Rating: 
Summary: Informative, interesting, and frightening
Review: Anyone who reads Schlosser's book cannot in good conscience ever eat fast food again. For those cynics who think this book is just a lot of opinions and hot air, check out the 20 or so page annotated bibliography in the back of the book. This is a well written, carefully researched, and frightening look at what our country has become as a result of our own laziness. You will never be able to look at Ronald McDonald, Walt Disney, or any of our other pop icons in the face again without wondering what their agenda is. A must read for everyone from high school and beyond.
Rating: 
Summary: A extremly badly written rant
Review: This book came higky recommended, but has been a complete dissapointment. Schlosser rambles on without clearly stating anything, using unrelated data to create impressions of wrong doing. He is extremly naive in his view of the world - for example, should it come as a surprise to anyone that a corporation would attempt to stop a unionization drive???!!! He highlights major sucess stories, gives little credit to men who have created icons, yet does not even build a coherant case to demonstrate that what thye have done may not be good. To all those with a an analytic bent, stay away ... regardless of your political beliefs.
Rating: 
Summary: What is the true cost of your cheeseburger?
Review: This is a fascinating book that "pulls back the curtain" of the fast food industry. Since finishing the book, it has been making the rounds with my co-workers, and I have scarcely seen it for the past six months. I have never been a big fast food afficionado, but I now have another 200 reasons to continue avoiding it. Apart from the "food" aspect of fast food, I think the real benefit of this book is explaning the human and societal costs of the industrialization of the food industry. Schlosser follows the burger from the cow to the counter, and it isn't pretty. The reason why they can sell hamburgers for $.99 is that workers are paid next to nothing, receive virtually no training or professional development, and receive no benefits. This book makes the reader think about the costs of our consumer based society that relies on workers assembling products (in this case, food) at low wages. Overall this is a great book, but it receives demerits for unnecessary Republican vs. Democrat partisanship (Republicans were always the bad guys) that detracted from the larger point that the problems addressed were societal and beyond electoral politics.
Rating:
Summary: An eye opener
Review: This is a very informative book and an easy read.
Especially if you are from Colorado, like me, you will for sure like this book, and never eat at McDonalds again....yuck.
Rating:
Summary: You'll never eat fast food again...
Review: After just three chapters of this book, my New Year's resolution is to learn to cook so my husband doesn't have to do it all the time. We know fast food places advertise to our children, but it's more glaring in the black and white. I don't know that I will ever be able to set foot in a fast food place again. This is definitely a good book to read if you have any curiousity about the industry at all.
Rating:
Summary: Essential
Review: This is a must read for those of us who have grown up in the "Fast Food Age". An exhaustive discussion of the history, culture, business, and psychology of fast food may not seem like light reading, but I flew through "Fast Food Nation" and could barely put it down. Like any other business, the fast food industry has one interest above all else: make money. Unfortunately, the unseen costs to the customer as a result of the greed of this industry are staggering. Environmental concerns, worker safety, ethical treatment of animals, and safely prepared food have all taken the back seat at times over the industry's checkered past. And as the author points out, only a knowledgable consumer has the power to do anything about it. You owe it to yourself (and to your children, if you have any) to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: simply splendid
Review: What a superb book. The book succeeds in every angle. I enjoyed the way it started out showing the biography of fast food and the birth of Californication. Slowly the shadow cast over the page and the book took a dark turn and I went right along with it. I thought that this book was going to be just about the food and how gross it is but I found the corporate scuffles very interesting and the proof that fast food in general is making America dumb. This is an excellent read that will also give you one hell of a conversation peice. If you want something that focuses on the working aspect and is very funny.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening and informative
Review: It's not as though we are all going to become vegetarians, but this book really puts you to think twice about eating at fastfood places. Here in PR, almost every street block has one fastfood joint or another. We have them almost everywhere, from the beaches up to the highest mountaintops. Even though the books highly points out the facts that deal with health and the absence of healthy methods in the preparation of food, another important fact is the human factor in all the process. The data concerning the way immigrants are exploited in the slaughterhouses, the anti-union attitude of the powers that be, the subhuman working conditions for the employees, etc., should make everyone consider and reconsider before buying in these places. Again, it's not as if we are going to become vegetarians, but we should fully analize the data and do our best to try other alternatives.
Rating:
Summary: Hold the politics
Review: This book has made me consider anew where my food actually comes from. I love a good steak and a good burger every now and then, but now I'm considering buying these items only from farmers who raise pastured, grass-fed beef. ... Despite a few apparently irresistible jabs at the Reagan and Bush administrations, Schlosser tries to present his material in a straightforward manner. The facts are horrifying enough without embellishment, I'm sure. This makes me want to reread Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. It's amazing how far we haven't come in a hundred years.
Rating:
Summary: How can you eat, knowing what went into this??
Review: I was disturbed and mesmerized.
I read The Jungle in college, and comforted myself in the knowlege that Upton Sinclair wrote it around a hundred years ago.
If that story was about food and immigrants and living/ working conditions and government intransigence, graft and corruption, and the right of the people to know... THIS is about all that and more!
Very little is about the burgers, pizza, and tacos that are the slurry of fast food. It is about the economy, real estate, labor, environment, global economy, governments the world over, and yes, food (not just fast food, either). If you have never had a bite of fast food, you may think the topic does not affect you. You are wrong. The entire world economy has been altered by this single industry... I am now sure, not for the better.
As nearly every other American industry has adopted elements of the fast food industry, you are at a disadvantage to not know what Mr Schlosser has written here.
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