Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing focus
Review: Perhaps I misinterpreted the review I read of this work. I was expecting Schlosser to examine fast food restaurants and use their business properties, health qualities, expansion patterns, etc. as a springboard to examine and explain the American psyche. This he did in the introduction and somewhat consistently in part I, although his histories of Carl's and McDonald's drifted a bit too long. But in the more lengthy part II the book went into the same old story of: American farmers and ranchers and blue-collar workers have lost their power, lost their independence, have been turned into efficiency machines by big business. And this is spreading like some terrible disease throughout the world.Schlosser's points are valid but they're not the reason I picked up the volume, so it became a bit of a skim-a-thon. Oh well.
Rating: 
Summary: Scary look at what the American Century has wrought.
Review: This is NOT a prefect book. It is obvious from the start that the author is out for blood on this topic. And some of the startling facts reveled include things like the fast food industry hires kids and otherwise marginally employable people because they want to pay them low wages. WOW ! Who could have seen that coming ? However it was shocking to know that at the same time I was watching a riveting video on cleaning tables "Lot and Lobby" (What a classic. Even better than the one about the fry machine), McD's was getting tax credit for my 'training'. In fact McD's and other fast food companies often hire workers whose jobs last just about as long as the training tax credits ! Now, that was news. Sure McD's is bound to be a major force in the beef industry, but did you know that they use beef flavor in the chicken ? and in the fries ? Did you know that McDonalds and the other fast food chain have combined to turn the meatpacking industry into the one of the most dangerous jobs in America ? That might seem as if it is only a problem for some illegal immigrant - UNTIL someone you love is sick with ecoli; Until a processing plant decides to move their factory nearby and put up its workers in the local homeless shelter (yes, one really did this under the guise of company housing) ; Until you find out that the safe nice safe FDA inspected meat has been irradiated to remove all bacteria on the S*** left on the carcass. I remember hearing the stories that my Mother and Aunts would tell about growing up on a farm. My aunt and uncle kept the farm going with my cousins until it was sold a decade or so back. the last time I visited them they spoke about the new owner and he staff who all "Punched a time-clock" . They were incredulous at how their small business was so smoothly integrated into the agri-business of today. When you read Schlosser's account of what this relentless progress did to one rancher in Colorado, you will want to cry.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing...
Review: This is an incredible book. Lots of research, horror stories, and uncovered information about the sad institutionalization of the American way of life---under the Golden Arches. Everyone in America should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: It's easy to use this industry as a scapegoat
Review: When you read the first chapter of Fast Food Nation, you can immediately tell that the author has a personal axe to grind with the fast food industry. And that he does throughout this very skewed look at the restaurant industry. Even though the author states several times that the fast food industry is not responsible for "every social problem now haunting the United States", the text of this book does everything in its power to blame the industry for anything that the author finds wrong with the country. And that's an easy course to take; fast food is visible, understandable to the masses, and a part of our lives. What better industry to blame for any financial or social problem we have? However the problems lie much deeper than the fast food industry, and here is where the book really fails the reader. Chains really flourished during the Reagan years when government turned its back of monopolistic practices. Mom and pop business bit the dust during the 80s more than any other decade of the 20th century. The fast food industry, as every other industry, understood that you either had to grow huge or die. They did, by providing a product that the average American needed and wanted. The blame concerning the size of the industry and the pricing policies that had to appeal to the average American are not the CAUSE of the fast food industry but rather the EFFECT of the Federal Government turning their backs on small businessmen. If the author had explored this avenue in more detail, instead of taking the easy road of "killing the messenger", this would have been a much more interesting (and important) book.
Rating:
Summary: everybody should read this book
Review: unless you're like my cousin with two kids who takes then to McDonald's regularly. If you read this book, I guarantee you will never want to eat fast food again, or at least you'll stop and think before you do.
Rating:
Summary: Give this book to everyone you know!
Review: I know I am...I plan to give this book to everyone I know as a Christmas gift...you should do the same. More and more people need to realize how destructive the fast food industry has become in this country...from threatening the existence of small farmers, to the horrendous "assembly-line" conditions of meatpacking plants, to marketing bad food to kids, etc. etc. It must stop! Schlosser has no faith in our government to make any changes because they are so captured by big business (thanks to the Republican "revolution" the industry is pretty much on its own to enfore our policies...with disastrous effects. He suggests a grass roots movement: STOP EATING FAST FOOD! I for one, plan to do just that.
Rating:
Summary: Get this book & read it now!
Review: I agree with the other reviewers. Great book. Insightful, educational, thought provoking and scarier than a Stephen King novel. The best thing I can tell you is to get and read it! Hurry before you buy food at another fast food restaurant!
Rating:
Summary: Gruesome, revelatory, change-inspiring!
Review: So much more than just a book about fast food and its practices, I really enjoyed how it analyzed a lot of consumer behavior, even down to the different types of nagging that children use as manipulation tools. These kinds of books are wonderful because, if read correctly, they make you analyze your entire lifestyle from the ground up. The real accomplishment of a writer like Eric Schlosser would be if enough people did just that, and changed the way we thought about things we typically take for granted. Turning something mindless into a deliberate thought. Doesn't going to McDonald's seem so automatic? It did for me. Not anymore! Don't commercials, and any type of marketing seem so brainless -- we passively take in all the messages. Not for me, anymore! Everything has a message. Don't need to turn neurotic, just give things a tiny bit more thought, and then you'll make a more informed decision about your health, the nation's health, and the planet's health.
Rating:
Summary: INTRIGUING TO SAY THE LEAST
Review: I gave this book 4 stars because, while it was refreshing to read and I definitely learned quite a bit, it wasn't a paradigm-shifting book, which is what I am increasingly moving towards for my 5 star books. I loved reading this book because I found out a lot of facts I didn't know. For example, McDonald's uses satellites to track the growth of cities and where to put their next restaurants. (2) Industrialized, automated, de-skilled meatpacking is only one of the facets of fast food that comes under scrutiny and is leading to the huge beef recalls you hear about regularly in today's society and (3) He talks about an entire industry dedicated to making your food taste and smell better. Like someone earlier wrote, Fast Food Nation is serious brainfood; it might even help you supersize yours. I loved reading this book as I think it is a good dose of reality with obesity getting out of control in today's society. Just thinking about the implications arising from the exportation of fast food to the rest of the world has me concerned.
Rating: 
Summary: not quite "The Jungle"
Review: I enjoyed "Fast Food Nation", but I didn't find it particularly shocking or damning of the fast food industry, which seemed to be the author's overriding intent. The most surprising and horrifying revelations in the book dealt with the conditions of slaughterhouses, abuses in the meatpacking industry, and the prevalence of foodborne diseases in meat. But this was an attempt to make a case of guilt by association, since the slaughterhouses where these abuses were depicted were not producing food for major fast food chains, but for grocery store shelves, as was clearly stated in the book. In fact, once again stated clearly in the book, slaughterhouses associated with major fast food chains were carefully monitored to prevent E. coli and other pathogens. So the point of including this was lost on me, although it did make me leery of buying ground beef at the grocery store. Much was made in the book of the poor conditions of working at fast food restaurants, the low pay, the lack of benefits, etc. However, this is a difficult argument to make, since a large portion of the reading audience has probably worked at a fast food restaurant at some point in their lives, and didn't look on the experience as particularly exploitative (yes, there are people who depend on this work to support a family, etc. and this point is well taken). The strongest theme that Schlosser illustrates in the book is the suburbanization/"fast-foodization" of America, the endless Gaps and Wal-Marts and McDonalds that are the same in Boston as they are in San Diego or Fargo. But Schlosser fails to acknowledge the forces that drive this suburbanization - why people like shopping at familiar stores or builders like to build cookie-cutter houses, etc., and fails to offer realistic solutions for the future that might allow communities to retain more of their own identity. Schlosser paints fast food as if it were at the center of this suburbanization, but I find the argument weak - I see suburbanization as driven more by short-sighted consumer preferences and cost savings by businesses in a multitude of industries. Of fast food Schlosser suggests "stop buying it", but fails to provide a strong argument why. But the book is interesting reading along the way.
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