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Summary: A damning critique of more than fast food --
Review: Fast Food Nation has more on its plate than just the critique of American fast food per se -- it systematically demonstrates how the logic of laissez-faire capitalism drives humans to commit reprehensible horrors on each other, animals, and the environment.No wonder so many diehard free-marketeers react to it with visceral revulsion. For an interesting companion piece, try reading Max Barry's satirical novel _Jennifer Government_ alongside _Fast Food Nation_!
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Summary: Fabulous!
Review: This is a great book! It covers numerous facets of the fast-food industry... its history... labor policies.... slaughterhouses... the culture... the advertising. And it's written in a very direct, no-holds-barred way. A relatively simple read packed with loads of statistics and quotes to illustrate the author's contention that fast food causes big problems. I highly recommend this book! As the book makes note of, you won't look at fast food in the same way after reading it!
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Summary: Not eating out again
Review: "The Jungle" of our times will really open your eyes. It made me not want to eat at fast food restaurants anymore, until I realized the point of the book was, a few people boycotting won't make a difference in this big business world.
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Summary: The Bad Sides of Capitalism
Review: The scientific progress of the United States extends much further than the laboratories these days, at least according to Eric Schlosser. In fact, the very evolution of fast food has relied heavily on just a handful of disturbingly riveting social problems. Whether it's backdoor politics, the invisible dangers of delicious artificial additives in our food, or the seemingly permanent damage that has shaped our lifestyles and views of "quality time," Schlosser unravels how our "Fast Food" nation was built- and why it should be destroyed. One of the more interesting arguments in the book analyzes the extremely political processes that permitted the fast food monopoly to take over. We constantly hear that "big government" is interfering with our businesses, but Schlosser provides an extremely persuasive set of facts to prove otherwise. In fact, without the behind-the-scenes help that the federal and local governments provided when highways were being built, when shoddy, incontestable franchising and worker treatment policies are laid out, when the mafia took determined what meat butchers bought, and even in the much more critical area of food safety, the fast food industry would have likely never taken off. Additionally, Schlosser delves into "what's really between those sesame seed buns" and lets us in on what makes those McDelicacies so wonderful. We're not eating quality meat, the author asserts, but carefully concocted scientific potions to guarantee that the foods served in restaurants will be pleasing to most human beings. Made in a lab and shipped to the factories or restaurants where foods are frozen or prepared, depending on the food, these vials are not merely buttery-flavored additives to make those fries taste golden brown as soon as they're pulled, still frozen, from the bag. Instead, they create a new, completely unnatural taste for fries, burgers, or whatever else that the additives are put in. It would seem to me that a flavor so powerfully engineered to be enticing would also cover up many of the grievances in the meatpacking industry, which Schlosser also investigates. The messily slaughtered cattle, whose meat can prove fatal, can easily be doused in something that smells irresistible to us as humans. So it would seem that we are purposely lied to, quite often, about what we are actually eating because we will likely never actually know. Schlosser also talks about the assembly-line structure of food preparation and how it spread to the meatpacking industry, and, arguably, to other workforces. I see the human assembly lines at you-know-where-Mart; put the clothes on the rack, get the customer out quickly and efficiently, and smile for him as you check to see what he stole. I see this so-called assembly line in places I never thought it existed until I read this book, and that's one of the most powerful things Schlosser does: He makes you see things you thought could not possibly exist. The book is much more than just a "sign of the times;" it's a detailed, thoughtful look at United States culture and one of the culprits that has lead us to a time when humans have become just another post on the assembly line of consumer desires. And I'm afraid, my friend, that we've bought ourselves a fairly low position on that line.
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Summary: disgustingly interesting
Review: This book gives the reader a closer look at how fast food can be good but also deadly. This book has ruined food for those people who eat out very often. It is truly a wake up call for a fast food nation.
Rating: 
Summary: Intersting Enough
Review: Some parts of the book were eye-openers for me. However, for the most part, it did not provide any major insights. The chapters "Why The Fries Taste Good" and "What's In The Meat" were interesting enough. Even so, they simply reinforced what I already knew: lax or non-existent government regulations favor corporate interests over consumer safety, and fast food contains some nasty stuff. While the author did a lot of valuable research, overall, the book was very long-winded.
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Summary: chomp on this
Review: If you eat fast food, read this book. This book is great and should be passed out to everyone in the country. The book is a little slow at first and then it picks up after the first couple of chapters. I could not put this book down once I got into it. All the facts and truths that are exposed are unbelievable, I couln't believe half of the stuff. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
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Summary: Don't Supersize, Bring a Bag Lunch instead
Review: Eric Schlosser has penned a well-documented and thorough history of the fast food industry and its impact on global health, real estate development, agribusiness, and employment practices. I was expecting a crazed left-wing Michael Moore type strident screed from this former Rolling Stone and Mother Jones writer, but it is not here, except for a few borderline-warranted postshots at the Republicans in Congress. Schlosser starts out by detailing the rise of the early fast-food chains, most of which got their start in the pre-war and post-war salad days of Southern California, as federal subsidies and military bases and plants turned a desert into endless suburbia. The McDonald brothers and Ray Kroc quickly saw the economic advantages of eliminating waitresses, bus-boys, dishwashers, and skilled short-order cooks from the earlier drive-in or sit-down restaurant models. America's diet changed over the next generation, as beef and then chicken became staples at the expense of pork. Chicken went from something you carved at home on the occasional Sunday afternoon to something dipped in honey mustard sauce behind the wheel of a Pontiac. The frozen French (now freedom) fry was developed by an obscure Idaho entrepreneur (now nonagenarian billionaire), eliminating the early morning restaurant chore of peeling hundreds of potatoes. The slaughterhouse went from a solid big-city middle-class employer of highly skilled meat packers to a High Plains battleground of unskilled non-English speaking immigrants, often spilling as much of their own blood as that of their prey. Grocery store and restaurant butchers disappeared as centralized meat processors cut and wrapped the product. Cattle went from being grass-fed to being fed grain in feedlots. Make sure you get the 2002 edition as Schlosser has added a section on the latest issues with mad cow disease. Some of the worst practices with adding animal remains to feed have been curtailed, but research and experience is now showing mad cow disease to transmit across species, making any addition of mammal remains to feed potentially dangerous. The other interesting issue is the potential for horrible disease from the presence of the mutant e coli bacteria, as occurred in the Jack-in-the-Box chain in the 1990's. The toxins produced by these bacteria can destroy organs and cause death within a week. I hate to admit it, but here more governament regulation is required, as Schlosser points out. The USDA has no real authority to recall contaminated meat. The supplier must agree to voluntarily launch a recall, and the quantity and terms of the recall are set by the supplier. He may choose to keep it a secret from state officials for example, that meat is being removed from local restaurants, with some of it already having been consumed. Clearly, it is in the interest of the supplier to delay any recall, as this reduces the un-consumed amount.
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Summary: ... it makes you think.
Review: Eric Schlosser has just caught the fast food industry with its pants down. After having taking advantage of so many people, (helpless, illiterate immigrants and even children and infants included), an incredibly in depth study of the damage is finally available: _Fast Food Nation_ Unusually enlightening, nearly every page of this book is filled with shocking statistics and horrifying accounts. Schlosser did his homework, (and if you doubt one word of this book, the last 90 pages of small text provide all his sources). It includes the entire history of the fast food, a very detailed account of McDonalds, urban sprawl, a disturbing new look at Walt Disney and his influential corporation, the poultry and beef industry, the obesity problem in adults and kids, a tour through the monstrosities of a slaughterhouse and the ill-treatment of it's workers (even today!), stories and accounts from personal interviews, propaganda and the exploitation of children in the fast food market, the societal damage caused by these capitalists, diseases, bacteria, E-coli, and the disturbing amount of fecal matter in beef, and a thousand other terrifying examples. This book has the power to be as influential as Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle_. Perhaps more frightening, this book provides evidence; a look at America's nauseating fast food culture and the effect it has on the world is something most people don't want to see. This is _The Jungle_ one hundred years later ... this is _The Jungle_ in the year 2000 where sanitary laws and worker's rights should have improved with technology. Read both: you'll be surprised at how little has changed. Outrageous and horrifying, this book is enough to make you become a vegetarian. I've been one for two years now, but after reading this I refuse to support the fast food industry. I cried while reading this book. If you aren't motivated to stop your fast food habits, you either didn't read it thoroughly, or you just didn't care. Either way, anybody interested in American society should read _Fast Food Nation_ and form their own opinions.
Rating:
Summary: Just OK
Review: Well, the author did his homework. He ran around the country and did the interviews, so the book is very thorough. The problem is, it's just not very interesting. I thought it might be connected a little more to US cultural and social issues, but instead it's sort of an expose of the fast food industry. Not bad, I guess. Just OK>
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