Fast Food Fare

A recent bite of fast-food hamburger gave me pause. I was pondering utilitarianism, the idea that the right thing to do is what brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people. It is a fairly straightforward way to make decisions in life. Free speech? Good. Telemarketing? Bad. Libraries? Good. Looting? Bad. Monster truck rallies? Well ...

Monster truck rallies make people happy, but the pleasure experienced attending a monster truck rally does not equal the pleasure of say ... going to Utah Festival Opera. "Greater moral pursuits are those which engage our higher human faculties," wrote John Stuart Mill, political philosopher and advocate of utilitarianism.

"Higher human faculties," I thought, as I gorged the burger and washed it down with carbonated corn syrup. Why do I choose to eat this stuff, the culinary equivalent of a monster truck rally, when there is greater culinary "good" out there? I enjoy roasted garlic artisan bread, ripe tart cherries and prosciutto-stuffed baguettes, but sometimes I eat hamburgers. Not the made-at-home-on-the-grill kind, but the kind that come wrapped in wax paper accompanied by skinny limp fries. The kind that carry little nutritional value, too much salt and make you fat.

I'm not alone. If you count the number of prosciutto-stuffed baguettes available for purchase in Cache Valley compared to the number of fast-food hamburgers, the hamburgers win. We line up in our cars with fistfuls of bills to buy hamburgers, not prosciutto-stuffed baguettes. People choose them, so a utilitarian would say hamburgers must serve the greater good. I would argue that prosciutto-stuffed baguettes are the higher culinary experience, but the masses choose processed meat on deflated white bread.

Food that is "good" could be defined in many ways. It could be broccoli because it is nutritionally good for our bodies. It could be steak because it tastes good (but in another country, that same category might include goat intestines). It might be what lifts our souls in a culinary sense, like key-lime pie, or it might be tofu - food that allows humans to continue living (and consuming) the earth on a large scale. It could be rice and beans, food that is fair to eat ... for us and for the people in Namibia, Uruguay and China. From a utilitarian standpoint, whatever "good" we value most will be the one we choose.

You already know the detriments of fast food. Fast food holds partial blame for the obesity epidemic in the United States. It fills our bellies with fat and chemicals, but doesn't provide vitamins and nutrients necessary to stay healthy. Fast food doesn't do great good for a great number of people, and yet we still choose that burger.

A utilitarian would argue that we all benefit from cheap consumer goods, said Christy Glass, assistant professor of sociology at Utah State University. As Americans we value plentiful, cheap stuff. You could say fast food is the most democratic industry in the country because everyone can afford it. In every class, people defend what is accessible, she said.

Americans also value convenience over quality. People work more jobs and longer hours. More households are becoming dual income, and yet wages are declining. People have less time to cook, and families feel cash-strapped. The cheapest food is the worst food, but it is easy to get your hands on, Glass said.

So the reason we eat fast food is probably the same reason we watch "The Simpsons" rather than read "Hamlet" on Friday night. Although we know Shakespeare is a higher experience, "The Simpsons" is funny. We don't have to tax our brain with vocabulary, understand historical context or challenge our moral system. Maybe we understand that Shakespeare could lift our souls and intellects, but we value saving time over investing our time in the higher experience.

But it isn't satisfying. I watch "The Simpsons" and forget the plot as soon as the credits roll. I eat three fast-food hamburgers and still feel like I need more. I crave the higher experience, even though my current values allow me to choose the lower.

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," wrote Mill. "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their side of the question."

I don't think there is anything wrong with eating a fast-food burger, watching "The Simpsons" or attending a monster truck rally on occasion, as long as we understand the hunger we feel after these experiences is really a dissatisfaction, a signal to reach higher and invest ourselves in something greater, not to reach for the Pepto-Bismol.