Rating: 
Summary: Most Important Book on Food Safety & Labor since THE JUNGLE
Review: FAST FOOD NATION will blow you away with a well-researched and reasoned indictment of the fast food & meatpacking industry. The book appeals to you NOT through rhetoric or hysteria, but rather, through carefully documented reality which screams for itself. The book begins with the history of some of the famous fast food chains - which is an interesting slice of Americana - but leads into a review of labor practices, worker safety, and food content that make up today's meals. It is hard not to recoil with shock when you learn how today's children and adult consumers are eating "affordable" fast food which they pay for with their health, and how the large food and beverage companies have corrupted Washington to avoid any responsibility for worker safety and community relations. Read about the tour of an unclean and unsafe slaughterhouse before you eat your next Whopper, or how McDonalds lied to vegetarians and promoted their french fries as a vegetarian dish even though they are cooked in beef extract, or how Pepsi has taken over the public schools and replaced milk with soda as our childrens' nutritional beverage. Worst of all are the health hazards of e-Coli and mad cow disease, which the meatpackers have tried to ignore at YOUR expense. An excellent book that reads like a thriller and teaches you maybe more than you wanted to know. The paperback edition has an afterword that includes events from late 2001.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely chilling
Review: I don't know what's scarier: the way the meat animals are treated, the way the employees at the slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants are treated (the treatment of employees in the restaurants pales somewhat in comparison), that putting advertisements for soda and junk food in schools beats a tax increase, the plant in which flavors are "created," or the ultra right-wing, regressive politics of the founders.I had hardly set foot in a fast food joint since the McDonald's chicken head incident, and have not been in one since reading Schlosser's book. I don't intend to step into one again. And while I'm sure Schlosser did not intend to make this an argument for converting to vegetarianism, it was pivotal in my decision to do so.
Rating: 
Summary: Secrets of McProfit's and Money King
Review: Business mavericks have taken hold of the wholesome hamburger stand of the 50's, and over the next 50 years turned it into a high-profit, multi-national enterprise with tentacles into every aspect of human life. Gone is the fresh-cooked fries, and lovingly prepared burger... todays fast food isn't prepared, its MANUFACTURED. This book explores how an innocent business was turned into a giant. How fast food has replaced all skilled workers with cheap, expendable labor. From the farmers, to the butchers, to the cooks... all are now no longer essential elements in getting food on the table, but just tools to get profits to the bank. You will also learn why fast food tastes so good (a journey to the chemical factory, NOT the spice plant)... how corners are cut to make each and every burger more profitable, at the risk of public health (remember the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak?)... and how fast food has WORKED ITS WAY INTO SCHOOLS, in a carefully calculated plan to wean future generations away from anything resembling home-cooking. Why only three stars? Because the author attributes all of this to the actions of one political party... needless to say, it isn't one he belongs to. This is unfortunate, since the rest of the book is so thoroughly researched, that he'd bring his personal political beliefs into it.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended reading
Review: The investigative journalism in this book is excellent. I recommend reading it. However, Mr. Schlosser is none too subtle in his attempt to get across his message that Republicans are bad, large corporations are bad and white people are bad. I would have given it 4 stars if his bias had not been so blatant.
Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Read
Review: Schlosser's book 'Fast Food Nation' is about the effects of specialization in the industrial age. More specifically, its the product of transition of industrial turned information. Like the information age, it is primarily concerned with speed (which creates homogenization), while industry is concerned with quantity - yet they are intergral aspects of the Fast Food way. What Schlosser points is the devlopment out of the times in which it was born, that of the superhighways, automobiles and migration to the West. The assembly line coupled with high speed information output gives you the original McDonald's "Speedee Service System". From this its all down hill. While many of us suspect that McDonald's does not serve high-grade meat to its customers, and other fast food chains are bent upon profit over quality, the book stresses working conditions of both the fast food chains as well as the meatpacking and potato industry. Neither are fun atmospheres, and both apparently have their dangers. It is this revelation to the reader that the author stresses, and to make you aware of what you are eating. Perhaps in a consolidated form, it seems as if eating hamburgers will give you a 1 in 10 chance of digesting a foodborne pathogen. This is the decision the reader must ask: is all the meat bad? Do I want to support McDonalds and other fast food chains and the way they treat people? It is self-evident that companies want to make money. To what end you may ask. From reading this book, I suspect that any large corporation takes little value in their work crew, and process the work with little cost as possible for maximum profits. That is the nature of corporate life. The book is an enjoyable read that goes down easily. Some of the testimonial statements read too much like an A&E biography, expecting the news cast or narrator to shed a tear at any moment. This, to me, takes away some of the objective work that went into the rest of the book. It is clear to the reader that there are some jabs at the fast food market, specifically McDonalds as they are consistently the largest corporation and appear to be the most corrupt from a humanistic point of view; willing to step on anyone who might take away a consumer. It seems that Schlosser may have hit the right button, as controversy surrounding the book builds, that the fast food industry are not making any rebuttals or attempting to remove the book from the shelves. I am sure that Harper-Perennial also made sure that this book is not just anger vented at a particular group made to sound like fact. Whatever you decide, the book is worth the read and cause for good conversation about how to choose your eating style. Because, in the end, from a reader perspective, its not about whether capitalism is great or terrible, or whether McDonalds will rule the world or fall, or if people who choose to work in slaughter houses hate their jobs continue to work there. All of these are in someways inevitable. If its not McDonalds, then some health food idea will come about, and demand will be too great that corners will have to be cut; provided they are out to meet the demands of the people, as well as make a profit. These two factors automatically creates and destroys simultaneously. Either high quality with low distribution, or low quality with high distribution. So it boils down to what your diet will comply with, setting aside beliefs, (beliefs are what advertising is for). In the meantime, check out this book, and talk to someone who has also read it as it will make for some good conversation. The new paperback edition includes an afterword from the author about mad cow disease. But first he includes some negative response from the proper journals, such as McDonald's own periodical. I am not sure if this is to give more credibility to his own work, or make you laugh at thier denials. Either way, the afterword seems irrelevant; after going through the lives of fast food employess, production lines of potato technology and slaughter houses. The point was heavily made in the first 250 pages, while this just seems to "beating a dead horse" (for lack of better phrase).
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Summary: Who's afraid?
Review: Every year, 280,000 Americans die as a direct result of being overweight. This figure includes children aged six to ten who die from heart attacks caused by obesity. Probably the main reason for all this unhealthy fat is fast food.
Do you love the people of the United States? Do you believe in a democracy in which every citizen is equally entitled to health and dignity?
More specifically, do you want to know how to make informed choices concerning your own health?
If so, read Fast Food Nation. Read carefully, read critically, and read courageously.
Good health to all.
Rating:
Summary: transparency
Review: This is a well written, well stated book. It does a good job in placing all facts on the table in a fair manner. Good aspects of the fast food industry are mentioned and faced with responsabilities that seem reasonable to be faced with. How else could a company improve in a free market system? Eric is making a big favour to the fast food industry. For the reviewers that equate patriotism with brand identity... maybe they need a different book?
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Summary: Horrific information but I couldn't stop reading
Review: Not for the weak stomach...I have begun to think more about everything involving the meat industry, from chickens to cows. Incredible array of information conveyed in this book. It was fascinating. I called my girlfriend every night to read passages out of the book that I found particularly disturbing or intriguing. I also work at a university and have been recommending the book to all my colleagues and students...esp. students since our student centers contain popular fast food restaurants.
However, I must admit, I still buy fries from McDonald's even though they aren't portrayed so positively. As the author described in the book, they are somewhat addictive. But, I do think again about buying anything else...not sure if I want to support industry that doesn't support people.
I like how the author looks at all aspects from marketing to supplies to consumers. He truly shows the entire picture and covers all this bases. He also has a substantial footnote/bibliography at the end of the book to prove his statements.
Rating:
Summary: A Tasty Read
Review: It's seldom that I find a book of this sort to be a can't-put-it-down read, but since picking up this one I've had to force myself to close it and go about doing other things. Of course, the nutritional consequences of Americans' fast food consumption is obvious. We're probably easily the fatest nation on earth. But what's intriguing is the effect that the fast food industry has on our lives and culture. The Horatio-Alger-like stories of the men who founded and rose to the top of this industry - an unsavory bunch if ever there was one - and then did their level best to make sure no one else did is an intersting one. But this book is not for the weak stomached, with it's descriptions of slaughterhouse goings-on and what happens when one eats tainted meat. It's enough to almost make a vegetarian feel smug. Basically, this book is like a large order of french fries. So good you consume it quickly and immediately want more.
Rating:
Summary: Warning: this book will change the way you eat and live!
Review: Schlosser has written an excellent book in a tradition of anti-Corporate muckraking that seems to have all but disappeared from the American media landscape. This is not only a persuasive polemic against the harmful fast-food industry, it sheds light on the dark horror of the meatpacking industry, exposes the immorality of Disney and others who market products to children, suggests why labor unions aren't such a bad thing, and shows why consumerism in general is destroying so many facets of the once-great American culture. Essential reading for all Americans. But be forewarned: you may never eat another hamburger (or McNugget or beef-flavored fry or ...)
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