Fast food is the term given to many foods that can be prepared and served quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, such as TV dinners, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store which is rapidly prepared and served to the customer in a packaged form for take out/take away.Outlets may be stands or kiosks, which may provide no shelter or seating, or fast food restaurants (also known as quick service restaurants). Franchise operations which are part of restaurant chains have standardized foodstuffs shipped to each restaurant from central locations.The capital requirements to start a fast-food restaurant are relatively small, particularly in areas with non-existent or poorly enforced health codes. Small, individually-owned fast-food restaurants have become common throughout the world. Fast food restaurants with higher sit-in ratios, where customers can sit and have their orders brought to them, are known as fast casual restaurants.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tough choices tempt kids at every turn -- whether it is soda in school, junk food ads on TV or the fast-food chain around the corner -- and school policies limiting physical activity only make matters worse, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

CHICAGO (AP) -- It wasn't so long ago that the McDonald's fast-food empire looked as stale as a burger left under a heat lamp too long.Sales were decreasing, new products weren't catching on and McDonald's Corp. was vilified by consumer activists, nutritionists and others as Americans got fatter and fatter. Even its seemingly bulletproof stock

Slow and Fast Food On The Road - Some German / English Musings On Survival between Chicago and LA, passing Crand Canyon and Las Vegas.

A little place in Chicago is bucking the trend for Mac Daddy meals.

Wendy's International will begin selling breakfast in Chicago, part of a national expansion into the breakfast market, the Dublin, Ohio-based hamburger chain said last week.