Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food by Eric Schlosser

On April 9, 2003, a U.S. Marine armored vehicle pulled down the gigantic statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad, showing the world that the United States had finally driven him from power. Nine weeks later the first Burger King opened in Iraq. American soldiers waited as long as two hours to buy Whoppers and Chicken Royales at the new restaurant, located in Baghdad International Airport. Pizza Huts, Burger Kings, and Subways soon opened at U.S. military bases throughout Iraq. Running a Burger King in the middle of a war zone presented all sorts of unusual challenges. Hamburger buns, ground beef, chicken, and French fries had to be airlifted into the country and then carried by trucks along dangerous roads. Joe Petrusich-a Canadian businessman employed by a Kuwaiti company to operate many of the restaurants for the U.S. Department of Defense - had to fly from one restaurant to another in Black Hawk helicopters to make sure everything was done properly. "It is very, very challenging," Petrusich told a reporter. "You are dealing with problems every day. I get phone calls saying bridges have been blown up and we can't get our trucks through." Not long after the restaurant at the Baghdad airport opened, it became one of the most successful Burger Kings in the world, selling more than five thousand sandwiches a day.

The opening of Pizza Huts and Burger Kings in war-torn Iraq shows how badly the fast-food chains want to expand overseas. As competition has become fiercer in the United States, fast-food companies have looked to foreign markets as the source of future growth. In 1991, McDonald's had fewer than 4,000 restaurants outside the United States. Today it has about 18,000 restaurants in 120 foreign countries. Classes at McDonald's Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Illinois, are now taught in twenty different languages. McDonald's now earns the majority of its profits outside the United States, as does KFC. The values, tastes, and marketing practices of the American fast-food industry are being exported to every corner of the globe. In the same way that American cities are beginning to look similar-filled with identical chain restaurants and stores-many foreign cities are being to look a lot like each other. They are becoming Americanized. This international spread of uniformity and conformity, according to political scientist Benjamin R. Barber, is creating a "McWorld."