Fast Food Nation by Eric

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is a muckraking expose of the fast food industry in America. The first American purveyors of fast food like Ray Kroc may have been innovators, but McDonald's and other major fast food companies are now representatives of a powerful, corporate establishment. Fast food was designed to be eaten quickly, in a car, and cheaply. The cheapness of fast food comes at a high price. Schlosser wrote his book to raise awareness about the reality behind the All-American meal. Despite the fact that so many people eat fast food, "they rarely consider where this food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them" (Schlosser 10). Fast food is often used to represent the positive aspects of capitalism -- "in town after town statues of Lenin have come down, and statues of Ronald McDonald have gone up" but Schlosser says that the exploitation of workers, the cruelty shown to animals and the environment and the unhealthy final product make the fast food industry an example of capitalism at its very worst (Schlosser 249).

Throughout Fast Food Nation Schlosser uses anecdotes to illustrate his central points, such as the unhealthy nature of fast food. The typical fast food meal is mostly cheap starch, and sold on the basis of its quantity not quality. When it was first noticed that people were eating their small-size fries but feared going back for more, lest they look piggish, supersizing was born. Fast food is assembled, rather than cooked, and franchises are so mechanized there is no need for workers to be highly trained, enabling poorly-paid teenage, immigrant and part-time workers to staff the restaurants.

Conditions for workers may be bad, but workers are plentiful so they can be treated as disposable commodities. Schlosser speaks to workers at many such restaurants for the book, and all report similar conditions. Teens also report being pressured to work long hours despite child labor laws and the pressures of school. However, as bad as the conditions may be working inside the restaurants, conditions in the meat-processing plants that provide the animal products used by the industry are far worse. Workers safety laws are ignored, and disease is prevalent. Schlosser reports a heart-rending tale of a young boy who died from E.coli bacteria after eating a tainted Jack-in-the-Box burger. It is difficult to track the source of an infection because "a single fast-food hamburger now contains meat from dozens or even hundreds of different cattle" (Schlosser 2004). . Despite the fact that cows are herbivores, they are fed scraps of animals to inexpensively fatten them up for slaughter. Cattle, chickens, and pigs themselves suffer under terrible, confining and unsanitary conditions to sate the insatiable appetite for beef, chicken, and pork of the major American fast food companies

Schlosser's book is dark, even depressing at times, but his anecdotal style gives it a great deal of humor, as he demonstrates how the companies selling fast food try to understand what consumers want. Schlosser pays a visit to a 'flavor factory' where he finds himself able to taste all of the flavors of burgers, fries, and other foods simply by smelling chemicals. This highlights how poor-quality beef and other byproducts are turned into cheap food to suit the palate.