Rating: 
Summary: Makes you think
Review: This is the first book that I read on impacts the fast food has, not only to nutrition habits, but also to society, social welfare, health, working conditions, society values, etc. I am not an American, but I could find many resemblances in our society as well. And the scariest things are the ones you could have never imagined to find in this book! There are so many shoking facts and figures that make you think a lot - not only about fast food, but also about school system, Disney, slaughter houses, taxes, small farmers ruin,working conditions, exploitation of small producers,etc.
This book has been travelling around my friends circle ever since I finished reading it and my friends also find it scary, shoking and very well written.
In general - this book does not only make you feel sick when you see a burger again, but makes you think a lot about other things in our society - not only American, but western civilization in general.
I think it is a must read for Americans and Europeans if they feel that there is something going terribly wrong in today's consumer and BIG profits-oriented society.
Rating:
Summary: Fast Food = Slow Death
Review: This is one of those books that rips the blinkers from your eyes. Eric Schlosser goes well beyond the mere truism that "it isn't good for you" and looks at how the whole fast food industry has changed the way we live, from farmers to urban development, from immigration to globalization, from obesity to mad cow disease, and from entrepreneurship to the most god-awful working conditions this side of Dickens's London.FAST FOOD NATION is not just about fast food: It is about the CULTURE of fast food, and how that could be ever so much more pervasive than the e-Coli and rat feces in your Quickie Burger. In its own way, it is every bit as much a landmark as Upton Sinclair's THE JUNGLE. The fact that Schlosser provides 70 pages of notes and a bibliography indicates that this is a serious book that invites contradiction. Only, I think I won't contradict it much: I will just continue to keep on walking right past those Golden Arches. Curiously, Schlosser concentrates his attacks on the burger chains, leaving pizzerias, coffee shops, and sandwich chains pretty much off the hook. There are cases to be made for health issues relating to Chinese food, sushi, and other popular foods -- but I guess we'll have to wait for another book.
Rating: 
Summary: You'll think about a lot of things after reading this one
Review: I expected the book to be about the detrimental health effects of eating fast food, but that was just one of the topics. The book comprehensively covers the entire spectrum of the fast food industry, as well as food processing in a more general sense. While the author sometimes seems to over-simplify the issues by laying the blame at the feet of fast food executives motivated only by greed, his best point was that we consumers cannot continue to blindly trust the companies that put food in front of us, no matter how good the french fries taste. Of course the industry wants to make money -- that's not the problem. The problem is how we consumers encourage bad behavior by never questioning how they make the money. How many 99-cent items have to be on the menu before you question who's really losing out on the deal?
Rating:
Summary: worth the read
Review: The only reason I didn't give the book 5 stars is because of some of the slower chapters on the history of fast food. Very interesting, indeed. The chapters on flavor creation and the meatpacking industry were by far the most impressive. I can count on one hand the number of times I've eaten fast food since reading this book a year ago.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: In school we had to read this book for our reading enrichment program, and it was great. It was so good some of my releatives read it with me and we all talked about the book every night on the phone. Not only that our humanities teacher had an interview with him and Eric Schlosser might come to our school. He had also asked us to help him right a special kid edition, which would be really cool. We all will refer this great true informanitive story about, the dark side of the all American meal
Rating:
Summary: Should be read by everyone
Review: Fast Food Nation is much more than an expose of a few seedy things occurring at a few fast food businesses. Indeed, it is an exhaustingly complete in-depth analysis of the fast food industry from top to bottom, past and present. The book contains much information only tangentially related to fast food businesses, but is nonetheless immensely important. The book explains vividly how the nation has been transformed (both physically and mentally) by the rise of the fast food industry and the spread of the fast food mentality. At times this book is alarming and enraging, but it is always fascinating and engrossing. Schlosser's research is outstanding, and Schlosser's observations and interpretations are always supported by ample evidence. Quite simply, this book should be read by everyone, as it contains much information that everyone should be aware of, including those who eat fast food multiple times a day, those who wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, and everyone in between. Fast Food Nation consists of 10 chapters, an introduction, an epilogue, and over 50 pages of notes citing sources for the information presented in the book. The introduction describes how pervasive fast food has become in U.S. society. The first chapter tells the history of the fast food industry, from its humble beginnings to the empire it is today. The second chapter tells how invasive fast food marketing has become in our society, including many ways that I was not previously aware of. Chapter three discusses the situation for fast food business employees, primarily at the individual business level. In the fourth chapter Schlosser reports on how franchises are set up differently in different chains, and how becoming a franchisee in a fast food chain is a choice riddled with risks that are not apparent on the surface. The fifth chapter, titled "Why The Fries Taste Good" contains the history of how the french fry, in all its greasy glory, became one of the staples of fast food cuisine, as well as information on the complicated technology of making fast food fries taste good. The sixth chapter contains information on how individual ranchers and farmers have been negatively affected by the dramatic increase of corporate farms, as well as some startling information on Chicken McNuggets. In chapters seven and eight the meat packing industry is discussed, with chapter seven focusing on how a meat packing plant changes a community and chapter eight focusing on how despite numerous unnecessary injuries to workers, change is not forthcoming. In chapter nine Schlosser reports on how the lax standards in packing plants have exacerbated the spread of E Coli 0157:H7, as well as how school lunches consistently contain some of the worst meat available. Chapter ten, "Global Realization" discusses the global implications of fast food businesses spreading to every corner of the earth. Finally, after all of the numerous complex problems reported in the book, Schlosser explains some simple, common sense solutions in a concise fourteen-page epilogue. After several years of daily fast food consumption, I've rarely eaten fast food over the past four years, so for me this book was more of a reminder on why not to go back to eating fast food regularly, and not a call to action to a dramatic change in behavior, as I suspect it will be to the one in four Americans who eats fast food at least once daily. Fast Food Nation is one of those books that everyone should read, and despite being read by many, is missed by those who need to read it the most. This stems from two things. First, I'm guessing that the book reading population and the fast food eating population are for the most part separate groups with little overlap of members. Those who regularly read books usually cook at home or eat at real restaurants while those who eat fast food usually spend most of their free time being entertained by television and video games. Second, this book is extremely alarming and enraging, and those that eat a lot of fast food will probably be the least likely to go to the trouble of seeking out what's all involved with that supersized value meal purchased daily, even though reading the book is in their interest more than anyone else's. So, to try and do some good, I'm going to buy an extra copy of Fast Food Nation to give to someone I know that eats a lot of fast food, and I urge you to do so as well.
Rating:
Summary: Fast Food Nation is important reading, easy to digest
Review: I delayed reading Fast Food Nation for several weeks after I bought it thinking it would be a ponderous read. Don't make that mistake! This exploration of how the fast food industry's incredible growth and influence on the United States and Western Culture is a page turner.
While the book makes me glad I'm a vegetarian, it is much more than an expose on how meat on the run (not to mention fries, shakes and sodas) is bad for the body. Scholsser explores the rise of the fast food industry and its effects on everything from eating habits to agri business.
Fast Food Nation shows how the puruit of the almighty dollar has ruined the small farmer, along with American bellies. Workers, be they at McDonald's counters or in the slaughterhouses, suffer too. Low pay and poor working conditions make it apparent that workers are seen as disposable as the food they help produce and serve.
Schlosser is to be credited for presenting his damning story of greed without moralizing, allowing the facts speak for themselves. Indeed the book is chock full of facts, but they are weaved within very human stories. Schlosser follows a variety characters in the panorama of fast food: chain founders, the super rich, the working poor, the consumer advocate and the farmer, both big and small.
Fast Food Nation is an important book about post World War II American culture and business -- and it's an easy read!
Rating:
Summary: Heavy-duty and harrowing
Review: Schlosser has written a fine work of non-fiction. Even if you have no intention of giving up meat, this book will open your eyes to the way the meat processing industry works. The toll of fast-food on the United States is obvious: folks are fatter, the environment is decimated, family farming is nearly nonexistent, and folks working in processing plants have the most miserable, dangerous jobs in the nation. I guarantee you, you will have a tough time stomaching parts of this book. Even if you have no sympathy for the cattle and chickens slaughtered for your Big Mac, your heart will ache at the thought of the underpaid and forgotten workers in meat packing. You may be surprised to learn the lengths to which OSHA rules are sidestepped, along with other things. If nothing else, 'Fast Food Nation' will teach you the true price of a 99-cent double cheeseburger. Though the prose is occasionally bogged down with statistics, this still a compelling read.
Rating: 
Summary: A little boring.... sometimes interesting.
Review: I picked this book up hoping that it would make me never want to eat fast food again. It did work...for awhile. I have to admit that the ease of fast food makes it hard to stay away completely. Parts of this book were very slow. Although the author at times went into painfully long detail about certain things (particularly the part about artifical flavorings), I took away a lot of knowledge about the fast food industry. I had no idea how companies like McDonalds and Pepsi are giving schools funding in exchange for advertising and selling their junky food to the students. Reading this made me sick! The book also goes into great detail about what goes on in meat packing plants. After reading this section, you'll think twice when you go to order that next hamburger. Overall, an interesting read. Unfortunately, a lot of it was slow, so for every compelling section, there was another one that would put me to sleep.
Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening exposé of the fast-food industry
Review: Eric Schlosser's book is a particularly timely, relevant commentary on one of the most pervasive sociocultural and economic phenomena in North America today, namely fast food. Our lifestyles are busy, characterized by the two-working-parent, latchkey-kid family. When we want to treat ourselves for lunch, we go out and grab a burger. When a bunch of us are working late, we pitch in and order a pizza. On the way home from the kids' soccer/baseball/whatever practice, we treat the team to a trip to McDonald's, Burger King, or wherever the kids are whining to us to take them. Maybe when the kids get a little older, their first part-time job will be with one of these establishments. In the meantime, with our relatively sedentary lifestyles, many of us are literally growing fat off the rich, fat- and calorie-laden offerings of the fast-food industry, contributing to the increasing incidences of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other diet-related illneses. As we patronize fast-food restaurants more and more, they continue to sprout like mushrooms at every major intersection, near every freeway exit, and in every major shopping mall food court, offering meals in only a few minutes and minimum-wage job opportunities for young people and immigrants of varying degrees of legality. Fast food is an increasingly important part of the economy and, indeed, an important part of the culture. Schlosser has compiled a fascinating collection of anecdotes and informative tidbits that are eye-opening, sometimes funny, and sometimes disturbing. His observation that the fast-food industry both feeds and feeds off of children is particularly penetrating. As for his revelation as to why the fries at McDonald's taste so good, let me just say this: if you are a vegetarian and you've been specifically ordering the fries to avoid eating meat, your reaction to the relevant chapter in the book will be much like that of Charlton Heston's character at the end of the early-70s sci-fi film "Soylent Green". On the other hand, Schlosser's book seems rather uneven due to its largely anecdotal nature. The book concentrates on the plight of workers, neglecting to point out that for many of them, there would be no other work available were it not for the industry, certainly not for first-time workers. The book also does not give sufficient credit to the industry in generating small-business opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs. A number of other reviewers have also pointed out how the abuses of the meatpacking industry have been unfairly lumped in with the fast-food industry. The problems with meatpacking are separate and affect not only the burger you buy at McDonald's but also the ground beef that you buy at the supermarket, thus deserving a separate treatment altogether. Obviously, Schlosser has somewhat of a left-wing bias, which is why I gave only 4 stars instead of 5. Nevertheless, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a good survey of how America has truly become a "Fast Food Nation".
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