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: By the Author of Outstanding You
Summary: 5 Stars
Outstanding You: Discover, Design and Achieve Ultimate Fitness
This book should be required reading at all American schools. The purpose behind this book is not to convert people to vegetarian/vegan diets, but instead to educate them about the disastrous state our food supply is in. Though I use this book for information to support my vegan/vegetarian diet, I found it incredibly detailed and thought provoking. Highly recommended for anyone seeking more information on where their food comes from.
Ron Betta
Author - Outstanding You
Book Review: Changed my life
Summary: 5 Stars
This book changed my life, literally. After reading about 100 pages, I turned vegetarian and have abstained from eating meat for a little over 3 years now. Schlosser, first of all, is a great writer. He manages to incorporate copious amounts of detail without being dull. His writing style is engaging and engrossing. Schlosser has been called the modern day Upton Sinclair, partly because of the subject matter, but mostly because of his ability to muckrack. Read this book because it will enlighten you and, just maybe, change your life too.Book Review: Changed my views on food
Summary: 5 Stars
It gets a little repetitive at times, but overall this book (along with similar ones) helped change my views on food and eating.Book Review: Corporate Evil Exposed
Summary: 5 Stars
It was astonishing to learn that the apparently inoffensive fast food industry is supposedly evil:
Children were easily induced by marketing campaigns through characters and restaurant features with infantile appeal. What seems to be an innocent and fair approach, was intended in fact to create a consuming habit that could make one forever emotionally dependent. Even school environments were not left behind as this promoted a favorable environment to target youngsters. Problem is that money matters sometimes could talk louder and schools allowed corporate interests to prevail over the main purpose of a school: educate children properly.
Meat packing and potatoes industries are quintessential examples of corporate practices to the max: exploratory and careless practices toward workers, who work too much even in the worst working conditions that are imaginable and get too little in return, subject to retaliation in case of dissatisfaction. Throughput and low cost is what matters, nothing else. Knowing that the meat we eat, the way it is produced, could easily be tainted with pathogens that may lead us to death just makes one wonder if it is still worth the risk, although sandwiches are made irresistibly delicious with a hand of the folks at the flavor industry, that have the ability to turn crap into the most tasteful piece of food ever.
Fast Food Nation unveils the mystery that maintains a chain of both fast food restaurants and related industries well and alive with our precious and honest aid. Despite of the title and regardless of whether the history is true or not, the main purpose of the book is focused on criticizing the corporate practices that can be in every business (not only fast food), promoting easy money returns and poor consideration to the human being.
Book Review: Corporatism at the worst
Summary: 5 Stars
In Eric Schlosser's first devastating book on the malpractices of the fast food industry, he pieces together history, facts, and numerous sources to reveal some disturbing truths about their nature.
Fast Food Nation is less an expose` on how unhealthy junk food is than a look into the operations of the food industry, specifically McDonalds. The book is divided into two sections: the first, "The American Way," is concerned primarily with the growth and development of the fast food chains, beginning around the 40s in southern California and soon burgeoning into multiple restaurants across the US. Schlosser details the rise of the Speedee Service System, advertising techniques the emphasis on conformity by the chains, and their consolidation of power. The next section, "Meat and Potatoes," details various specifics about the machinations of the incredibly powerful fast food corporations. To the terrible conditions of workers in filthy (and dangerous) slaughterhouses, the employment of thousands of illegal immigrants in these buildings throughout the Midwest, and the diehard attempts by the corporations against possibilities of lawsuits by these workers after receiving any number of injuries. The companies further fight against the right to unionize.
While Schlosser doesn't focus on the naturally unhealthy nature of fast food, he does describe the abundant diseases that can be found in the meat, such as E. coli O157:H7. The causes for these pathogens are the environments in the above-mentioned slaughterhouses, particularly the fact that feces often finds its way into the processed animals, or sick cattle are used along with healthy ones. Near the end of the book, fast food's spread around the globe and its effects on the societies of foreign nations are described. This and much more are brought up and examined by the determined author.
As for the writing style, Schlosser has a great ability for scene setting, as in the first pages of the introduction where he describes the Cheyenne Mountain base, where it feels like it's some sort of sci-fi novel. This book never really drags, although in the epilogue his writing abruptly seems to become more lackluster. Other than that and repeating E. coli O157:H7 one too many times, this book can be a useful weapon against the fast food empire. I still plan to eat McDonalds, but I'll definitely be thinking more when I bite into one of their products.
A note: many people will likely believe this book to be biased against the Republican party. But the fact is that recently the conservatives have all to often aided the corporations in their power grabs and take over of rivals. The Republicans are always accusing the Democrats of striking down competition in the free market, but it should be blatantly obvious that by buying off their other powerful competitors the corporations suppress any "free market" activity.