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Summary: The Fast Food Nation
Review: Fast Food, an "American Tradition." Eating fast food has become a routine event for many Americans. However, not many people know the secrets that go on, or have even been, "behind the scenes." Eric Schlosser did just that, he went "behind the scenes" to get the scoop. Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, tells how the fast food industry got started and how it remains thriving today. From Carl N. Karcher's first restaurant to the hundreds of restaurants today; McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. From the slaughterhouses to the table, how does the food get there? What's really in the meat? Why do the french fries taste so delicious to us, the consumers? All of these questions get answered in this book. Schlosser also describes the troubles that the fast food industry has been through, like the constantly changing prices of labor and products, and how the industry has overcome most of these "bumps in the road."
Schlosser visits many different locations to get the facts. One of these locations allows him to tell about the different flavors and scents that they have bottled up on the shelves. Everything from smoke to black olives. Due to these "flavor factories," most fast foods aren't what they seem. And yet, the public still can't seem to resist them. Why? you may ask. The fast food industry is constantly coming up with new ways to make their food appealing to the people. Read about some of these promotional perks, some of them, you might not have even noticed the last time you ate the food. Ever wonder about some of the food on the menus? Schlosser goes through the process of making the most famous foods; such as french fries, the hamburger and the chicken McNuggets.
Schlosser gives us the info, while keeping it exciting. The reader feels intrigued and feels that they have to go on to find out more. Once the reading starts, it seems almost impossible to put it down during the really good parts. However, the beginning can be a little slow, don't let that stop you because later on it gets into the really interesting details (The stuff you don't want to miss). Read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal to learn about the corruption of the fast food industry.
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Summary: Disgusting Yet Very Interesting
Review: I learned a great deal out of this well written book by Eric Schlosser. Everything written is interesting although it is sometimes disturbing. Ever wonder what you're eating at McDonald's? Find out by reading this book!
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Summary: More Food Please!!!
Review: Well this is a great book that really got me thinking about what I really eat. I don't think I'll ever look at a burger the same way again without thinking about how it was processed. As a fast food consumer I took this book really serious especially since I know so many people who are overweight because of fast food. Back in the old cave man days obesity was never a real issue since everyone worked hard to eat what little they hunted. Know a days people can order pizza on the phone, walk a few steps and boom there you have a nice greasy pizza. This book showed me how the consumption of fast food has become a fast growing economy building business overnight. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone it teaches the reader about the politics behind the fast food industry and the actual processing of the food. I can guarantee you that you will not want to stop reading this book.
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Summary: Fast Food Nation review
Review: Fast Food Nation was a wonderful honest view at the effects of fast food. It was refreshing to see writing with such candor in it. Although at times the reading was a bit dull, Schlosser spiced it up with a few jokes and such hidden and bizarre information. It was a wonderful and awe-inspiring read.
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Summary: Can I take your order?
Review: After reading Fast Food Nation, I got a totally different view on fast food restaurants. It is so crazy how once we are in a rush, we always have to stop by a fast food place and pick up something. We always say is so good, but can it be those changes they make that makes us want to come back? We never think about what we are eating, we just stand there and think we are eating the best food ever. Reading this book gives you the chance to go behind the counter and see what we are actually eating. This book has so much detail about our favorite restaurants that you will be in total shock when you find out what you combo really has. You will then think twice.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book
Review: Fast Food Nation is a lifetimes worth of investigation and cultural history, this book is definately transforming the way America thinks about the way it eats. When I first purchased this book I did not know weather or not I would like it but after a good 15 minutes it was one of my favorites. This is one of those books that is extremely entertaining, and at the same time informative and concise. I would recomend this book to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Exaggerations Unbounded
Review: The problem with most expose books is that they neglect common logic. This book is no exception. The author apparently is mathematically challenged when he riles about the markup costs on the one hand and then claims too low labor rates on the other. He might also look at MD's bottom line. Put those facts , together with the obvious fact that the fast food business is without doubt the most competitive industry we have, and his
claims of gauging become laughably nonsensical. The only gauging I see around here is the price of his book. After reading his hysterical comments about the dangers of that McD hamburger, I would expect to see lines ten miles long of very ill customers waiting to lodge a lawsuit against Ronald McDonald. Well, guess what? They aren't any lines. Save your money and but a couple of hamburgers rather than this book. You'll save yourself a lot of mindless worry and might even feel good.
Rating:
Summary: You have no idea
Review: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Eric Schlosser. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 383 pages. It all started in 1937 when two brothers, Richard and Maurice (Mac) McDonald, started up a McDonald's restaurant in a town just 60 miles outside of Los Angeles. Schlosser writes that their restaurant offered "speedy service" and in expensive food. Competition soon arrived as Carl Karcher, a hot dog stand owner and operator, caught on to their little trend and also put out a restaurant now known as Carl's Jr. Fast Food Nation states that later as fast food became more popular the restaurants had to speed up which required less care while preparing the food. This soon led to meat packers getting more careless with the meat they sent out for America to eat. Soon Americans were eating everything from E. coli and Salmonella to Feces.
I eat fast food all the time and love the food but my parents disagree with my likings and hate the food and constantly try to go to a quality "sit down" or as I call it, slow food restaurant. After reading this book I am going to have a hard time looking at another piece of meat at school, home, or a fast food restaurant.
Fast Food Nation starts out telling about the lives of "The Founding Fathers" of the fast food industry. It then goes on and compares McDonald's work to Disney's work. Schlosser then tells the reader about how Americans view fast food today. Eating fast food is as harmless as eating apple pie, or at least that's what you think. Schlosser uncovers the mysteries of what goes on in the slaughter houses and meat processing plants.
Over all I believe that Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is an excellent book although it tends to be boring part of the time and seems to be interminable until the last one or two chapters as Schlosser goes on about Walt Disney and other not so interesting facts. Schlosser brought up some interesting points and severely critiqued how unsanitary the restaurants, meat processing plants, and slaughter houses really are. Along with E. coli, Salmonella, and feces the book also states that some cows have been dead for days maybe even weeks before being chopped up, processed, cooked, and served to you with lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, onions, cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard and sometimes even bacon. Over all, even though the book seems interminable at times I give Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal 4 stars out of 5 because it is a very informative book that everyone who cares about their health should read.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: I was shocked to read all the details this book has to offer. Of course, we all know that fast food is hardly healthy, but Schlosser is meticulous in his detail of how the fast food lifestyle has been socially, economically and medically devestating to this country. The chapters that stood out most for me were the chapters that focused on the lengths to which the beef and fast food industries have gone to resist attempts to make their products and their industry safer. Of course, the chapters on modern beef ranching and slaughterhouses are enough to make even those with a strong stomach a little queasy. This book is a must read for any American parent tempted to run through the drive through for a quick meal for the kids.
Rating:
Summary: Fast Food Nation
Review: In the memoir/exposé, Schlosser uncovers the world of the many otherwise unskilled men and women giving their lives, health, well-being and sometimes lives to the mass production meat markets of the country. By immersing himself in interviews and tours of this world, he attempts to discover the motivation of these multi-billion dollar corporations to cut costs at every opportunity. He searches every aspect of the industry from the front face presented in the restaurants and office buildings, to the most obscure "taste" production laboratories. Through following a path of processing, Schlosser encounters the people that make the inner goings on of the industry function. He discovers the many processes by which our most beloved and familiar foods are made to taste just that way and follows these foods on their long and arduous journey from natural to barely recognizable. Along the way he meets people with increasingly pitiful stories from losing limbs in careless knife accidents to being fired with no pension after nearly forty years of slaughterhouse work.
Schlosser succeeds completely in exposing the dark world of our "fast food nation". She sets up the perfect arguments for the regulation of dangerous working circumstances and an increase in awareness of the true nature of fast food. Ultimately, this book forces the reader to see what we often choose not to: hundreds of thousands of people being oppressed by a system that each American inadvertently supports. Indeed, he shows the ineffectiveness of the current federal regulation and the impossibility for the betterment of these people while conditions remain the same. In addition, it reveals the horrible and sickening process by which food comes into our homes and bodies.
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