Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
Book Review: An eyeopener
Summary: 5 Stars
Eric Schlosser's Fast food nation is a very well researched book, a very good attempt at showing us the seedy, shady side of American Fast food business. It opens our eyes to the dirty, hidden costs of usually inexpensive meal we often grab at a tidy fast food place.
Try it and you might want to change your food habits!
Sample these for now.
Did you know..
1. Hamburgers weren't always considered safe and healthy food in America. White Castle had to do a Morgan Spurlock (with a totally opposite goal in mind!) in 1930s, sponsoring an experiment in which a medical student lived for thirteen weeks only on Whitecastle hamburgers and water, to change such notions?
2. Americans spend more money on Fast food than on new cars or higher education? Spending on Fast food jumped from $6b in 1970 to $110b in 2001.
3. 1980s is considered The decade of child consumer? Numerous industries started formulating their successful 'cradle-to-grave' advertising strategies during this decade. No wonder, the recall value of Ronald McDonald surpasses Jesus Christ (or George W. Bush, as Morgan Spurlock demonstrated in "Supersize me")
4. McDonald's American french fries at one time had more beef fat per ounce than their hamburger, and continue to do so in Canada, Japan, Mexico and Australia? In the US vegetable oil replaced beef tallow thanks to Harish Bharti's litigation (the seed of which was laid by Fast Food nation), but still have a hint of beef thanks to 'natural flavors'. In Britain and India there is no beef in McDonald's french fries.
5. McDonald's is more powerful than FDA or USDA in enforcing healthy food/work practices? Government regulations against food industry are either completely blocked or see the light of day as completely watered-down versions, thanks largely to the powerful lobbies.
6. Lack of funding for textbooks has been forcing many American Schools to rely on corporate sponsorships; and Corporates were too happy to oblige with their own material, their own slant? Case in point is P&G's "Decision Earth".
7. That bright red color (carmine/carminic acid) in sweet yogurt and beverages comes from insects? And 'natural flavors' aren't really better than 'artificial flavors'?
8. Dog eat dog is not just a figure of speech, animal carcasses were ingredients in pet food for a few years? And If Sanimal had its way, your pets would still be eating such food?
9. Fast food companies make good buck out of their high employee attrition rates too? (an aside; some like Subway make as much money opening new franchises - some that often eat into existing franchises' business - as selling sandwiches) The monetary incentive in the form of Employee training subsidies works well as employees quit frequently. So they do not have any incentive to hold on to their employees. That's one of the reasons why fast food company are frequently robbed by their ex-employees.
Interesting? You'll find many more eye-opening researched facts in the book. Go, get your copy!
Book Review: An in depth look into the fast food industry
Summary: 5 Stars
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal was a pretty interesting and shocking book to read exposing many things like how the fast food industry as well as meat packing companies influence government laws and expose workers to unsafe and dangerous working conditions.
It is similar in some ways to Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle.
The book takes an in depth look into the fast food industry and even the history of fast food itself with several pages perhaps dozens devoted to telling the story of the McDonald's Bros and the man who bought McDonald's from them Ray Kroc with many interesting tidbits and rich subject matter that makes it a real page turner.
Author Eric Schlosser took his time and did a great job researching and investigating the pros and cons, ups and downs of the fast food industry and it's profound effects on society, culture, history, politics, goverment, laws, health care, and the workforce among other topics and subjects the author tackles in the book.
The fast food industry affects us all.
I highly recommend buying this book via Amazon.com and give it 5 out of 5 stars for an interesting, shocking and informative look and investigation into the fast food
industry.
Book Review: An incredible eye opening experience
Summary: 5 Stars
Ok. I knew that fast food was horrible, and that the working condition sucked incredibly bad by hearing about if from other people. But, wow...all the other aspects of the fast food industry and how horrible it is, was really quite scary. I dont even know how I will be able to touch a fast food burger...a must read for all!Book Review: And you thought McDonalds was bad for you!
Summary: 5 Stars
You might think you know what this guy has to say, but rest assured that this book as full of surprises! It is also very interesting in a way that makes you read deep into the night.
The book doesn't only cover what fast food is doing to our health and families, but also at how it is changing industries across the world. It contains a shocking section on how minorities are being exploited, especially in the US meat industry.
It becomes more and more obvious how much research must have gone into the book, and it is refreshing, and maybe a little ironic, to see a product into which a lot of care and time was invested, especially in this fast-everything culture.
I recommend this book wholeheartedly, because it is interesting, well-researched, well-written, relevant and good value for money.
You'll never look at McDonalds the same way!
Book Review: Appetite for Destruction
Summary: 5 Stars
In this best seller, Eric Schlosser uses the kaleidoscopic history of the evolution of the Fast Food industry in an attempt to portray the methodical process of losing individuality in American society. He tries to answer the questions related to the root causes of the crumbling ethical standards in American business practices and the ways they impact the fabric of American society.
Schlosser's main purpose is to expose profit driven business practices of the fast food industry that grossly undermines consumer health and interest. He attempts to jump-start the everyday consumer's rational thinking. He re-traces American business history of the last few decades. Schlosser also takes the opportunity to explore the cultural effects of these businesses. His case study is America's Fast Food Industry. The underlying message in his book expands beyond the scope of the Fast Food Industry. Schlosser tries to render the true nature of capitalism without checks and balances that take full advantage of exploitation, oppression and social hierarchies in human societies.
Schlosser's tone is mostly critical. He presents himself as a culture critic. Even though his tone is often slightly glazed with hyperbole, he doesn't seem to portray himself as a lone crusader or an angry jihadist against the big bad American fast food corporations. His arguments are rational and wisely backed up by intelligently written premises filled with factual and historical phenomenon.
The recipe of the enormous success of the fast food industry throughout the postwar era was the idea of homogenization process of the consumer's appetite. Through some of the revolutionary marketing and business practices, the founding fathers of the fast food industry successfully assimilated American consumers into their business process. Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" unearths the untold American cultural history where conformity reigned and individualism slowly diminished. I remember being fascinated as a young boy by the popular TV series Star Trek's Borg collective and their bone-chilling sermon, "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated! Resistance is futile". As a grown up now I find myself living in a consumer society where the fast food industry has successfully manufactured a brand of consumerism that exploits our appetite, stimulates the growing disparity between and the haves and have nots and indirectly promotes American cultural imperialism throughout the globe. Interestingly enough, I find striking parallel between the fast food industry and the biological and technological terror known as the Borg Collective that made its television debut through a fictional backdrop into my childhood fantasy world.
Ray Kroc, one of the founders of McDonalds corporation, envisioned an American culture through uniformity and conformity by saying "We have found out.. that we cannot trust some people who are nonconformists.... The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization." (Schlosser 5). Ray Kroc's vision became reality through the success of the McDonald Corporation. But the ideas of uniformity and conformity escaped the realm of fast food industry and penetrated the fabric of our society. Communities throughout the American landscape have been assimilated into the idea of conformity. The success of the fast food industry stimulated enormous growth of other industries whose paths to success was to undermine American individualism. Many of the founding fathers of the fast food industry who chose the path of consumer conformity were originally the iconoclasts. That's the irony of this particular brand of Americanism. The revolutionary ideas of fast food franchise spawned across the nooks and crannies of our society. Eric Schlosser attempts to draw a parallel between the cultural changes of an all American Community Colorado Springs and the path to success of the fast food industry.
Both the military industrial complex and the faith based institutions have strong roots in the Colorado Spring. Both of these institutions have been influenced by the very same idea of conformity. These trends have a large negative impact on American culture, landscape and workforce. McDonald's slogan, "One Taste Worldwide," is indicative of the corporations' and most of the industry's food and workplace values -- conformity and uniformity. These values have contributed to the production of unhealthy food and shaped terrible working conditions for slaughterhouse employees, including low pay, high turnover rates and unthinkable injuries. Racism and class prejudices are also at the heart of many fast food corporations'. The fast-food giants have pioneered many of the business methods that have become mainstays of the contemporary service economy: minimizing job skills to make workers maximally expendable; almost exclusively hiring immigrants, teens and the elderly, all of whom are unlikely to complain about working conditions; juggling employee hours so no one works enough to claim benefits; lobbying fiercely against hikes in the minimum wage and the enforcement of workplace-safety rules.
The real cost of a fast food happy meal is the loss of our individualism. In order to preserve the fundamental individualistic American way of life, business practices like the fast food industry should be surveyed under the microscope. Checks and balances in a free market capitalist system is absolutely necessary to prevent profit driven agendas from devouring out fundamental humane values.