Rating: 
Summary: Be aware of what you eat ! ! !
Review: The book, Fast Food Nation, is very good for every fast food consumer to read. It exposes the truth and all that goes on inside the fast food industries. It shows you what unhealthy food really means. You have to read this book to believe it. Words can not describe how well formulated and outstanding this book is. So get out there, read this book, and have a clue what is inside your hamburger today. Then, you will be able to decide wheather to continue eating fast food or not. I strongly recommend this book because "knowledge is wisdom."
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Review: I read this book on vacation, but I had to keep putting it down. There is some disturbing stuff in this book, and it makes you think twice about trusting minimum-wage strangers to prepare the food you eat.I had no idea about the powerful group of a handful of organizations that are controlling the food we eat. If I weren't so lazy, this book would make me start a farm so I can raise the food that my friends and family eats....
Rating:
Summary: Just wanted to add my thumbs-up
Review: Nothing to add to the good reviews, really. Outstanding coverage of a vast topic, Schlosser doesn't miss a trick. Entertaining as hell, reads like the wind. A modern world must-read. My only complaint is that I wanted it to be even longer, and include explorations of things like the infamous "Junk Food Defense" murder trial and such. I could easily have read another 300 pages on the same topic.
Rating: 
Summary: If ignorance is bliss, this book isn't for you
Review: This book was required reading for two of my college courses and I hope other schools require it as well. It's amazing how well researched this book is, explaining not just the ugly side of the meatpacking and fast food industries, but also about the "McDonalization" in all aspects of American life in recent decades. I think this book is great because it can put the power back into the hands of the people if enough people read it and start demanding better quality and safety in our prepared food. I encourage you to read it - you will be unsettled.
Rating: 
Summary: Lot of facts, many not interestigs
Review: I must say I had a great time reading this complete investigation about the fast food industry in America. This is a serios job, not 100% objective, because that's impossible.
It's a good thing seeing some of the american people aknowledges the mass food they produce is just garbage.
Here in Chile we also got McDonalds, KFC and that kind of "restaurants", but thy're aint very succesful. In fact, the sale rates have descended since that food chains arrived here, in the begining of the 90s.
The reason -I thik- is that in south america are used to natural tastes, natural products, not the elaborated, salt and fat saturated you people eat. The book talks about this grain feeded cattle: in my whole life I,ve never heard of anything like this in this part of the world. I mean, cows eat grass here!.
The other day I went to a McDonald, after about 5 months of not putting a foot on one of them (not because an anti american attitude, just because there's better places to eat). The sandwich (a Big Mac) was just awful, the ingredients seems not to get together, the fries too salty, the deserts, too sweet. All the food got like an exagerated taste. Anyway, the book is fine, but starts to bore in the chapters about cattle, and meat diseases...too many details. I miss the same investigation on american obesity, for example. I invite you all to get here and taste what real food tastes like!
Rating: 
Summary: Heavy-Handed Liberalism
Review: Wait! Trust me! I really did want to like this book. For goodness sake, I'm a raw food vegetarian! How could I not like it? Well, the author tries so hard to make everything sound so dark and sinister. Teenagers are exploited, cows are killed, workers are hurt in the plants... And yet, I think anybody with half a brain already knew this. The only thing I found interesting was a page or two detailing what's in our meat, but there again, we've already heard those horror stories. Early fast food resturant entrepreneurs are treated like evil masterminds, when in fact they were just trying to make an honest buck. Colorado Springs is vilified for having a large Christian community. He treats this as some dark secret and makes fun of it in his tone, leaving the reader to ask, "Isn't this supposed to be a book on the fast food Industry?" We all know the Standard American Diet sucks, tell us something new, please don't bore us, and leave your heavy-handed, left-leaning editorialism out of this! It only weakens the message.
Rating:
Summary: What's Eating America
Review: America has changed incredibly over the last century. Our recent history has been defined by catastrophic wars and booming industry. In the last century, America has faced the worst economic depressions in its history, and the highest economic booms. These ever changing historical events have defined our culture, and provided citizens with unique and intense economic opportunities. Fast Food Nation provides a look into the fast food industry from its start to its current place in America. It explores the cultural changes the industry has defined, and provides a behind the scenes look at the inner workings of the companies involved. Eric Schlosser has shed light on the shady workings of the fast food industry, the determined and sometimes tyrannical attitude of its founders, and the millions of Americans who have been duped by the industries' shiny façade. This book will make any reader question ever consuming fast food again. All of my life I've been bombarded by urban legends concerning what I was truly eating when I ate fast food, but nothing prepared me for what was actually in it, the way it was prepared, and the attitude of the corporate giants who push it on us. The most surprising thing I felt however, was the almost indepth corruption that our government has contributed toward the industry. It makes you wonder who actually runs America? I'm a republican and despite the plethora of accusations about republicans responsible for irresponsible, and sometimes corrupt decisions involving the industry, I didn't feel that Schlosser was attacking the political party, but more so the government overall. Any one offended should look past these simple facts and concentrate on the overall message of the book, and what is truly plaguing our American society.
Rating:
Summary: Alarming and though provoking
Review: Most reader will be impressed with this book. It is well laid out and researched, with enough amozing facts and details to keep the reader interested. It makes you think about eating fast food long and hard, and many will give it up after reading this book, if only for a little while.
I can't say if parts were biased against conservative republicans or not, but at times it did seem the author was attacking the right wing and praising the left for no reason whatsoever. It certainly did not help to make any point. Towards the end of the book, it began to feel more and more like I was only being shown a small part of the picture. Maybe its because I can't imagine all of the horrible things the author writes about with absolutely no redeeming factors, or maybe the author was deliberately trying to make a point, but it definitely feels as if the reader is not getting an entirely accurate picture.
All in all, this book comes highly reccommended, just be careful.
Rating:
Summary: We have all contributed to this
Review: Eric Schlosser has touched countless minds and hearts with his powerful book about fast food chains and their business practices from the feedlots to the counter. After three years of intense research, Schlosser gathered the hard evidence to prove his point that these fast food chains are more interested in profit than in providing healthy meat to the American consumer. Towards the end of the book, Schlosser quotes a few slaughterhouse workers as saying they love the days when working on meat to be sent to the EU (European Union) because of the stringent standards they have long set into place. The production lines move slower and more attention is paid to detail. Corporate executives have outright stated that the American public simply doesn't care about how healthy the meat is, just so long as it tastes good. (Naturally, the media continues to either bury such comments or not report them at all.) There were no "partisan" leanings in Schlosser's book. Eric merely stated the obvious time and again, something the American public needs to be reminded of: That the right-wing of the Republican Party is in the pockets of the meatpacking industry. The millions (possibly billions) of lobbying dollars spent on these politicans have blocked the federal government from implementing more stringent safety standards regarding meat and have made these corporations *less* accountable for their less than ethical business practices of recalling contaminated meat. We like to pride ourselves in this country that we're so ahead of the times yet it says a lot when corporations can voluntarily recall contaminated meat. They are under no federal pressure to do so, and usually issue a recall after millions of pounds of the stuff has already been eaten (they have been times, as Schlosser reports, that these companies took bad meat returned by customers and simply reused it). It says alot when the feds can recall defective toys and cars yet can't do anything when it comes to contaminated meat - meat that can harbor deadly diseases many years after you've had that delicious cheeseburger or Big Mac. Before reading Eric's book, I was disgusted at the number of fast food "restaurants" that kept creeping up all over town. At lunchtime, the choice was the same: McDonald's, Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's, or Popeye's Chicken. While I was reading the book, I began to notice more than ever the workers behind the counter: Teenagers, minorities, immigrants who barely spoke English (which I'm seeing more and more of). I saw how boxes with the food already made were being brought in to a franchise and all I could think of was, "How long has that stuff been sitting in those boxes?" After reading about how corporate farms have run family-run farms out of business and how they treat those people like employees (disposable), after reading about how slaughterhouse workers are treated (badly injured workers forced to work right after they were treated for serious injuries, company nurses saying a worker had a sprained back when it was a herniated disk, a worker who had one arm amputated and was told by a supervisor, "If the one hand doesn't work, use the other"), after reading about how these corporate slaughterhouses are rarely held accountable for the deaths they cause, the harm they inflict on the general public, how they get away with advertising to little children (people who don't know any better and will beg their parents to take them to McDonald's because they don't know the consequences to their health from eating such food), how these corporations developed a "cradle to grave" advertising strategy, how they regularly supress freedom of speech when people dare question their business practices, I cannot, in good conscience, continue to support the fast food industry with my hard earned money. I guess my body is following suit. I went to a few fast food joints while reading this book and got sick off their food and was amazed at how expensive the food was. (You're spending the same amount of money in McDonald's that you would at a local diner). I also cannot deal any longer with hearing these "big" people (usually in suits) belittling these fast food workers for making honest mistakes. Becoming a vegetarian looks better everyday after reading this book. I know one thing is for sure: I will support what little small businesses are left. I'll spend a little more doing it, but I have never gotten sick from an independent company's food the way I have from fast food places. Two enthusiastic thumbs up to Eric Schlosser for educating the American public about such a crucial issue. On page 269, Eric reminds people that the power is still in their hands: "Nobody in the United States is forced to buy fast food. The first step toward meaningful change is by far the cheapest: stop buying it. ... The heads of Burger King, KFC and McDonald's should feel daunted: they're outnumbered. There are three of them and almost three hundred million of you. A good boycott, a refusal to buy, can speak much louder than words." Many thanks to him for exposing the unscrupulous business practices of fast food executives and their beyond low opinion of the safety of the American public. "Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk inside, get in line, and look around you, look at the kids working in the kitchen, at the customers in their seats, at the ads for the latest toys, study the backlit color photographs above the counter, think about where the food came from, about how and where it was made, about what is set in motion by every single fast food purchase, the ripple effect near and far, think about it. Then place your order. Or turn and walk out the door. It's not too late. Even in this fast food nation, you can still have it your way." I am having my way, Eric: I choose not to support these corporate creeps.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read!!!
Review: Everybody in this nation has eaten fast food in one form or another. Ever since reading this book, I have not and this is a definite must-read for everybody out there, young and old alike. It exposes the dark side of McDonald's, Con-Agra, and the like. It covers basically everything, from food poisoning cases to what happens in the meat processing plants. There are parts that will make you cringe, but it is a very important, enlightening book. After you read this, you might just become a vegetarian. I know for a fact I certainly did. Down with corrupt corporations! Happy reading!
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