Rating: 
Summary: Great Book, and basically fair
Review: I really enjoyed the book. Like the reviews say, it is a real eye opener and gets you thinking about a subject we have not thought enough about before. The author is on the liberal side but, in my opinion, the book contains a lot of facts with the opinions easily discernable. With mad cow out there, someone in government needs to pay attention to this book. Normally I'd say someone should start a private company to start certifying meat (as the USDA has totally failed... which does not surprise me) but that could still expose a lot of people to unnecessary risk... The US was importing pet food from countries that had mad cow problems and it is still legal to render animal carcasses from pet shelters for protein that is added to animal feed. Commingling protein (as described in the book) makes about as much sense as the old Chinese system for donating blood (which spread AIDS to millions). In both cases, all to save a few cents....
Rating:
Summary: WHERE'S the beef??
Review: Wow! What a totally engrossing book (no pun intended). Like others before have said, it's easy to read and eye-opening. If you care about what you put into your mouth or the mouths of your children, you'll read this book. I've also seen other research that backs up what Schlosser states which validates facts, but no where have I seen it in such a straight forward format. One of the very best books I've ever read. Red meat will never touch these lips again.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint stomached
Review: This is an excellent book. It is also written in as none-biased a way as I have ever seen. Eric Schlosser tries to be fair to both those who love fast food and those who don't. Schlosser does paint some fairly graphic horror stories, about health and safety issues along with some stomach churning tales about people spitting into food before serving it, not washing their hands after going to the bathroom to name some of the many nasties he has come across during his research into this interesting subject. This is a well-researched book, which for me gave an amazing insight not only into the Fast Food Industry but also into other subjects that was and still are linked to its phenomenal growth. Some of the areas covered are the industry's dependence on a teenage work force, its impact on low income families and immigrants, how Fast Food is perceived all over the world, and health implications because of the high fat content in a lot of fast food. Also covered is the power that the Fast Food Industry has, and how it has wielded this power for both good and bad. Impressive is one word that springs to mind with regard to this book. I especially liked Eric Schlosser's eye for detail in that it moved between the past and present as well as covering in great detail the Fast Food Industry's growth outside of the USA. I found it fascinating, informative and most importantly very easy to read. Well worth buying or borrowing this book from the library if you get the chance.
Rating: 
Summary: Provocative Muckraking
Review: The food chain is not what it used to be. More and more centralized and autonomous conglomerates have supplanted local food production and butcher shops. Well paid workers, ranchers and farmers have been replaced by mega-harvesters and food processors and by minimum wage, unskilled workers. Most of us are at least dimly aware of these changes, but Eric Schlosser provides the sordid, often gruesome, details. In this carefully researched and informative jeremiad, Schlosser leads us directly to the villain's doorsteps. His targets are sometimes highly visible (ubiquitous fast food chains, especially) but often off the radar screen, (manufacturers of chemical taste substitutes, french fry suppliers, congressmen and lobbyists). The main thrust of his argument is that the less localized the source of our food, the greater the risk of harmful exposure to e-coli, salmonella and other bacterial pathogens. Bacterial outbreaks are not often discovered until they have become widespread. Most damning of all, the companies that are responsible for the outbreaks often drag their heels in releasing information and are under no legal compunction to do so. Government agencies such as the FDA, the FTC and OSHA are hindered by, and in some cases controlled by, the industries they are supposed to monitor. Schlosser's battle plan calls for public pressure upon our government to effect changes in labor practices, safety standards (both in terms of worker safety and sanitary standards), and quality of workplace. The food industry, left to its own devices, has shown no historical willingness to make improvements on its own. The food industry's proposed solution to bacterial contamination is irradiation. Addressing the source of the problem (assembly lines in meat packing houses move too quickly to be accurately monitored and lead to worker accidents) would cut into the bottom line profits of the corporations. Schlosser proceeds in his inquisition in a measured manner for the most part. The one exception might be when he takes us into the depths of a slaughterhouse "somewhere in the high plains." I can appreciate that the scene he witnessed and which he describes is genuinely horrific, but his tone shifts from reportorial/objective to horror novelist/sensational. Though it is not a major mark against his credibility, I did take the book down one star for that chapter. I do hope that the book performs its purpose and that Schlosser's clarion call will be heeded by the powers that be in government. Of course, that will happen only if his readers tell their friends and at least organize some e-mail campaigns to let their local congressmen/women know that they are concerned about the quality and safety of what they and their children put in their stomachs.
Rating: 
Summary: This is investigative journalism?
Review: I managed to pick up this book with great interest. I have been harping for years how the fast food industry is the perfect poster child for the corrupt economic system we live under. This book begins with some good history of the principle founders of the business, it also exposes the horrendous working conditions faced by the slaughterhouse workers, however it falls flat on it's face afterwords. The author spends several pages talking about how obese we are from eating this stuff, talks about how we have exported our health problems to the rest of the world, most especially our children, then as a timid mouse near the end he says "well, these guys are just businessmen, they aren't evil" Well sir, I beg to differ. If they deliberately target young children in their advertising and knowingly peddle a product they know is harmful, then they are evil in my book. Yes, we do have the choice not to eat it, however let's face it, fast food is cheaper than eating health food. Has anyone priced produce at the grocery store these days? Hint: It's expensive. There are some families that are very poor that cannot afford good food and feel they have no other choice but to consume fast food. Fast food restaurants, like liquor stores, are deliberately saturating poor neighborhoods in an effort to keep them fat and intoxicated. This book was not a truly critical look at this system. Our moral values have disappeared to the point of inertia when it has to be profitable to do the right thing. What ever happened to doing good is its own reward? Yeah, not in this day and age. The author suggests they stop advertising to children, but only after the consumer threatens to stop buying it. Good luck orchestrating that one. Besides, how morally bankrupt can you be if you don't realize that purposefully targeting five year olds to "pester" their parents to buy this artery clogging junk is the lowest? The Republican vs Democrat argument is irrelevant. Both protect and defend the wealthy interests behind all of this. The answer is we need a new system. One in which the top 10% don't own 84% of the wealth. And this is called the efficiency of the capitalist system. Yeah sure, and I'm Casper the Friendly Ghost. Don't waste your time with this book if you are looking for a hard hitting expose of the fast food industry, because you won't get it here.
Rating:
Summary: Food to Die for
Review: I distinctly remember my first MacDonalds' hamburger. It was Portland, Oregon and my father stopped from a camping trip and bought all us kids hamburgers and fries. It was nirvana for an eight year old. Forty years later I still get an occasional craving for a cheeseburger, and until Fast Food Nation would sneak in for an All American Meal. I've had Fast Food Nation at the side of my favorite reading spot, so its taken a month to get through it -- slowly, and painfully. My husband is almost done reading it and swears that he will never eat meat again (we're talking about a big man who loves his steaks). How Eric Schlosser got us to the point of abandoning thirty years of eating the way we do was not through sensationalistic writing, but from slow, methodical documentation of "what is" in the fast food industry and the supporting businesses around it. What absolutely floors me is how corporations can be allowed to poison people on a regular basis with few people screaming their heads off. Thank you, Eric for the wake up call
Rating:
Summary: Golden feces and corporational horror
Review: By now, even though almost everyone -albeit- instinctively understands that breathing , drinking, and eating have all become hazardous to their health, one would think that a book like "Fast Food nation" would be like flogging a dead horse.
But our problem is rapidly becoming one of not knowing or understanding the full extend of the degredation of our lives in its different aspects. Fast food eating is a major characteristic of western "civilisation" , and yes, maybe in America it's way more embued into the "culture" but being a European i know that it's thriving here as well.
I read the book, and found out that there is feces in the burgers we eat, in the burgers that i used to eat too. Was that the most shocking revelation then? Not even close.
What angered me the most, is that an industry like the fast food industry which has made a science of tricking the customer into thinking this is "real" flavor in their fries (no it's not, all their flavors are artificial) or their burgers and shakes, an industry that is known for their outrageous exploitation of their workers to the point that any bad-paid job is now worldwide known as a "Mcjob", an industry like the fast food industry that destroys the rain forests to make grazing fields for cows so that they can go on making feces-ladden burgers also gets subsidies from the government(s) so they can continue their godly mission of making -even- more profits.
You dont emerge much happier after having read Schlosser's book. You emerge angry, very angry.
The author gives you all the information you'll ever need on how corporations like the ones that run fast foods are responsible for the shockingly low standard for our lives.
I have stopped eating at fast foods for over two years now, not because i think that's the only aspect of my health that is endagered by corporations but because i am trying in every way possible not to give them any money. After all, this is the only language they truly understand since their bible is one with a dollar sign on the cover.
One of the really valuable contributions of the book is that it offers solutions. Before you can avoid a danger you have to identify that danger. "Fast food nation" does that meticulously.
And that danger is -down at the root of it- corporational greed and consumer disinformation and/or apathy. We are not powerless is the real message here. They exist because we help them exist by being their customers. They underpay our teenagers and in many cases many of us regardless of age because we let them do it. They destroy our forests because we let our governments allow them to do it. They let and cause hunderds of brutal accidents happen at their slaughterhouses because we allow them to do it (possibly one of the most gut-turning chapters of the book).And they put feces in our food because in the end they dont expect us to react even to that.
"Fast book nation" manages to shock most people that read it. It did much better for me. It reenforced my conviction to stop feeling like an ant before the industry's efforts to exploit me as a consumer and as a worker.
Beware of those golden archs indeed. And spread the word about the book. Information is what we need.
Rating:
Summary: you are what you eat
Review: It's true, and alot of us don't even know what we are eating. This book is greatly contributing twoards the general publics push for healthier, more enviromentally friendly options in the fast food industry. If you eat fast food on a regular basis, you need to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Want cheese on that?
Review: This book is a good chronology and provides an accurate history of the fast food tilt-a-whirl all of us either support with our wallets or abhor because of the industry's lack of self-discipline. Fast food is exactly what it proclaims: fast and edible...most of the time. While I was not surprised to read of the horrors and working conditions of the midwest and Rocky Mountain based slaugter houses having been exposed to them previously, I was surprised and disappointed more Americans do not take the message of hygiene and care more seriously. This book drives that point home and without regard to lobbyists. The industry of fast food has been blamed for keeping family's away from the dinner table, providing cheap but edible food, allowing too much sodium into our diet, adding pounds to an already overweight mass society and deliberately targeting children as potential life long consumers by reaching out to them via the tactics of Madison Avenue and all it's glory to hook 'em while they can. After all, a repeat customer is the best customer, right? Well America, here's the deal: you brought it on yourselves. You want convenience at the cost of pennies while sacrificing health and fitness in the process. Moderation is obviously out of the question when you can order a "super size" soda, triple burger with cheese and bacon while topping it all off with a fattening malt just for the belt loosening experience of drive thru. So what'd ya expect? To LOOSE weight AND enjoy their offerings? I enjoyed the book tremendously not just to smack the industry around but to realize as the author stated that the employees of these "institutions" really never develope skills worthwhile to their future endeavors and that the slaughter houses really are.....filled with animal excrement, blood and "pieces and parts" of millions of beef cattle annually just to satisfy our appetite for meat, at any cost. You don't have to give up a good steak or refuse that 99 cent burger next time, but you gotta admit, after reading this book, "do we really eat this stuff?"
Rating:
Summary: Behind-the-scenes view into the fast-food industry
Review: We always knew that fast-food wasn't the healthiest stuff to eat. But Schlosser takes a comprehensive look at the huge business that is fast-food in America. He describes its history and germination, the growth of the supply-chain behind the scenes, its labor-practices and, in the recently updated afterword, some promising trends. Most disturbing are the supply-chain aspects, specifically the cattle-processing plants that are described as largely unregulated and focused on one objective: converting as many cattle into hamburger as fast as possible. The process is described as physically exhausting for workers, hazardous for all involved and, most importantly, very unclean. The spread of E. Coli and other toxic substances is accelerated in the rush to kill and convert. The most egregious outbreaks of disease are carefully documented and reveal an ominous trend if left unchecked: how many new, 'Mad Cow'-style diseases will be created by a system geared towards quantity and not health? Missing from the book are topics like the french-fry oil controversy (beef tallow used when the claim was that it wasn't) and a politically agnostic viewpoint. Schlosser has an axe to grind with the Republicans when, in truth, both parties have suspect motives when fast-food money is involved. Despite the minor nits, this is an important work and one that should be read by every American. Or perhaps every American that eats fast-food. The percentage of Americans that indulge will certainly be declining as news of this timely, updated version of Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' grows.
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