Junk Food - A Question of Snobbery?

I shouldn't even be posting in this thread as a vegetarian, but most of the food joints that I stay away from have to do with horrifying stories I've heard from employees about mishandling food (picking it up off the floor and serving it, spitting, putting a moldy pizza in the oven and scraping off the mold) or because the place showed up in the newspaper for having rat feces present in the kitchen.

Those gross kitchens happen to be in places like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, etc.

I've also never had a french fry or pizza that made me close my eyes and sigh with contentment, although I have had that experience at some nicer restaurants. If I'm going to eat a thousand calories and a hundred grams of fat, 1) fancy cheese is involved and 2) I should be giddy with food joy.

Just from experience, I worked in food service in college and the McDonalds and Taco Bell were clean enough to eat off the floor. There are people cleaning all the time. Some other restaurants? Yeah, not so much.

So next?

Is it ok to rag on junk food perhaps because there is a perception that it is what less affluent people eat and is therefore an easier target?

Ding ding ding we have a winner here!

Wrong. McDonald's is frankenfood. Period.

Yeah because just calling something "frankenfood" is not a logical fallacy or circular reasoning or anything.

If I'm going to eat a thousand calories and a hundred grams of fat, 1) fancy cheese is involved and 2) I should be giddy with food joy.

So, I cannot remember the name of the documentary, but I'm sure someone somewhere knows what I'm talking about. Anyway, it has a brief segment about a professor or research team that are devoted to studying the perception of food. They have a little restaurant set up that can altered to be anything from fine dining and upscale to greasy diner (to study how settings affect how people perceive food, presumably). In one study, they took ingredients from KFC, I believe, and made a soup out of it solely from those ingredients. Then they had subjects rate how the soup tasted, particularly in comparison to fast food, like KFC. In another, they served Taco Bell's fresh tacos, or whatever they're called (when I eat taco bell it's frankly not to eat anything fresh -- I want those weird potatoes with cheese wiz, thanks), and told subjects they were from an upscale restaurant that focused on fresh ingredients. Then they served the same food to another group and told them it was Taco Bell. Unsurprisingly, the first group perceived the food as being fresher, healthier, and tastier. In the last study, they had subjects guess the calorie count of a fast food meal (burger and fries, if I recall correctly) and something 'healthier', like a burrito or wrap from a more upscale restaurant. People were generally able to guess the calorie content of the burger accurately, but were WAY off with the healthy meal, underestimating the meal by hundreds of calories.

So yeah, I definitely think there's something to your theory.

1) Big Mac with fries followed by a Cadburys Caramel McFlurry
2) Har kau (steamed prawn dumplings) followed by nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice) served with chicken skewers and satay sauce
3)Steak au poivre with brandy and cream reduction, frites (fries) and aparagus spears tossed in garlic butter followed by salted caramel chocolate torte
4)Poulet Breton (chicken) served with wild mushroom sauce, truffle mash and salade verte followed by crepe with fresh strawberries and Chantilly cream
5)Breaded calamari rings (squid) with tartare sauce and lemon wedges followed by seafood linguine