Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
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Book Reviews of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
Book Review: Fast Food Nation: the Hidden Side of your Burger
Summary: 5 Stars
History, corporate America, and abused animals are all wrapped into the twisted story of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. Running a corporation does not happen over night. Industries like McDonald's and Subway have evolved throughout the years. Diving into the book, Schlosser walks down memory lane revisiting the past of McDonalds' humble start in the heart of California's Orange County.
Reading further into the book, the CEO's of fast food companies explain to Schlosser how their businesses are run. McDonald's, on one hand, thinks of their true business as real estate. The corporation will find a plot of land, purchase it, then "lease it to a franchisee for forty percent increase" (Schlosser 95). That is where their real money comes in.
Despite the business tactics of these corporations, that is not the dirtiest thing these companies have to offer. Schlosser went into the leading slaughterhouses of American Fast Food industries. What did he find? Cows that are held in small individual stables that are forced to eat chicken feces and other dead cows. When these cows are slowly killed, they are hung to let all the bodily fluids drain from the bodies. After reading this section, I cannot tell you how many people I have heard say, "I am never eating meat again."
Disregarding the morbid reactions, the book is a page-turner filled with exceptional information all formatted perfectly into the book. At times, there is a little too much information, you begin to read a sub-story and by the time you are finished reading it, you are asking yourself, what was the book talking about again?
Although these stories may seem unnecessary and somewhat out of place, without them, the book would be like an ice cream cone without hot fudge. In other words, you would get the gist of the story, but you wouldn't savor the investigative nature.
Reflecting on the book, I cannot pin point any certain kind of reader that would enjoy reading it. This book belongs in a variety of genres, from history to non-fiction, anyone could read it. To each person the book could have a different underlying message about what they read. I can tell you, someone who is coming to America who wants a good view of our eating habits could read this story, and it would paint a true, unhealthy picture for them.
Through Schlosser's story, he paints a canvas of the American lifestyle and how it has evolved with fast food. Years from now, I will still be able to remember the minute details that he sporadically puts into his book. The only negative thing I can say about reading this book is, that it had to end.
Book Review: This Book Made Me Sick
Summary: 5 Stars
This book made me sick. Literally. And figuratively. Figuratively, while reading about sweetheart deals between some members of a certain national political party who are in bed with (literally, in the case of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and his wife) food processing companies and manufacturers (and yes, food is manufactured, just like any other industrial product), my blood seemed to boil.
Literally, while I was digesting the chapters on slaughterhouses, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow disease) coursed through my body. (Perhaps hypochondriacally, perhaps not.)
Author Eric Schlosser follows in muckraking writer Upton Sinclair's (The Jungle, 1906) muckraking footsteps, and what a lot of muck there is to rake! The book covers such a broad range of issues, political, scientific, and sociological, that there are enough topics for any reader to order from a menu (with more choices than you'll find at the local McDonald's) and find a selection sure to enrage. Dead-end career track for fast-food workers? Check. Obesity in America? Check. Union busting? Check.
Wait, whatever happened to unions? In the earlier part of the last century, unions protected laborers and acted with one voice to speak for many. Now food processing companies are forming conglomerates to stifle the voice of the individual worker, demanding greater productivity at cheaper wages, and union-busting techniques are simply business-as-usual.
Back to our menu. Inspiring stories of young mavericks like Carl Karcher of Carl's Jr. restaurants, and J. R. Simplot, of Idaho potato fame, give a glimpse of what some remarkable individuals with grit, gumption, and not much else, were able to achieve. It's only when we reach the 1960's when the spread, through franchising, of fast-food chains throughout the country (and later the world) that we see nutrition disappearing from America's dinner tables (and car seats!) as healthy foods are replaced by chemically-processed fake foods.
But by far, the slaughterhouse descriptions are the most revolting chapters of the book. Do you care about unskilled laborers working with barely any protection from OSHA? About the accident rate among those workers? About the poverty levels of the workers? If you don't, that's OK, because I wasn't referring to that. I'm referring to the blood and guts of the animal slaughtering process. And I'm referring to the hamburgers that the public has been eating. I have eaten my last hamburger. On page 197, line 22, of the paperback edition, you will find out why.
Book Review: Would you like the biggie size the goodness? Uh, yes please!
Summary: 5 Stars
No matter how much of a rush I may find myself in on my hectic day-to-day schedule I never find time to not eat the fast food! It is a quick fix for the average busy citizen on a budget as opposed to the irregular person with a seemingly infinite supply of money and time, like my greedy father-in-law, Swanson. Recently, though, however, I find myself not induluating in the morsels I find in and around the local McDonald's, etc., but keeping a low profile. There have been 7 attempts on my life within the past 2 months, 6 of which have proved worthless, but the most recent having sent 12 of my catzz back into the intensive care unit at the hospital under a Dr. M. Brody! Needless to say I suspect Swanson, even though I suspected him of the first attempt on my life 3 years ago which turned out to be I drove my car off the bridge. It took 7 hours for rescue workers to pry me from the wreckage. In the book, Schlossgardner goes into vivid detail on what goes into my McMeals which make them so delicious! Another time, however, my wife and I were going through a rough patch because she was acting totally unreasonable for no reason apparent to me and I was driving home from my work and had one of my cats on the phone explaining to him that I would be arriving shortly when all of a sudden a crane swiveled in from nowhere and tried to pick up my car! I, of course, suspected my wife of fowl play and confronted her when I got home, but there was significant evidence suggesting she had been nowhere near a crane, yet her father (Swanson) was over for dinner and refused to attest to what exactly he had been doing all day! Then we found out I had just driven through the supermarket when I was later arrested for such charges, and a visually crane-like display had been set up on one of the isles I demolished. I gave Swanson and the authorities the benefit of the doubt, as I suspected anyway that my father-in-law had been counting his money for the better part of the day (as he is super rich and even more superly greedy). My wife nags me about being more respectful of her father as he did take care of us financially when I was unemployed that year and has now paid for a car and driver to drive me around (as my license was suspended). I refuse to allow the driver to take me anywhere as he is probably hired first and foremost to murder me by order of Swanson, so I will not be engulfing myself in fast food for the time being, but this book sure has helped!
Pete G. Williams lives in Michigan with his wife Marissa and forty-some-odd cats and dangerously close to Swanson.
Book Review: A look inside a cultural phenomenon
Summary: 5 Stars
Eric Schlosser does a very good job educating the reader on the business and social aspects of the fast food industry. The book is split into two parts: the first discussing the history and expanding popularity of fast food franchising, the industry's targeted marketing to children to build a habit that lasts a lifetime, the operations of fast food restaurants (with the emphasis on production throughput and low-skilled employees), and the pressures faced by franchisees (failure rates for franchises are higher than independent businesses, contrary to public perception).
The second part of the book covers the value-chain of the fast food business: from the farmers who plant the potatoes and raise the cattle to the workers that process the livestock into frozen patties. There is an interesting chapter that discusses the science of food flavoring, and dispels consumer impressions that "natural flavoring" is somehow better or safer than "artificial flavoring." The concentration of power in the food processing industry is alarming, leading to abuses of power that manifests itself in employee compensation, working conditions, as well as food safety for consumers. For example, (under Colorado law, where much of the nation's beef is processed) a workplace injury at a meat processing plant that results in a "serious permanent disfigurement about the head, face, or parts of the body normally exposed to public view" entitles the worker to a maximum of $[...]. This is appalling. The author backs this up with several stories of individuals that give the reader a more personal feel of the plight of workers in the industry.
Although one may empathize with workers in the industry, the author strikes it closer to home when he discusses what's in the meat we eat today. In a USDA study, "78.6% of the ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material." In others words, you can get sick from eating a hamburger that's not well-cooked because there is literally sh*t in the meat.
So what do we make of all of this? The author, in the end, is advocating consumer activism. While the government is hampered (via powerful lobbies) in its ability to impose higher standards of worker safety and food cleanliness on the food-processing oligopoly, large fast-food chains like McDonalds (with their enormous purchasing power) can exert the necessary pressure to exact change. And why would McDonald's do this? Because it answers to its customers - the consumer. We have a say because we can vote with our wallets.
Book Review: You can't afford to miss this one.
Summary: 5 Stars
The one piece of advice I consistently dispense to those who ask me how I lost weight a few years ago is, above all, STOP EATING FAST FOOD. Period. Just forget it even exists. Forget Wendy's, Sonic, McDonald's, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Drive past them like they're not even there, don't get your children hooked on it, and re-introduce yourself and your family to real food. Your body and mind will thank you in countless ways, believe me.
Losing weight is about more than just eschewing fast food, of course, and this book's focus is NOT weight loss, by the way. I'm simply adding those two cents because like many Americans I was a bona fide fast food ADDICT, and getting it out of my life was without a doubt one of the most beneficial things I've ever done for my health and well-being.
The scope of this book is a hell of a lot scarier than just how horribly unhealthy fast food is, because I think most of us are already aware of that, even if just peripherally. What you'll learn about the American fast food industry, from where it starts on the "factory" type farms (a wholly different entity from the family farm) to the slaughterhouses to the truly revolting things that actually end up between those slices of bread and in those fries, will disgust you so much that you will never look at food quite the same way again. The fact that this toxic garbage finds its way - with or without your knowledge - into our schools, restaurants and refrigerators is frightening. Trust me, you don't really know what's going on. Read this book and find out. It is truly appalling, and one of the most disturbing things I've ever read. It is a shocking testament to just how much is hidden from the consumer so that a lot of other people can make a great deal of money. Keep in mind that this condemnation comes from an ardent capitalist and political conservative (me), so this is not some kind of anti-corporation, hippie rant. Far from it.
The "regulation" of the industry is a joke. You'll find out firsthand that there is no one even remotely concerned about the way this so-called "food" is poisoning us, and in fact they are mostly in collusion with one another to actively prevent us from knowing it, so it's up to us to educate ourselves. This very in-depth examination by Eric Schlosser is a great place to start. Keep in mind, too, that no one in the industry has even bothered to deny a bit of it. They know they don't have to unless the money stops rolling in. I for one am glad I stopped paying them to kill me!