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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 394.10973
EAN: 9780395977897
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0395977894
Label: Houghton Mifflin Company
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: January 17, 2001
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Studio: Houghton Mifflin Company
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
On any given day, one out of four Americans opts for a quick and cheap meal at a fast-food restaurant, without giving either its speed or its thriftiness a second thought. Fast food is so ubiquitous that it now seems as American, and harmless, as apple pie. But the industry's drive for consolidation, homogenization, and speed has radically transformed America's diet, landscape, economy, and workforce, often in insidiously destructive ways. Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, opens his ambitious and ultimately devastating exposé with an introduction to the iconoclasts and high school dropouts, such as Harlan Sanders and the McDonald brothers, who first applied the principles of a factory assembly line to a commercial kitchen. Quickly, however, he moves behind the counter with the overworked and underpaid teenage workers, onto the factory farms where the potatoes and beef are grown, and into the slaughterhouses run by giant meatpacking corporations. Schlosser wants you to know why those French fries taste so good (with a visit to the world's largest flavor company) and "what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns." Eater beware: forget your concerns about cholesterol, there is--literally--feces in your meat.
Schlosser's investigation reaches its frightening peak in the meatpacking plants as he reveals the almost complete lack of federal oversight of a seemingly lawless industry. His searing portrayal of the industry is disturbingly similar to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, written in 1906: nightmare working conditions, union busting, and unsanitary practices that introduce E. coli and other pathogens into restaurants, public schools, and homes. Almost as disturbing is his description of how the industry "both feeds and feeds off the young," insinuating itself into all aspects of children's lives, even the pages of their school books, while leaving them prone to obesity and disease. Fortunately, Schlosser offers some eminently practical remedies. "Eating in the United States should no longer be a form of high-risk behavior," he writes. Where to begin? Ask yourself, is the true cost of having it "your way" really worth it? --Lesley Reed
Product Description:
Are we what we eat?
To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar Amerca. Though created by a handful of mavericks, the fast food industry has triggered the homogenization of our society. Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled the juggernaut of American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning.
Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from the California subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. He hangs out with the teenagers who make the restaurants run and communes with those unlucky enough to hold America's most dangerous job -- meatpacker. He travels to Las Vegas for a giddily surreal franchisers' convention where Mikhail Gorbachev delivers the keynote address. He even ventures to England and Germany to clock the rate at which those countries are becoming fast food nations.
Along the way, Schlosser unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate. He also uncovers the fast food chains' efforts to reel in the youngest, most susceptible consumers even while they hone their institutionalized exploitation of teenagers and minorities. Schlosser then turns a critical eye toward the hot topic of globalization -- a phenomenon launched by fast food.
FAST FOOD NATION is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
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!
Rating: -
Fast Food Nation is a very eye opening and informative book. Schlosser examines all sides of the fast food industry. It is a definitely a must read for anyone who lives in America.
Rating: -
True, this guy is a bit of a soft-hearted leftie... but with such in-depth, exhaustively researched and skillfully executed arguments such as this, I find it hard not to be a soft-hearted leftie, myself (having been raised in the home school of self-reliance and sworn devotion to blind justice - in any type of situation you apply can apply it to)...
While this author makes very compelling arguments concerning the exploitation of migrant workers, ranchers & farmers, the meat-factory side-effect of turning the small town main streets of America in to drug-ridden crime-infested hellholes, the multi-faceted environmental impact giant livestock feed lots, and lamenting over the struggle of the small-outfit, spirited ranchers, farmers and restaurant owners trying to survive against "The Man".... perhaps the most persuasive of all, I found, was the addition at the very end about the history of Mad Cow disease.
Some of my office buddies simply shrugged about it (all of it), basically saying we're damned if we eat the cheap meat and damned if we don't... but I've been effectively scared straight about Mad Cow, even if I may have already caught it (but, knock on wood, hopefully not). Suffice it to say being stuck out in Iraq and therefore limited to what food the government provides me, I eat a whole lot less meat these days and have definitely given up beef (and kicking myself for the two or three times I've caved into the immediately regretted crappy steaks in the past year).
Rating: -
Thanks to this book, it's now easy to avoid all of the ubiquitous fast food stores that seem to beckon at every turn. I've already lost 4 pounds and feel a lot better! (I'm also happy that I sold my McDonald's stock three years ago!) Thank you Eric Schlosser.
Rating: -
Decline in the hourly wage, appalling working conditions, union busting, unsanitary practices from the slaughterhouse to the kitchen, a food economy dominated by giant corporations, homogenization of American consumer culture, threats to independent business, destruction of the American diet and landscape, children left prone to disease and obesity, widespread circumvention and outright dismissal of governmental attempts at regulation--the list of indictments pours out in investigative journalist Eric Schlosser's first book Fast Food Nation.
I thought this book would change my opinion of the fast food industry. Instead, it changed my perspective on our entire economy. A must read. It's insightful and entertaining. I never thought I'd find a nonfiction book this hard to put down.
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