Funviralpark When you think of downtown America’s cuisine, you think of old-fashioned home cooking. Pot roast or chicken, mashed potatoes, cut corn, green beans, all served family-style with plenty of gravy.
The truth seems to be quite different.
America’s heartland is clearly fast food country.
PriceListo, a consumer pricing platform, conducted a survey of the states most marked by fast food.
All of the higher states were in the central or southern part of America.
Nebraska tops the list, followed by Indiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, South Dakota, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, farthest from the big cities.
Vermont, at the bottom, was the state least interested in fast food, followed by New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Alaska, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii and Connecticut.
Blue Book’s home state of Illinois came in 29th from the top. But after that, Illinois usually sits in the middle of nearly every ranking.
The study “looked at data from Google Trends to analyze Google searches across the United States over the last 12 months and looked for search terms frequently associated with fast food. We gave each state a total score to discover which had the most fast food-obsessed residents,” the company’s press release explains.
The findings make sense. Top states may have the fewest non-chain restaurants.
From 1989 to 1990, I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee. I quickly realized there weren’t many places to eat out, except for fast food restaurants and chains like Chili’s and Olive Garden.
I haven’t been back to Knoxville in 20 years, but I’m sure it’s much more sophisticated now. But many parts of the country are not.
This isn’t just bad news for foodies. Fast food restaurants have a sparse selection of produce.
PriceListo offers a sample menu of Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC Menu Prices (2022) – PriceListo
The list is long. Only fresh coleslaw.
Same goes for other fast food restaurants. Stabbed in 2004 documentary accusations super size meshowing the damage done by a month of McDonald’s meals on the unfortunate subject, the chain has introduced salads for a while, but who goes to McDonald’s for a salad?
There are no salads on this McDonald’s menu.
Some sandwiches (such as McChicken) included lettuce, but apple slices were provided. that’s it.
Looking for enemies is never a good idea, but the dominance of fast food is perhaps the single biggest obstacle to consuming more produce in this country.
