Chapter 5, "Why the Fries Taste Good"

Because my teacher subscribed our chapters to be read out of order, chapter 5 is next.

1) Who is J.R. Simplot? What connection does J. R. Simplot have to the fast food industry?
J.R. Simplot is the owner of a very large french fry factory and many other factories (onions...) Simplot was a farmer who dropped out of school at the age of 15. He worked at a potato workhouse until he was 16. He became a potato farmer until he sold his farm land and started a potato factory of his own. Simplot became the largest shipper of potatoes in the United States. In 1953, he started selling frozen french fries to fast food industries (mainly McDonald's.)
Simplot became the leading seller of frozen fries to fast food industries. He started what is now very common, reheating frozen fries and serving them to the customers. Fast food restaurants made a lot more profit out of these frozen fries.

5) What makes McDonald's french fries taste different from the fries of other fast food restaurants? The way McDonald's gets their fries to taste different is cooking oil. McDonald's cooked their fries in a oil of 93% animal meat. This gave their fries all of the flavor. Later, they switched to vegetable oil and "natural flavors."

6) What are some of the similarities and some of the differences between "artificial flavors" and "natural flavors?" Where is the “flavor industry” located? There are more similarities than differences between "artificial flavors" and "natural flavors." Artificial flavoring is simply "man-made additives that give processed food, taste." Artificial flavors are made mostly of chemicals, however they are usually the same chemicals found in the natural flavor. Natural flavors come directly from nature. The key point in artificial flavoring is the smell, because humans gain most of their taste via smell (nose.) So artificial flavoring and natural flavoring smell and taste very similar if not the same.
The flavor industry is located in New Jersey, where there are many factories that remain in secrecy to keep their recipes secret. Today, most items we find say "natural flavors" because of the common belief that natural flavoring is healthier than artificial, not exactly the case.


Okay so this wasn't all about how nasty fast food is. It was more about the exact facts on the outline most of us already know. We know that fast food industries use frozen fries. Some of this stuff was very interesting, however.