Fast Food Nation: What The All-American Meal is Doing to the World by Eric Schlosser (PDF)

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Now the subject of a film by Richard Linklater, Eric Schlosser’s explosive bestseller Fast Food Nation: What the All-American Meal is Doing to the World tells the story of our love affair with fast food. Britain eats more fast food than any other country in Europe. It looks good, tastes good, and it’s cheap. But the real cost never appears on the menu. Eric Schlosser visits the lab that re-creates the smell of strawberries; examines the safety records of abattoirs; reveals why the fries really taste so good and what lurks between the sesame buns – and shows how fast food is transforming not only our diets but our world. ‘Fast Food Nation has lifted the polystyrene lid on the global fast food industry … and sparked a storm’ Observer ‘Has wiped that smirk off the Happy Meal … Thanks to this man, you’ll never eat a burger again’ Evening Standard ‘Startling … Junk food, we learn, is just that … left this reader vowing never to set foot in one of those outlets again’ Daily Mail ‘This book tells you more than you really want to know when you’re chomping on that hamburger … Have a nice day? Listen – you should live so long’ The Times Eric Schlosser is a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. His first book, Fast Food Nation, was a major international bestseller. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone and the Guardian. He has received a number of journalistic honours, including a National Magazine Award for an Atlantic Review article on the drug trade, which was later adapted into the book Reefer Madness.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I finally have learned what I am really eating! This book is as relevant today as it was when it was published back in 2002, probably more so! Fast Food Nation traces the history of the fast food industry from hotdog stands to the multi-billion burgers sold as corporate America spreads its gospel of a quick-and-easy (and cheap) “western diet” around the globe. To promote mass production and profits, the industry has to keep labor and material costs low. “Flavorists” in laboratories along the New Jersey turnpike concoct the “natural flavors” found in almost every processed food product. To witness the gruesome business of meat-processing, Schlosser visited slaughterhouses. What he discovered was both repugnant and hazardous. Every day more than 200,000 Americans are made sick by contaminated food AND over 300,000 are hospitalized for a food-borne illneess. Kudos to Eric Schlosser for jump starting our awareness of cheap food vs. safe food and the large corporate producers who virtually monopolize the food system. If you want to better educate yourself about how the fast food culture has undermined our health over the past 30 years and is slowly but surely shortening our life span, start with this book. After you’re done reading Fast Food Nation, pick up a Michael Pollan book if you want updated evidence that the “western diet” is making this nation sick with multiple diseases. Please don’t rely on most MDs to figure it out for you, think for yourself, you may be amazed to find out that your grandma was right, you are what you eat.Below is an excerpt from a 2010 Michael Pollan article (May 20, 2010 New York Review of bookss)”But although cheap food is good politics, it turns out there are significant costs–to the environment, to public health, to the public purse, even to the culture–and as these became impossible to ignore in recent years, food has come back into view. Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of food safety scandals opened people’s eyes to the way their food was being produced, each one drawing the curtain back a little further on a food system that had changed beyond recognition. When BSE, or mad cow disease, surfaced in England in 1986, Americans learned that cattle, which are herbivores, were routinely being fed the flesh of other cattle; the practice helped keep meat cheap but at the risk of a hideous brain-wasting disease.In the wake of these food safety scandals, the conversation about food politics that briefly flourished in the 1970s was picked up again in a series of books, articles, and movies about the consequences of industrial food production. Beginning in 2001 with the publication of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, a surprise best-seller, and, the following year, Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, the food journalism of the last decade has succeeded in making clear and telling connections between the methods of industrial food production, agricultural policy, food-borne illness, childhood obesity, the decline of the family meal as an institution, and, notably, the decline of family income beginning in the 1970s.Besides drawing women into the work force, falling wages made fast food both cheap to produce and a welcome, if not indispensible, option for pinched and harried families. The picture of the food economy Schlosser painted resembles an upside-down version of the social compact sometimes referred to as “Fordism”: instead of paying workers well enough to allow them to buy things like cars, as Henry Ford proposed to do, companies like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s pay their workers so poorly that they can afford only the cheap, low-quality food these companies sell, creating a kind of nonvirtuous circle driving down both wages and the quality of food. The advent of fast food (and cheap food in general) has, in effect, subsidized the decline of family incomes in America.But perhaps the food movement’s strongest claim on public attention today is the fact that the American diet of highly processed food laced with added fats and sugars is responsible for the epidemic of chronic diseases that threatens to bankrupt the health care system. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that fully three quarters of US health care spending goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which are preventable and linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and at least a third of all cancers. The health care crisis probably cannot be addressed without addressing the catastrophe of the American diet, and that diet is the direct (even if unintended) result of the way that our agriculture and food industries have been organized”

⭐The purpose of this book, about the fast food industry, is best summarized by the author within the introduction: “I do not mean to suggest that fast food is solely responsible for every social problem now haunting the United States. In some cases (such as the malling and sprawling of the West) the fast food industry has been a catalyst and a symptom of larger economic trends. In other cases (such as the rise of franchising and the spread of obesity) fast food has played a more central role. By tracing the diverse influences of fast food I hope to shed light not only on the workings of an important industry, but also on a distinctively American way of viewing the world.”This book recounts the history behind the uprising of fast food to become a dominant force in our modern society. However, what most of us do not know is : “what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction”. Eric goes on to investigate every aspect of the fast food industry: people, cattle, vegetables, health etc. The storytelling techniques that he uses throughout the book bring this expose to life. The stories are descriptive, personal and touching.A very educative and enlightening read, and a rude (much needed) awakening about the food industry in general and the fast food industry in particular.Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:”The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power. The great challenge now facing countries throughout the world is how to find a proper balance between the efficiency and the amorality of the market.””Today’s fast food industry is the culmination of those larger social and economic trends. The low price of a fast food hamburger does not reflect its real cost – and should. the profits of the fast food chains have been made possible by losses imposed on the rest of society. The annual cost of obesity alone is now twice as large as the fast food industry’s total revenues.””The right pressure applied to the fast food industry in the right way could produce change faster than any act of Congress. The United Students Against Sweatshops and other activist groups have brought widespread attention to the child labor, low wages, and hazardous working conditions in Asian factories that make sneakers for Nike.””Nobody in the United States is forced to buy fast food. The first steps toward meaningful change is by far the easiest: stop buying it. The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit. The usefulness of the market, its effectiveness as a tool, cuts both ways.””Whatever replaces the fast food industry should be regional, diverse, authentic, unpredictable, sustainable, profitable – and humble. It should know its limits. People can be fed without being fattened or deceived. This new century may bring an impatience with conformity, a refusal to be kept in the dark, less greed, more compassion, less speed, more common sense, a sense of humor about bran essences and loyalties, a view of food as more than just fuel. Things don’t have to be the way they are. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I remain optimistic.”

⭐This book is a detailed investigation into the fast food industry in the USA. The author includes a lot of background research to back up his arguments. He shows in detail how the industry started out and suddenly exploded into what it is today, e.g. to the point where children recognise the famous golden arches more than the relevance of a cruciform shape.Anyone wishing to opt out of the fast food culture read this book now!This is probably the 4th copy I’ve purchased as when I lend it out I never get it back due to it being a good damn read – one of the “unputtable” down books.

⭐This book was so full of facinating information that as soon as I finished it I felt I needed to re-read it again __ I couldn’t take it all in in one hit. It describes just how far the science of marketing and the unbridled pursuit of profit has taken us in astonishing but well-researched detail.What has already happened in the fast food industry is probably the blueprint that most corporations would like to emulate if they could. The fast food industry lends itself particularly well to the explotation of suppliers, young employeees and the consumers who are unwittingly snared by the wholesome images and the artificially enhanced flavours.This book will open your eyes to a world you may not be aware existed.

⭐This book is just great. I often come back to read it again and again.It’s a real eye-opener as to the state of our food industry, both terrifying and fascinating in the same amounts. People and animals are all victims in the same machine. And yet, the allure of the Big Mac still reigns supreme…

⭐Took me quite a while to get through this but it was worth it. It’s chock full of facinating facts about the fast food industry. We really don’t know what goes into the food in these places but this book blows the lid off it all.It’s a really interesting read. If you like non-fiction add this to your to read list!

⭐This classic book is a must-read. It has not dated,as many of the issues are still current. I would also recommend Schlosser’s book for teens, which is a complete rewrite, with references to school cafeterias and other issues. It’s not a simple abridgement.

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