

stomach hurts after,

and then you regret it, but

then you do it again next week.

- How fast do I

eat my fast food?

I look around the room,

see if there's a defibrillator

on sight, two bites.

- Once I start a fast food meal,

I'm gonna eat the whole thing,

look, I spent $8 on this.

- It's kinda like

you're eating air,

but it's like meat and

cheese flavored air.

- It's the food science at play,

which is designed to hit

all of your flavor sensors

in a way that really

makes you feel

like you are eating

something that you love.

- Fast food really operates

on this idea of a bliss point,

this point at which you can

get the exact right amount

of these sugars, salts

and fats that you never

feel like you've

had too much of it,

that you walk out of the

fast food restaurant,

ready to eat fast

food in four hours.

- And this is a very

deliberate strategy.

It's engineered to be addictive.

Your brain just becomes

habituated to it,

to the point where when you

stop eating that kind of food,

you will actually

experience withdrawal

and you'll want more.

- [Narrator] As a

portion size has grown

and consumption rates

have skyrocketed

so has the average Joe.

He's an inch taller,

three inches rounder.

- [Man] Oh man.

- [Narrator] And

25 pounds heavier.

Collectively as a nation of

average Joes, at this rate,

soon we'll be carrying

around an excess weight

equivalent of the

great pyramid of Giza.

- [Man] Ow my back,

this is really heavy.

- [Narrator] That's

5.75 million tons.

- [Man] Holy moly.

(liquid drips)

- American obesity has grown

exponentially in just 30 years.

In 1990, less than 10%

of Americans were obese.

We now have in some states more

than 40% of Americans obese.

That's a huge change and

within one generation.

- It's not just

adults, it's kids,

kids are becoming diabetic.

Another number that is

hard to even get over

is the excess risk for having

childhood type two diabetes

for kids of color and

it's about four times

compared to whites.

It's not fair and they're

being target marketed.

The companies are competing

for stomach share.

That's what they call

it, stomach share.

- [Narrator] On any

given day over, one third

of American kids

will eat fast food.

And over the course

of a lifetime,

the average person will eat

an astonishing 2,808 burgers

and 3,744 portions of

fries but it will only take

one Big Mac to change

the course of history.

Moscow, January 1990.

Welcome to Soviet Russia where

the temperature is less than

30 degrees Fahrenheit

and 5,000 Muscovites

have been in a lineup for

food since before dawn.

But this isn't your ordinary

communist era bread queue.

- Well, it's been 14

years in the making

and today finally McDonald's

threw open the doors

to its first restaurant in

Moscow and make no mistake,

this was an event of major

gastronomical proportions.

- Most people associate

the end of the Cold w*r

with the fall of

the Berlin Wall.

I mean, you can argue

that it was the opening

of the first McDonald's.

I mean, it's not a

coincidence that Ronald Reagan

gave his iconic speech,

Mr. Gorbachev tear

down this wall.

- Mr. Gorbachev

tear down this wall.

(crowd cheers)

- Then in 1989, the

wall comes down.

(crowd cheers)

And McDonald's goes up.

That is probably the

official end of the Cold w*r.

- This is what 31,255 nuclear

warheads could never achieve.

The end of the cold w*r

for the price of a Big Mac.

- The McDonald's in Moscow

was the biggest McDonald's

in the world at the time.

The pictures of people lining

up around Pushkin Square

to have a McDonald's

was legendary.

It made newspapers around

the world, it was a big deal.

- [Narrator] The biggest

McDonald's in 1990

seats 900 people with

27 cash registers.

- [Man] Thank you much.

- [Narrator] The Soviet

era cafeteria it replaced

struggled to serve

20,000 people in a month.

- [Man] Oh.

- [Narrator] McDonald's serves

30,000 on its first day.

- [Man] Very nice.

- [Journalist] The verdict

on the feast was mixed.

I don't like it at all,

he says, it's not Russian.

- It's very beautiful but

I expected more I think.

- [Journalist] This woman

doesn't know what she just ate,

but she says it was

unusual and delicious.

- [Narrator] Since that day

in 1990, American fast food

has gone on to

conquer the world.

McDonald's now has 37,000

restaurants across the globe.

KFC has six times as many

international restaurants

as domestic and the total

number of fast food restaurants

across the globe is

a staggering 897,683.

- Fast food can't go

anywhere without adapting

to the local customs if

it's going to succeed.

So it is tailored to

the place that it is.

- Fast food has achieved

global domination by adapting

to its global market.

Dunkin Donuts' specialty in

Beijing is a seaweed donut.

- [Woman] Ooh.

- Burger King is

certified halal and kosher

in the Middle East.

- [Man] Oh man.

- [Narrator] KFC's buckets

are vegetarian in India

and in France, not only do

you get a Royal with cheese

because with the metric system,

they don't do quarter pounders

and mayo for your fries,

you can also get a glass

of wine to wash it down.

- [Man] All right.

- The most exotic place I've

ever had fast food is Trinidad.

When I went there, I had KFC.

The spices are different

than what you get here.

And it's so much better.

- Hong Kong, the

burgers were spicy.

In the Netherlands,

they served this thing

called the McCrock, which

they don't serve anywhere

outside of the Netherlands,

which is like a patty

with potato and I

think maybe some meat

and deep fried, it's awesome.

- The most exotic place

I've eaten fast food,

I think I had like a piri piri

burger in Papua, New Guinea.

- McDonald's in Paris

and it was more or

less the same thing.

I kind of thought they

would have snails on a menu,

but it was just brie, still

too fancy for me though.

- [Narrator] Fast food isn't

only taking over the world.

It's changing the planet itself.

(cow moos)

- A lot of the criticism of

fast food in recent years

has become more focused

on environmental concerns.

Eating beef in particular

is one of the leading causes

of environmental damage.

- Americans really

love beef way more

than any other country.

If you encouraged every

person on the planet

to eat as much beef

as an American,

it would take five planet

earth just to sustain

the cow populations necessary

to feed that hunger.

- You can't grow beef

everywhere in the world

and think that the world

is going to survive.

You can't privatize

water to make soda

in parts of the world

that are experiencing

climate change and

water scarcity.

The problem with

this business model

is it is environmentally

unsustainable.

- [Narrator] So just how

many quarter pound hamburgers

of meat can you actually

get from one cow?

- How many Quarter Pounders

can you get from one cow?

- I'm gonna

guesstimate 800 pounds

and if I'm doing the math,

a quarter pounder, (laughs)

that's 3,200 quarter pounders.

- I think a cow is

what, 600 pounds.

So 600 times four, I'd

need a calculator. (laughs)

- 508.

- You know what?

Cows are pretty big so

I feel like the amount

of Quarter Pounders you

can get from them is like

quite substantial,

I want to say 50?

- Well, if I was the cut

out little Quarter Pounders

out of a cow which is

horrible, 50 at least.

Gotta be at least 50.

- [Narrator] 1 beef steer

actually produces enough meat

for 740 quarter

pound hamburgers.

- [Man] Okay.

- [Narrator] And to produce

one hamburger requires

53.12 square feet of farmland

to provide sufficient feed

as well as 460 gallons of water.

- So one of the really big

problems with our addiction

to hamburgers is that the

cows, when they're alive,

they spend their days

releasing methane gas

into the atmosphere and this

is the cause of climate change.

- Cows have multi chambered

stomachs to be able to move

grass and hay through these

various different microbiomes

to help digest them but

one of the byproducts

is the production of methane.

Methane is 20 times more

potent than carbon dioxide

as a greenhouse gas

so cows releasing that

is even worse than some of

the other forms of pollution

that we see on the planet today.

- [Narrator] If you add up

all the cows in the world,

there's about 1.5 billion

and on any given day,

they will release up to 150

billion gallons of methane.

- You'd think it was the

equipment or it's all the oil

and gas that's used from

this machines that run

but no, it's just cows,

farting and burping.

Pretty crazy, right?

Like cows are belching

and that's actually

damaging the earth?

Like it's funny and scary.

- Can cows even

survive on their own?

Like I've never

heard of a wild cow.

I feel like people like

just farm them for food,

it's kind of icky.

- Thankfully not everyone

eats like Americans do.

A lot of countries

are vegetarian

and so that's good to know.

- Well, I mean, I belch

and fart in the air a lot

and my wife says that's a huge

problem to the environment.

So yeah, I think

it would be good

if we all ate less red meat.

- [Narrator] And our

demand for fast food

isn't just impacting the planet.

The animals themselves

are changing.

- The chicken of today

has kind of turned

into a Frankenstein's monster.

We want an animal that has

lots of meat where we want

to eat it on the breaths

and on the thigh,

specifically with chicken,

because we've had to breed

a bigger and bigger chicken

to keep up with that

growing portion size.

- [Narrator] In

the last 50 years,

the chicken has grown

nearly five fold.

If this rate of expansion

were to continue

for another 250 years.

(T-Rex growls)

The average chicken would be

the same size as the T-Rex.

(T-Rex growls)

Fast-food is reshaping

the Heartland of America

in the way we grow food,

the way we eat and look,

and even the way we

conduct politics.

(military horns begin)

- Wipe everything

from my calendar.

I want a hamburger

on my desk by noon.

- Every single presidential

candidate in the last

30 Or 40 years can

pretty much be seen

at a fast food

restaurant at some point

during their campaigns

to get a good photo op.

It's a way to meet people,

but it's also a way to

seem like they're authentic

and in touch with the

heartbeat of America.

- [Narrator] January 2019,

the college football

national champion,

the Clemson Tigers are

at the White House.

President Donald Trump is

hosting them and on the menu

are all his favorite fast foods.

- No matter how you

feel about Donald Trump,

he successfully parlayed

his love of fast food,

which is genuine.

- We have Big Macs, we have

Quarter Pounders with cheese,

we have everything that

I like that you like.

- To give his

billionaire exterior,

this kind of every man quality.

- There's nothing you could have

that's better than that, right?

- It really is a

meaningful political weapon

when wielded properly.

- [Narrator] Imagine

a map of the USA.

As you move either east

or west towards the coast,

the average state consumption

of fruit or

vegetables increases.

- [Man] Let's make a salad.

- [Narrator] And as you move

back towards the Heartland,

the consumption of Baconators

per head of population

increases in inverse proportion.

- [Man] We love our bacon here.

- [Narrator] And if you

color-code each state

by the number of fast food

joints per 10,000 people,

with Alabama at the top

of the list with 6.3

and Vermont at the

bottom, with 1.9,

it corresponds almost

exactly to the states

won by Donald Trump in the 2016

U.S. Presidential Election.

- [Man] Fast food's tremendous,

absolutely tremendous.

- [Narrator] Of the 20 states

that eat the most fast food,

17 are red and

voted for Mr. Trump.

- [Man] It doesn't get

any bigger than fast food.

- There's a reason why when

every presidential hopeful

goes to Iowa, they have a

corn dog, they have meat.

God forbid, you go to

Iowa and be a vegetarian.

You know, you can't run a

country if you're a vegetarian.

Iowans aren't going

to vote for you.

But in America,

I hate to say it,

but if you are a meat eater,

and if you're a fast food eater,

you will get a lot more votes.

- [Narrator] For

the last century,

whether it's a part of

our politics, our palate

or our pocketbook, fast

food has deeply woven itself

into the fabric

of American life.

(bell rings)

But after transforming

our taste buds,

expanding our waistlines and

impacting our environment,

will fast food change

to meet the demands

of the next 100 years.

- If we look at the

history of fast food,

it's been really good at

changing itself to market

what people want at the time.

- [Announcer] The

world's most famous menu.

Tomorrow there are changes.

Salads, yogurts, grilled

chicken sandwiches

to address health concerns.

- So my expectation that

is as we look to the future

of fast food, that they're

going to continue to do that.

- Whether it's KFC offering

plant-based chicken,

just test markets and

seeing if people respond it,

which they did and Taco Bell

launching a vegetarian menu,

you've seen a lot of

experimentation for food

to be healthier and

more sustainable.

It follows trends very closely.

It's one of the reasons why

it's managed to stay on top.

- I think the future

of fast food is simple.

They will cater to the

countries they live in.

They'll provide vegan options

and be more health conscious

here because people

are becoming more aware

of what they eat

but at same time,

then they'll go into

a different country

and then start up shop there.

- And the biggest threat

is to the environments

and the food systems

in those countries.

They are displacing

traditional diets with junk,

but we can retrain our palates.

If we gradually reduce sugar

or gradually reduce salt,

our palates will become

more sensitized over time

and we can adapt to

loving healthy food again.

- In the future, you know

what, chewing is a lot of work.

So I feel in the

future, they're just

going to get rid of that.

- Test tube sliders. (laughs)

- Rollers are going to

deliver your fast food order.

You'd be looking up to the

sky like this, burger lands

right in your hands.

- We're going full

cyber punk with it.

Everything's going to be made

out of a krill and locusts.

- Or you could get your

nutrition through pills

or a pulse to your brain that

gives you like the flavor

of sensation in your mouth.

Basically, I'm talking

about drugs. (laughs)

(mellow techno music continues)