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Summary: What Lies Beneath That Wrapper
Review: In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser presents the history of the fast food nation that emerged in the post WWII world. He gives accounts of brave men who risked it all to create national chains. Scholosser looks at the underbelly of this now international system. The fast food industry has had marked influences on the way we live. He deals with the growth of franchising which fast food nation perfected and how it had developed marketing campaigns directed at children to fuel its sales. In addition, the fast food industry has had marked changes in our agricultural system which have helped to push family owned farms out of sight with the creation of large corporate farms that employ largely illegal immigrats at poverty wages. Schlosser also deals wtih meat production, large corporate farms have created environmental damage such as erosion while meat packing plants have become breading grounds for disease and harshly treats its workers by paying putting them of high risk of injury and death while paying them little. In terms of the labor market, Schlosser deals with how the fast food industry has lobbied to keep teenage wages below the minimum wage to save on its young workforce. Schlosser also looks at how the fast food industry has prevented any meaningful improvements in the food processing industry putting the public at great risk for diseases such as e-coli. Undercovers the secret side of the fast food meal.
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Summary: I'll never "drive through" again!
Review: Ignorance is bliss, but also deadly. Never look at Disney or McDonalds in the sam way again. Bon Apetit!
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Summary: Fast Food is here to stay.
Review: I had heard such great things about this book. I finally decided to take the plunge and start it. From what I had heard this was suppose to be one of the best books out there. Well I think maybe I might be a minority but I found the book to be on the so-so level. At first I thought things were good. The author was talking about how the fast food restaurants came around and how they came to power and there owners and so forth. This was what I was after. I've been eating at fast food places all my life and wanted to know the story behind them and how they came to be and how they were run. The second half of the book wasn't too bad, but alot of the stuff I read in this book I've read in other places. Some of it was disturbing and some of it was true. But overall this at times I felt didn't have much to do with the fast food industry. I know that they get there beef from places and how it comes to them. The last part of this book about how the fast food industry is around the world bored me to tears. It was too long winded and I felt it could have been put together in about 3 pages or less. Overall this book didn't change my opinion of fast food food or how it is cooked. I still will eat out at this places. I felt the author could have done a better job with the book and focused more on the fast food industry it's self and less on the beef, potatoes, and chicken. Overall this wasn't a terrible book, but not what I expected. I would recommend this book to friends, because I know a lot of people haven't read books about stuff like this.
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Summary: McNasty
Review: Schlosser's book reminds me of "The Jungle" and I wish it would have the sort of impact that Sinclair's book did. It puts someone who likes hamburgers between a rock and a hard place. If you eat at a fast food joint you help feed the monster that industry has become. On the other hand their beef is probably the cleanest you will find. It seems that Jack in the Box almost went out of business when lots of people got sick because of their tainted burgers. To their credit Jack in the Box went to the source of their problem an started demanding high standards and testing from the meatpacking industry. Other fast food chains, fearing the same public relations nightmare Jack in the Box faced soon followed. Did that mean the packers cleaned up their act? No, they just don't sell the meat that fails the test to fast food chains anymore. Guess whats at your grocery store. This book is full of information about this industry from the farm to your tray. Packing house workers who are killed and badly injured on a regular basis....Fake aroma and extra taste added so that the over processed food will have some taste. Teenage workers having to work hours of overtime without geeting paid for it. The way McDonalds and other fast food giants use our tax money to add to their profit margins. And most shocking of all, the USDA buys low cost ground beef from packers that can't pass the tests of the fast food giants, for the school lunch program. Find out in this book that the Federal government can force Detroit to recall defective cars but can't force a meatpacker to recall meat that is contaminated. Congress is at fault and they should be ashamed of themselves. "There is too much government regulation", cry conservatives.... Think it is an isolated problem? Read this book and think again. Union busting, inhuman working conditions, and nasty meat being sold to the public. Upton Sinclair must be spinning in his grave.
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Summary: Look beneath the carefully crafted images...
Review: Fascinating look at the real story behind what these corporate image makers "force-feed" the American public. Reminds us to STOP and think for ourselves. Look beneath the hype. Stop being emotionally manipulated into spending our hard-earned money on things we don't need and food our bodies shouldn't have. Get in-between them and our kids. They like to hook these future consumers early, and count on them to whine and push parents right into the food-order line until they can get there themselves. This book gives us a real look at these early corporate giants. Creative innovators? Without a doubt. Benevolent patriarchs? Hardly. Image is everything in our culture. Time to put on the X-ray glasses and look behind Uncle Walt, Colonel Sanders, etc. The most fascinating book I've read in a long time. What a wake-up call!
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Summary: Feels right at gut feel level but soft on logic and facts
Review: Schlosser's book does capture many of the worries consumers have had for a long time - is fast food bad for me, do I like neighborhoods full of fast food joints, is it right that so many people work on minimum wage with no social cover, etc. He uses the example of the fast food industry to worry about potential excesses of Capitalism - and this also resonates with what many of us might feel. It is not just fast-food. For example too many affordable cars mean permanent traffic jams, with very adverse effects on the environment, or the use we can make of our time. For example affordable clothing means sweat shops and exploited workers in emerging countries. And so on. However even though his broad intent is interesting, in my view almost nothing of what he "reveals" was unknown to the public. So Mr. Schlosser book does not really add much to the party. But as I said, it does capture quite well the spirit of the times. OK to read for anyone with enough free time, certainly not a must read.
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Summary: Meticulously researched and almost complete
Review: When I saw this book at the local bookstore a few months ago in the Paperback section, I thought it's just another rant on the unhealthiness of fast food. After reading it, I've found it to be much more than that. Infact, there are only a few pages containing the words 'fat' or 'cholestrol'. The book is a well researched analysis of the fast food industry - how the industry started, why it has gotten so big, the advertising campaigns used by the giants (aimed at kids), and the power exercised by the big companies on every link in the fast food cycle. The author digs right through each topic with a formidable ammunition of facts - as you read the book, you'll begin to understand the far reaching effects of getting that seemingly innocuous happy meal - at the meatpacking houses, poultry farms, cattle ranches, potato farms, etc. You'll also get a peek at company politics and franchisee rights, and why your burger tastes the same in every city. And you'll understand why America's malls have the same stores everywhere - for fast food, electronics, garments or homestores. The author talks at length about the politics of the fast food industry - starting at your local fast food joint to the meatpacking sites - and why these companies hate unionization of workers and wield so much power! There is an entire chapter devoted to the dangers of working at a meatpacking house. One chapter discusses the dangers of E-Coli and reveals the difference between the meat that's sent to the European Union (better!) and the meat consumed at home. The paperback edition also has an Afterword about the mad cow disease. The book suggests that the fast food industry, albeit strong, has one weakness - consumers - that if we don't submit to the needs of the industry and demand changes in the process (like the cases filed by Hindus about beef in french fries), the giant fast food companies have enough clout to alter every link in the cycle to our needs. Considering the clout of these big companies, I would've loved to see a discussion about the effects on the national unemployment rate and the economy (should the consumers speak up). Also, as another reviewer pointed out, a discussion on parental control. Many people have commented about the leftist tendencies of the author - and he himself acknowledges having received such comments from readers in the new Afterword - but as long as every fact in the book is "yet to disproved", that's ok by me. Get this book if you've ever wondered how your burgers in your favorite fast food restaurant taste the same in Chicago as they do in Seattle; if you've wondered why so many advertisements are targetted at kids; if you've wondered why there are so many teenagers and immigrants behind the counters of these restaurants; and if you've wondered about the fast food industry at all. Reading the book will not only provide answers for all that, but make you think about your participation in all things wrong when you get that combo meal.
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Summary: Something for Everyone..
Review: What is most impressive about "Fast Food Nation" is that it manages to be the ultimate light read about the most serious and multi-layered of topics: the history and globalization of the fast food industry. In a rapid fire, page-turning style that makes this 288 page book at times feel like a magazine article, Schlosser paradoxically leaves no stone unturned, creating a book that is social history, health primer, and political manifesto. Detailing the metamorphosis of Southern California drive-in hamburger joints from family run businesses into franchised fast food companies that sprawl all over the world today, Schlosser starts the book with a fun-feeling history of the industry. The creators of this phenomenon were Horatio Alger success stories; their pluckish ideals clash horrifyingly with abuses suffered by current employees, one of many contrasts Schlosser is adept at drawing. There is a sense that this business trend took off without enough proper supervision, a kind of wildfire sprawl that can't be contained. Schlosser devotes time to the dangerous work conditions of fast food (in 1998, more fast food employees died on the job than police officers), the substandard pay, the inhumanity that passes as management. From there he gets into the food itself -- the slaughterhouses, the additives, the increasing number of food related diseases. He is not entirely one sided: one chapter, on the last days of a rancher, portrays cattlemen as the disenfranchised victims of the meatpackers' monopoly. Not exactly what you would expect from the otherwise pro-vegetarian slant. The book is fascinating and uncomprimising; Schlosser claims in his last paragragh that he hopes fast food will one day be seen as a relic of the 20th Century, soon to be replaced by a more health-focused culture. Anything's possible... maybe fast food will one day go the way of the cigarette, demonized into secondary status as a guilty pleasure. If it is, this book-- and the public's interest in it-- may be the starting point of that downfall.
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Summary: Excellent Book and weight loss program!
Review: I read this book about 10 weeks ago and I am recommending it to friends and family. Politically, I lean heavily towards the right. Mr. Schlosser is obviously a liberal. However, he makes many excellent points in regard to runaway corporations doing as they please despite the public interest. His solutions for more regulation are flawed, though. That said, this work provides an excellent birds-eye view of the effects that the fast food industry has had on our culture, as well as the world. I did not expect to learn so much from this title. Schlosser ventures from sector to sector (the family farm, the factory, the slaughterhouse, the franchise, the laboratory, etc...) in search of stories that represent the norm as well as the extreme. Highly entertaining and very sobering. My doctor has told me to lose weight. My wife has told me to lose weight. But this book was truly an inspiration to do so! Since reading, I have lost 40 pounds. So, put away Atkins, Sugarbusters and the other diets. Read Schlosser!
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Summary: Where is the responsibility of the parents?
Review: I definitely enjoyed the history given of the fast food industry in Mr. Schlosser's book. It's hard for people today to understand that these corporate giants were once started by trail blazers, people who broke out from the norm and took a lot of personal risks. I was never a really big fast food fan and I have no illusions that when I do decide to treat myself to a Big Mac, chocolate shake, and fries that it is in any way healthy. We have all seen the stories on news programs uncovering the seedy side of the fast food industry (food dropped on the floor and served, rat feces found in food, employees tampering with the food, etc.) and many people choose to eat it anyway. Most people don't care. Mr. Schlosser doesn't seem to understand that. The major issue I have with this book is Mr. Schlosser's attitude towards banning commercials and advertising toward young children. While I personally believe that marketing towards children is insidious, I still believe that marketers have the right to do it. They are not really preying on the children but the parents. And if you feel the need to give into your whining child, then shame on you. Parents can limit tv viewing so their children are not exposed to as many advertisements, they can serve their children healthy food so they do not develop a preference for fatty foods, and they can help to keep them active so they fight off obesity. It's time to stop pointing fingers and start taking responsibility for our children's health.
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