Rating: 
Summary: Ketchup With Your Polemics?
Review: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser will enlighten you and should win a few awards to boot. If you are looking for an excuse to become a vegetarian, Fast Food Nation may not give you all the reasons you are looking for. Schlosser is not anti-hamburger and fries. The author clearly sees a place for the Great American Meal in the future, if it is done in a way that does the least harm to everybody and everything involved.
The arguments here focus mainly on the global incarnation of the fast food industry and all the other industries that feed it. This is more than The Jungle [although Schlosser acknowledges his debt to that book]. Industrialized, automated, de-skilled meatpacking is only one of the facets of fast food that comes under scrutiny. Want to get your jaded teenager ... and politically active? Have them read Chapter 3 of this book! Many of my students talk in a half joking way about being exploited by fast food. If they only knew the truth?!
Colorado Springs provides the human-face anecdotes that ground the general arguments in the text in the everyday reality of folks like us. Even though the subjects in the book are ultimately more downer than upper, Schlosser will keep you interested without making you want blow up your local [insert name of famous fast food chain here] in a suicide bombing. The book has left me with serious concerns about my truly bad fast food habit. Fast Food Nation is serious brainfood; it might even help you supersize yours.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Writing, makes McDonalds look like Satan
Review: I like to think of myself as a fast food connoisseur. After reading this book I'll think twice about eating any of it. Schlosser writes about all parts of the fast food industry in great detail, showing how fast food has played a large part in the mass homogenization of first America and now the world. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the corrupt and inhumane practices of not only big business but also the government.
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Summary: A riveting and eye-opening cautionary tale.
Review: Prior to reading this book, I didn't really consider myself to be in the anti-globalization, anti-corporation, anti-IMF crowd and after reading the book I still don't. That's not to say this book isn't chock full of thought-provoking revelations about corporate machinations, government subterfuge and human exploitation at every level -- it is, but the book leaves you with one profoundly sobering thought: we have the power to change all of this yet we don't.
Sure, the way McDonald's treats its employees, meat suppliers, potato suppliers and everyone else it does business with is deplorable and it made me cringe to read about it. And even worse than that is the damage and utter havoc wrought by the Reagan administration in the 80s to allow tainted meat, unsafe working conditions, billions of dollars in incentives and kickbacks to corporations like McDonald's precisely for doing business the way they do and much, much more. But for all the horror there's a reason why it exists: people like you and me buy their food. I think that concept, more than anything else, is what Schlosser is trying to rally us around.
If we didn't buy their food unless or until they changed their business practices they'd start serving us pathogen-free meat, stop battling so vociferously against minimum wage increases, improve end-to-end (from the farm to your mouth) worker safety and start making the world a better place. Remember the uproar over their styrofoam containers and the environment? Guess what, they don't use them anymore in the United States because of consumer reaction. We have the power, but we're not taking it. Personally, I don't eat at fast food restaurants and never will again. Now I just need a few billion more people to think like me ...
This book should be required reading in all high schools. That way, our children will grow up and not allow this to happen. Then, and perhaps only then, can we eventually be assured that major, global corporations like McDonald's won't embody the best and worst of the American Dream. After all, when our elected officials think it's okay -- and thereby implying that we think it's okay too -- to serve tainted meat to school cafeterias (and in fact pass legislation explicitly *allowing* it) we can't really expect McDonald's to change its business practices.
Rating:
Summary: Fast food touches all our lives; want to know how?
Review: If yes, read Fast Food Nation. I couldn't put it down. The book touches on so many individual pieces of the puzzle from the feedlots, to the slaughterhouses, to the advertising, to fat induced obesity, to E. coli outbreaks, and the advancing global presence of the fast food giants.
I grew up in a meatpacking town that dealt with a strike. I never had any clue what went on in the plant of the largest employer in our small Midwestern city. I hope that the people in my hometown read this book instead of complaining about the new cheap labor that has come to town. The book talks about Lexington, NE, but it could have easily been talking about the town I grew up in. After reading this book, you will have no doubt why our new president is so keen on legalizing all the cheap labor these corporations exploit from Mexico. After reading the 'flavor' chapter, you might find yourself checking all the labels in your kitchen. It won't matter, though because after you read the chapter on the most dangerous job in America, you probably won't have much of an appetite left.
Rating:
Summary: Shocking.....
Review: I started to read this book and found it difficult to put down. I liked some of the history of how the fast food chains started and how they ended up to become what they are now. I was really amazed to start to read the sections about the meatpacking plants and I could swear I read the same book in High School (The Jungle). After reading this book, it makes me want to seek out some of the alternatives that were mentioned (free range cattle, etc.).
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read all year
Review: I'm not at all surprised there are over 200 reviews about this book filed here. It is an outstanding, behaviour-changing chiller. It shows, for instance, that not all government regulation is unnecessary red tape. We need strong government -- one that's not in the pockets of the meatpacking industry -- to minimise the risk of e-coli-157 killing our children. It also illustrates the consequences for product quality when fastfood restaurants compete purely on price. And finally it highlights the vicious circle when wages of the working classes decline in real terms: thirty years ago, most mothers, even in the poorest families, could stay at home and cook proper meals. Now both partners have to go out to work, some holding down two or three jobs, and neither has the time to cook a meal -- so they go out and buy cheap, fast food. Coincidentally I am re-reading Michael Porter's 'Competitive Strategy', a dispassionate textbook written for executives 20 years ago. Today's fast food industry and today's obese nations across the globe are what you get as a result of following Porter's amoral advice. Eric Schlosser deserves the Pulitzer Prize for this brilliant work. It makes me want to go out and leaflet everyone thinking of visiting our local McDonald's.
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Summary: Good bye McDonalds
Review: A couple of months ago, I saw a guy reading this book on an airplane. When I asked him if it was worth picking up, he told me "it's a really good book, but if you read it, you will never go to McDonalds again". I read it, and he was right on both counts...
Rating:
Summary: For those who care about what the eat
Review: I do not like fast food and looking at the obesity rates in the United States and then how many people eat fast food, I can seen a big part of the cause. And this book by Eric Schlosser is a great source of information of what has happened over the past 30 years. On page 3 the author notes "Over the last thirty years, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society. An industry that began with a handful of modest hot dog and hamburger stands in southern California has spread to every corner of the nation, selling a broad range of foods wherever paying customers may be found."
On page 112 we learn that most of all the fast food fries come from Idaho and from the J R Simplot an 8th grade drop out. That it is the seasonings often high in sugar that makes them both good tasting as well as unhealthy.
The book is just over 300 pages and it covers everything to why the fries taste good (Chapter 5, whats in the meat (Chapter 9). On page 139 "Many ranchers now fear that the beef industry is deliberately being restructured along the lines of the poultry industry. They do not want to wind up like chicken growers-who in recent years have become virtually powerless, tapped for debt and the onerous contracts written by the large processors." Did you know that McNuggest are small pieces of reconstituted chicken? On page 204 the author notes "To make matters worse, the animals used to make about one quarter of the nations ground beef-worn out dairy cattle-are the animals most likely to be diseased and riddle with antibiotic residues. The stresses of industrial milk production make them even more unhealthy than cattle in a large feedlot....A single fast food hamburger now contains meat from dozens or even hundreds of different cattle."
On page 125 we read that the typical strawberry milkshake like the kind found in a Burger King contains the following ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, and some other ten items equally complex in spelling and content. The last chapter deals with the global effect that fast foods like McDonalds etc are making on the environment as well as the rise in obesity in all countries where the fast food industry had set up business. And the issues of REAL Scotish people who are REAL McDonalds whom the fast food thug has sued for using the McDonald name, even though there is NO real man named McDonald behind this junk food company. This is a must read book for anyone who gives a damn about what they eat and what they feed the people they love! Especially if its fast food. I sometimes wonder if American fast food won't do what war has failed to do.......
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Summary: Fast Food
Review: Since reading "Fast Food Nation," it is the book I have recommended the most to friends and family. It shows great insight into our culture and what we are in danger of becoming.
After teaching college freshmen for a year, I found that many people--especially young people--believe that they are totally immune to marketing propaganda. They honestly believe they are "self-made" human beings.
This book exposes that myth. It has dark things to say about how corporations are controlling what we eat, what we think and what we accept as "the truth." Despite the horrors of the fast food kitchen and the beef packing plant and the e.coli, the book's most disturbing legacy is to reveal just how easily we are all brainwashed.
Some reviewers have attacked the author as "having an agenda." Of course he does! No, I did not agree with all his assessments on politics. But that does not make this an insightful, important work. No, I do not eat fast food. But part of the author's message is that the vast majority of us are part of the overall problem. I do shop at chains for things other than food.... I am guilty. But by being aware of my actions, I can lessen my serfdom to corporate-owned America and truly be FREE. Some reviewers insist this is anti-American. But the book, in the end, mainly calls for personal action. DON'T BUY FROM THE FAST FOOD CHAINS. That is the very essence of freedom, and corporate America will do ANYTHING to stop such self-thinking.
This book is also excellent at exposing myths, subtly and not-so-subtly. The myth of the American farmer and rancher as the hardworking, God-fearing, family loving individual alone on the prairie being bashed by governmental regulations is put to rest. Modern American agriculture is a huge, grotesque industry. Unlike some who I talk to, this book did not make me give up meat. I eat meat with great pleasure. I try to get it by hunting, or by buying from local raisers. There is much work to do, and much old habit to undo, but every step in taking responsibility is a step in the right direction. This, ultimately, is what this book is about: The madness of a society that doesn't know where its food comes from.
Take control of your food, your mind, your life. Exercise your freedom. Read this book.
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Summary: This book changed my life
Review: I highly recommend this readable book that is not too preachy but simply lays out the facts. The facts about the fast food industry and the societal changes it has brought upon us will amaze you. Ever wonder why we have so many fat kids and adults in America? Ever wonder why people get sick and even die after eating meat? Ever wonder how the food at every McDonalds can taste the same? Ever wonder why you see fast food clusters of 5-6 restaurants within five minutes of each other. There is a real cost to America's love affair with the hamburger. Taxpayers, consumers and the unfortunate souls who work in slaughterhouses pay the price. This book really scared me. I am trying to stop eating chicken and beef after reading it.
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