Portside

The expansion of McDonald’s in the twentieth century brought the fast food chain to more than 100 countries. But how well did it integrate into its new home(s)?

Some researchers have theorised that ultra-processed foods increase inflammation because they are recognised by the body as foreign – much like an invading bacteria. The body mounts an inflammatory response, which has been dubbed “fast food fever”.

Highly processed are engineered in ways similar to how we create other addictive substances; they can trigger problematic behaviors like those with alcohol and cigarettes.

McDonald’s came to play a growing role in black communities, offering not only food and jobs but also sponsorships ranging from funds for the local Little League team to grants for the N.A.A.C.P.

Locol is a response to the challenge of food access in underserved communities in which issues of poverty, hunger and access to nutritious food are exclusively about race. But it is an imagined solution, designed to overcome the wrong threat. It is based on a dangerous minimization of the facts, lacking a larger racial analysis and the admission that racism, not some aberrant market failure, is the culprit in the deprivation of communities of color.