You should start getting angry!
It might sound like something straight out of an Orson Wells book or some chopped up crazy conspiracy theory, but it’s no myth that restaurants use certain interior colours to directly affect your eating habits. It’s not only the colours of the walls and chairs either; restaurants use food psychology within their menus, within their sales pitches and marketing; and especially within their combos. This type of play on food psychology has been going on for far too long.
Confessions of a fast food restaurant – here’s what they don’t want you to know
We’ll take a stab in the dark here and assume you’ve visited McDonald’s at least once in your life. Let’s just admit it – every once in a while you crave a Big Mac or those clever enticing commercials suck you in. It happens to the best of us, and we are not here to judge in anyway. However, you might be shocked to find out there are a few secrets fast food chains would rather keep to themselves, and we’re not talking about the secret sauce!
Alright, we don’t have to remind you that fast food is just horrible. It is not good in any way for your health and it certainly won’t help you with weight loss or a healthy lifestyle. Every dietician out there will tell you that eating excess amounts of fast food can do irreversible damage to your body. But what is it about these places that keep us coming back for more? Why is it we crave that Big Mac or Kentucky Fried Chicken? Are those cravings due to some sort of agents included in the food? Or is it all in our head?
These are questions we are going to answer for you in this blog including some of the top things they don’t want you to know. It’s also a good idea to point out now that marketing and advertising when it comes to the fast food industry play a far bigger role than you might have imagined.
The colour yellow and fast food – the perfect pair for mind games
You might have heard that the colour red makes people feel hungry. Research suggests that appetites are sparked when we see the colour red. Even more so, when we see red in restaurants, whether interior or exterior colours or even in the branding and marketing, red makes us hungry. But, the thing about red in the food psychology is it’s often coupled with yellow. Red and yellow are used so often together you see it more than you realise. You see it in the logos and different colour schemes throughout all major fast food chains.
Red and yellow is such a common phenomenon that some researchers call it the ketchup and mustard theory. The basis of red and yellow, at least in combination, results in perfect psychological companionship and makes us want to stop and eat. Red makes us feel warm, almost comforted, and even loved. Yellow on the other hand, does something completely different – it is a colour that makes us feel very cheery, but at the same time, it also speeds things up! 
Consider one giant example – McDonald’s as you know uses red and yellow throughout including inside and in the branding. Fast food means simply, fast food – they want you to order quickly off the menu board, sit down feeling cheery and happy, but at the same time they want you to eat fast and make room for the next family.
Fast food chains need you in and out as fast as possible. They depend and love bragging about “Billions and Billions Served”. Using the very best of food psychology, fast food chains have you hooked and on a dangerous unhealthy path.
Top 8 things fast food chains don’t want you to know
So far we’ve told you about colour coordinating in restaurants and how marketing is a bigger part of fast food then the quality of the foods itself. Now, we are going to share with you the top 8 things fast food chains don’t want you to know. Some of these will make your stomach turn, and hopefully open your eyes to the real dangers of eating fast foods.
#1 – They’re in charge, and order for you
You may think you’re in control in a fast food restaurant but the sad fact is you are not. Fast food chains get you as soon as you walk through that door or pull up to the big board in a drive-through. Those combo’s are not about saving money, their about controlling exactly what you eat.
For fast food chains, it actually pays to sell us more food for less money. We think we’re getting a bargain when we order the combo meal; in fact, it costs just pennies for a chain to produce the actual food that’s coming out of the window. At hamburger chains, “combination meals” make up a whopping 31 percent of all purchases. The average combo packs 1,200 calories, and about ⅓ of those are from predetermined sides that the chain decided on for you.
#2 – It all tastes the same
Fast food has a very distinct taste, and this rings true no matter where you decide to go. The burgers all taste the same, the fries all taste the same and even the milk shakes taste the same. This is because they’re all calibrated and processed to appeal to our taste buds. The appeal is engineered in a way that keeps us eating. The part of our brain called the hypothalamus responds and craves a variety of sweet, salty, and bitter tastes; therefore we naturally snack on a variety of foods. But fast food is highly engineered to satisfy all of those cravings, and therefore, you never crave anything else.
#3 – You’re getting fries with that whether you like it or not
According to a study done at Eastern Illinois University, 85 percent of people will eat more when servers offer them more. This includes “super sizing” or adding on those extras. Even servers behind a cash register must “up sell” when it comes to fast food. Food psychology also dictates that it’s harder for us to say no to an offer when it comes directly from another person.
#4 – Today’s food is even unhealthier then it was 30 years ago
Honestly, this one is quite shocking, and you have to wonder what it is exactly they (the fast food chains) are thinking. Today, we take in twice as many calories from restaurants than we did 30 years ago. For example:
Pizza: 70 percent more calories
Cheeseburger: 75 percent more calories
French fries: 190 percent more calories
#5 – Your fountain soda is dirtier than your toilet
Yes, this one is gross so if you don’t want to know and would rather remain ignorant then go ahead and skip. But the fact of the matter is those ice-machines are incredibly hard to clean, and the bacteria content is literally off the charts. It was found that 70% of the time ice from fast food restaurants was dirtier than the toilet water. In several cases, the ice tested positive for E. coli bacteria, which comes from human waste.
#6 – Fast food meat is cleaned and mixed together with chemicals
We’re just going to go ahead and show you this video below from Jamie Oliver. Not much else to say really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC0jMeGTJmA
#7 – Flame Grilled is a load of crap
Those grill lines on your chicken, ribs or burgers are fake. There are no flames in that fast food joints back kitchen licking that meat. The grill marks are there to make us think the meat was flame broiled. Those marks were branded on at the factory or painted with dyes. Worst of all, smoke and char flavourings are added to complete the illusion.
#8 – Think salad might save you from all of the above? Think again…
Fast food chains made it seem like they jumped on board the healthy lifestyle chain by adding what appears to be healthy salads to their menus. But, you can’t even pronounce what’s really inside one – try saying propylene glycol three times fast. Many chains dust their salads with that chemical to keep the leaves crisp. It’s considered safe for consumption — and can also be found in antifreeze and sexual lubricants.
A healthy lifestyle means healthy choices
We know weight loss isn’t easy. Many start dieting only to fail over and over again. High expectations may be the root cause of all failed diets, and that’s why we think that only a healthy lifestyle is the right path to weight loss.
Dieting is meant to get you results in a short amount of time, but when you make healthy choices and change your entire eating habits instead of dieting, your success rate increases. With the Gastric Mind Band, we can train your brain to stop and think, making the right food choices that promotes wellbeing and healthy eating.
First, make sure you cut fast food and processed sugars completely from your life. Remember what you read here today – these fast food chains constantly work against you, and do nothing at all to promote a healthy lifestyle. So, stop letting them win, and finally make a real difference in your own life.
But why believe us regarding the Gastric Mind Band treatment, we understand, then maybe you should read a two page review of the treatment that was written for the Daily Mail Newspaper.
Please stay tuned for Martin Shirran’s undercover look into high end restaurants. He will be writing a blog about it, and how these types of restaurants can be just as bad as fast food chains. This is something you don’t want to miss!
