Why is white the most popular car color? While people like whatever color they like, car color can impact things like resale value and whether or not a car gets stolen. Listen as we begin this episode by delving into the world of car colors. https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/car-color-facts-and-fictions.html The roots of fast food are here in the U.S. So why is fast food more popular here than anywhere else in the world? What is the appeal? What are the origins of American fast food? Why do we love it so much? While fast food has its critics, it has become part of American culture. How that happened and why we keep going back for more burgers, fries and nuggets is a fascinating story. Here to tell it is Adam Chandler. He is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and WIRED. HE is the author of the book Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast-Food Kingdom (https://amzn.to/3QaTCFQ). When you think of a successful person you likely think of someone who is laser-focused and driven to be the best at that one thing he or she is so good at. However, it appears that developing that kind of single-minded focus is not the best strategy for success. That’s according Steve Magness who is a leading expert on personal performance. His research has found that successful people have a different and somewhat counterintuitive approach to life that contributes to their success. And he is here to share that with you. Steve’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, Runner’s World, and Sports Illustrated and he has been featured in The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal and other media outlets. He is the author of a book is called Win the Inside Game: How to Move from Surviving to Thriving, and Free Yourself Up to Perform (https://amzn.to/413zc7U). There are about 74 million pet cats in the U.S. And there are some things about cats I bet you don’t know. Listen as I reveal why cats meow, what they do with most of their time, which cats are more likely to be left-handed and more. https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristatorres/cat-facts PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/factorpodcast DELL: Anniversary savings await you for a limited time only at https://Dell.com/deals SHOPIFY: Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! HERS: Hers is changing women's healthcare by providing access to GLP-1 weekly injections with the same active ingredient as Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as oral medication kits. Start your free online visit today at https://forhers.com/sysk INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! CURIOSITY WEEKLY: We love Curiosity Weekly, so listen wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the surprising facts about car colors?
If you have a car, it has a color, and we're going to start today talking about the color of your car. Hi there, welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. The most popular car color is white, and there are a lot of good reasons for that. White cars stay a bit cooler in hot temperatures, and white cars require less care to stay looking good.
But there are some other interesting facts about car colors. If you want your car to not be stolen, a very bright color such as yellow is probably as effective as an expensive security device. Unusual colors like orange, brown, green, even red cars are also less likely to be stolen. Why?
Well, because thieves want to steal a popular color because it makes it easier to unload the car after they steal it. Some drivers believe that bright or light-colored cars are safer because they're easier to see. That may be true, but it doesn't make much difference at night, and there is actually very little research on that subject.
One Australian study said a white car is maybe a little less likely to get into a crash during the day than other colors. It is an urban myth that red cars cost more to insure. According to the Insurance Information Institute, car color is not a factor in determining rates.
If you do like an unusual car color, remember that that affects the resale value because the number of people with your similar unusual taste may be limited. And that is something you should know. America has a love affair with fast food.
And while one can argue the health consequences of that love affair, today we're going to look at fast food from a more fun and historical point of view and look at why fast food is such a dominant part of American culture. An expert on this subject is Adam Chandler. He's a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Wired.
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Chapter 2: Why is fast food so popular in America?
And he has written a book called Drive Through Dreams, A Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast Food Kingdom. Hi, Adam. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks for having me, Mike. I'm happy to be here. So it's probably difficult to be really precise about when fast food began because it really depends on your definition of fast food. But people have a sense of what fast food is.
It's restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King and, you know, fast food restaurants. And so when did that start? concept, in your view as a historian of this, when did that concept start?
Chapter 3: How did White Castle influence the birth of fast food?
You know, my specific definition of the origins of fast food as it exists today, the most recognizable form was the birth of White Castle, which is, you know, a cult chain with about 400 locations these days that started in Omaha. Sorry, it started in Wichita, Nebraska in 1919. And that is...
What I would look at as the definitional fast food place in that it served quick food that was designed to be eaten on the go and served quickly. And we've seen this industry grow around cars. And that was one of the big parts of how. White Castle initially established itself. They had these portable sliders that were meant to be sold by the sackful.
That was their motto at one point, selling them by the sack. And so it's been really interesting to kind of see how that has become such an iconic calling card of fast food is its association with.
being mobile and driving and car culture and um you know fast affordability all of these real american hallmarks that kind of look at convenience and mobility and affordability and a real democratic way of eating that really separates american dining from the kinds of old school old world european dining that exists in other other parts of the world
Well, that brings up a good question. When you look at pictures of city streets in Europe and Asia, you see in and amongst the local businesses, you'll see the McDonald's and the Kentucky Fried Chicken. So is fast food as big a thing elsewhere, or is it, as I sense it is, a much bigger deal here than anywhere else?
Fast food is uniquely American in the way that it interacts with our dining culture and our society. Absolutely. We do have the greatest concentration of fast food restaurants. We also have the greatest concentration of drivers. And so those two things really intertwine to make this possible.
formula of uh convenience roadside dining that is really hard to replicate in other countries that just don't have that kind of relationship with with work or with travel or with their cars and so um yeah we really are uniquely a fast food nation to borrow um you know the title of eric schlosser's book so white castle starts in the early 20th century
And yet I think most people think of fast food as being something that started maybe in the 50s or so. So it seemed like there wasn't a lot of progress between the early 20th century and the 50s and 60s. There was White Castle, but there was no other McDonald's or Jack in the Box or nothing.
Yeah, the growth of fast food was a bit slow at the beginning. I mean, it sort of intersected with the Model T in the roaring 20s, but that eventually was undercut by the Great Depression. So there were a lot of small burger chains that existed during that period, and a lot of them kind of fell by the wayside.
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Chapter 4: What role did McDonald's play in fast food history?
That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true. McDonald's is kind of a shorthand in a lot of instances for fast food. When you talk about fast food, McDonald's is often the first thing that comes up, at least in American fast food.
I mean, it's interesting because there are so many interesting global versions of McDonald's in the world where they serve different food items and the stores look different. And even when you go inside, the feeling of them is different. It's kind of like a special occasion place or a date place in other countries. But here, you know, it has this common casual everyday kind of thing about it.
And that's part of the magic of it. And what's really impressive about the story of McDonald's is that it really kind of brought this franchise model that we see not just in fast food, but in nearly all industries have these franchise models into fashion. I guess the limelight of American business.
You didn't have to have a college degree or come from wealth to start a McDonald's in the 1960s or 70s. You could just be willing to work hard and open up a shop and It would do well because it had name recognition. If you were a small business owner, you could get a loan more easily to open a McDonald's because it was a proven business.
So there are all these things around the model of McDonald's that kind of made it this very special thing that no other company had really done in the same way. And it just took off and it got a head start on all the other chains and it never looked back.
one of the things that i think of when i think of fast food and it's it's there's a scene in the movie the michael keaton movie about mcdonald's i forget the name of the movie sure the founder yeah where he goes into the McDonald's for the first time and he orders and they hand him his food.
And he said, well, wait a minute, that it was pre-prepared and that that was the definition of fast or part of the definition of fast food, that you didn't come in, order it and then hang around and wait a while. They just handed you a bag because there were 50 hamburgers behind them and they just threw them in the bag and said, here you go.
It was seen as technologically advanced. It was seen as a marvel that you could order a burger and have it come out within 30 seconds or 45 seconds. And that's still kind of the standard. They try to keep orders as quick as possible because that's really what people want more than the taste. People really value the speed and convenience of fast food.
And at the time, you know, we may see that as dystopian today, getting your food in less than a minute or two. At least some people certainly do. But back then that was seen as a kind of a space age marvel that you could create a system where you had so many processes in place that you could create a meal that would come together that fast.
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Chapter 5: Why is fast food considered unhealthy?
It's a great question, and it's a funny thing because fast food chains have really tried over the years to be steered in these directions to try things that are healthier or use better ingredients. And in some instances, they have.
A lot of fast food restaurants have made pledges to sort of phase out trans fat or palm oil or, you know, McDonald's doesn't fry their French fries in beef tallow anymore, which is, you know, it was a big concession that they made. Chicken McNuggets, for example, and the rise of chicken generally is partially because the protein is cheaper. But around this late 1970s, the U.S. Senate
passed a huge report and sort of an initiative to tell people you need to eat less red meat because it's a problem for our heart health. And we got the Chicken McNugget a few years later as a concession to that. And it's funny to think we're eating fried chicken bits instead of hamburgers as a forward-thinking way to be healthier. But that's kind of how fast food has worked.
And what's interesting about that in particular is...
mcdonald's and other fast food places put salads on their menus they've tried to do these measures to offer new things but when you go to a mcdonald's you tend not to think about that you tend not to want you're not there for salad and that is a real reason why those menu items tend not to last very long because that's just not the association people have with it they think of
Going somewhere and indulging themselves and relaxing and not thinking about the calorie counts, whether they post them or not. So it's kind of built into the experience that this is something that is an indulgence. Although, you know, this is something that's funny because you'll hear people from other generations talk about it.
McDonald's or Burger King or any of these places being a special treat that you went to once in a while. And the reality of it is that a third of Americans will eat at a fast food restaurant every single day. That's basically how the CDC has broken down the statistics around it. They know that
that many americans are eating fast food on a given day you know that's that's ultimately a bad thing for public health and it's a bad thing for communities and a lot for a lot of other reasons but it also speaks to the success of of what they're offering at fast food restaurants that is affordable and accessible culinarily as well as just from a convenience standpoint
Well, it is interesting. You're right. When you think about people who like salad, they don't go, hey, I got an idea. Let's go to McDonald's and get a salad.
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Chapter 6: How do 'health halos' affect our perception of fast food?
People love the McRib and sometimes only eat McDonald's when the McRib comes back on the menu. And that's its own kind of funny subculture. But the limited time offerings is such a funny kind of specific thing.
fast food gimmick that i think people really get behind in part because it's just fun i mean it's just something that comes out of nowhere you know every every few weeks or every few months from your from your favorite chain the the ideas behind them are are so kind of strange sometimes you know nacho fries is just being a phenomenon it's one of the most successful limited time offerings that taco bell's ever put out but it's just
French fries with cheese, with nacho cheese on them. It's not anything groundbreaking, but we're sort of coaxed into believing it's something greater than that. And I think that's what's part of the fun of fast food in this way is it's very unserious. It doesn't take itself too intensely. And the commercials are fun and the marketing is fun and the food is fun.
It's just not precious in a way that I think a lot of food culture is precious about itself.
What else about the fast food business do you think people would be fascinated by?
the founders of fast food are always an interesting story in and of itself. You know, you think about someone like Colonel Sanders who grew up in deep poverty. You know, he was basically pressed with raising his, his brothers and sisters after his father died and his mother had to go work. And he went on to become one of the most famous men in the world.
You know, there are so many of these stories and the myth that, the myth and facts of fast food that really stand out that I think are so fascinating. You know, Dave Thomas of Wendy's fame was an acolyte of Colonel Sanders. So, there's this interesting connection there.
Dave Thomas was an orphan and had an adopted family take care of him and he was always kind of searching for father figures in his life and Colonel Sanders turned out to be one of them. So these founder stories are really impressive when you look at them. Ray Kroc is another example. He was the one who took over McDonald's from the McDonald's brothers.
And this is someone who failed for most of his life as a salesman trying to find his way into the American dream. And sort of late in his life, he manages to turn McDonald's into this international juggernaut. So what I think is really impressive about this story of fast food broadly is that it really speaks to a time where
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