Rating: 
Summary: Good up to page 50
Review: Do you think of McDonald's as: a multinational corporation? a real estate company? a cultural export? a toy distributor? McDonald's is all of them.Do you think of the Whopper as: a packaged product? a chemically processed and engineered food? an agent for the delivery of fatty foods? It's all of the above. Don't read Fast Food Nation if you think you're going to find out what's in the beef or what the kids do in the kitchen to your food. Read this book to learn about the fast food industry and what enormous effects it's having on your life right now -- even if you don't eat it. I was hoping this book was going to substantiate all urban legends about fast food, make me think twice before I ordered a #4. But I was pleasantly surprised that Schlosser's book is more about the industry, it's history and it's practices than it is about sensationalistic journalism (darn). He takes you from the birth of fast food in the streets of San Bernardino, CA to the globalization of franchised food delivery systems we have today. I had never thought of fast food as a packaged product, no different from a pack of cigarettes or a bucket of chlorine tablets, until I read this book. Schlosser opens the door and shows you the business behind a Happy Meal, the evolution of the Happy Star and the long trip the Jumbo Jack made from the midwest (in a freezer) to the 20-seconds-or-its-free drive-thru window. The subject matter is interesting enough to get your to the end of the book, but the best and most captivating parts were all in the first 50 pages. Beyond that it reads like a college research paper including little tangent stories, irrelevant background information and high levels of detail not directly related to the subject matter. This book would have been better as a pamphlet or magazine article but I'm sure the publisher was drooling at the potential audience for the thing (fast-food eating people, yep, that's almost everyone). I'll still eat fast food, even after reading this book, but not without the mental expense of knowing what was involved in the delivery of the product. I'd like to make it clear that the inference is not that the food is bad or that the industry is evil, but it is a business responsible for profits to it's taxpayers and it will do what it takes to sell a hamburger, period. What business strategies are used in filling the seats and drive-thru windows are what might unsettle your appetite for fast food. Although I'd like to leave the details between the covers, let me leave you with some interesting terms from the book: flavor factories, E. coli 0157:H7, USDA, high turnover, minimum wage opposition, feedlots, Congress, adolescent advertising and global realization.
Rating: 
Summary: VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS! GO ORGANIC! IT'S OUR ONLY HOPE!
Review: Eric Schlosser's riveting and sometimes terrifying book, Fast Food Nation, takes you inside the industries that make fast food invade the world, spreading disease, obesity, environmental destruction, worker exploitation, and many other imperialistic by-products. His investigative reporting style digs deep into the food production industries that have pushed family farms out of business, killed and maimed workers for higher profits, destroyed the environment of once pristine communities with huge feedlots, poultry farms, and chemically grown potatoes. And yet, the book is not all doom and gloom. He points out fast food chains like In-N-Out Burgers who pay their workers well, give them benefits, and purchase only the highest quality, fresh food. He focuses on organic beef producers like Lasater Grasslands Beef who are true stewards of the land and the wildlife. The epilogue gave me hope by mentioning Conway's Red Top in Colorado Springs, where they've taken care of their employees and used the highest quality, freshest ingredients for 50 years. Finally, Schlosser reminds us that the best way to vote for the good guys and against these destructive practices is with our dollars. As he puts it, they'd sell us ogranic food if that's what we demanded. They'd give their workers decent wages and health care if we didn't eat there otherwise. He asks us to take a good look at what, and how, we eat, and to do something about it. Support your local restarauntuers who use fresh ingredients. Eat at places that make the world a better place, not a worse one. I'll certainly be getting back to this issue. In the mean time, visit our organic gardening site to keep up with the latest on these, and other issues, that quite literally might save the world (and win valuable prizes)! supak.com
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Summary: A Wake Up Call - - What goes on behind the friendly Arches!
Review: I'm into eating meat (steaks, burgers, chicken you name it) and have never really questioned the fast-food lifestyle other than I know it's not healthy to over do it. I did not however know all the behind the scenes schemes and the overall mission for the fast/junk-food companies until I read this book. It's pretty frightening and I'm happy I read the book and have stopped frequenting those places and am so much better for it. The book goes into a complete analysis of the fast-food business and how it's related to society in general including farming, slaughterhouse regulations, marketing to children and school regulations, health related issues, globalization, corporate greed etc. The author makes this book exciting and disgusting at the same time and makes you wanna' take a stand. This is a must read for anyone interested in what's really going on behind those arches.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting reading
Review: I bought this book for my husband because he had told me it was something he thought would be interesting. I haven't read it but he did and talked about several things in the book. Without him even saying so I could tell he enjoyed it and found it interesting reading.
Rating:
Summary: Most important book of 2001
Review: This is a refreshing surprise--a modern muckraking book. Schlosser takes the fast food industry apart, piece by piece, layer by layer. By the time one has digested the impact of fast food on agricultural business, urban sprawl, meatpacking, exploitation of teenage and migrant workers, the impact on the American diet and physique (doubling of the percentage of obese Americans) seems the least significant ramification. This is an important, entirely persuasive book. 90% of all American children visit McDonalds once a month or more. What to do? The author suggests the remedy is to avoid almost all fast food restaurants. I was convinced. I have not patronized a fast food chain in the four months since I read this book. It's not often a book can change your eating habits. I have given two copies of this book as gifts; college age to seniors find it compelling.
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Summary: McBurger? Nah, I'll pass...
Review: After having read this important book, just TRY to get me to eat a fast food (or maybe even a backyard) burger! Any responsible parent who reads it would probably think twice before taking young children to fast food outlets. We Americans (and increasingly, people of other countries) have become further and further removed from any understanding of the production of the food we eat. In terms of fast food, "natural" flavors, and other aspects of the food industry, Eric Schlosser succeeds in putting us back in touch, and then some. The book covers several aspects of the industry, including its interesting origins (the irony that freewheeling, creative entrepreneurs begat corporate monstrosities), the teenage worker/students who have no life, unfortunate meatpackers, genius-level marketing to children, fast food franchises and suburban sprawl, why corporate conglomerate farms are not necessarily a good thing, and the homogenization of food culture around the world. Basically, the book describes what really goes into the preparation of the all-too-easy paper-wrapped burger, fries, and shake and what their real cost is. By far the most shocking section of the book is the description of the horrifying death of a six year old who ate a fast food burger and died from E. coli-related symptoms in less than a week. (Seems like this could easily happen to many more kids, elders, HIV patients...) I was also shocked to learn to what degree the meatpacking industry has been self-regulating since the 1980s. (And learn how McDonald's planted corporate spies among a small group of protesters in London!) Yes, there are some polemics here, but this book is too well researched and written to ignore. Before you take that next bite of a McBurger, read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: This book was great! It changed the way I think about fast food, and I have found it has actually helped to change the way I eat. I no longer feel comfortable just grabbing something from McDonalds, because I now know what's in the food, and how they are manipulating the market. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in finding out more about the story behind the counter.
Rating: 
Summary: How to lure others into talking politics.
Review: What starts off as an interesting book about the fast food industry, ends up being nothing more than a rant about Republicans and fast food companies.This book should be sold under another catagory.
Rating:
Summary: What's in YOUR burger?
Review: The content in this book is something that every American should be familiar with next time you drive up at a fast food chain. This book is a deep investigation that reaches its frightening peak in the meatpacking plants. Where you have an almost complete lack of federal oversight of a seemingly lawless industry. Fast food customers should be informed of what goes on in that "happy" meal from beginning to end. The author takes us all behind the counter where overworked and underpaid teenage workers struggle with low morale and onto the factory farms where the potatoes and beef are grown, and into the slaughterhouses run by giant meatpacking corporations. What I find most disturbing and disgusting is his description of how the industry "feeds off the young" while leaving them prone to obesity and disease. The fast food industry has become a disgrace as we have become the most obese nation in the world. In closing I would like to warmly thank Eric Schlosser for the guts he had to write such a wonderful book. His work has caused me to reject the fast food industry in its entirety as I will no longer support these arrogant corporate giants. My family and I have chosen to stay away from fast food altogether. We refuse to lose by getting blinded by the commercials on TV or their proliferation in our neighborhoods. This is a shocking, fact filled book that every American should read. The truth is there is nothing happy in your happy meal!...
Rating: 
Summary: Left-leaning sizzle
Review: Eric Schlosser has written a book everyone should read; perhaps a bit too long, for certain a bit too detailed. Many may not be able to wade through the whole thing, especially the young who, 1. hardly ever read and who, 2. already spend a disproportionate amount of time and money in such establishments. That said, it WILL make an impression and have you wondering about how frequently you should frequent fast food eateries. Me? I can only eat at a McDonald’s or Burger King or Taco Bell, etc. an average of once per month. Mama didn’t raise no fool! But doesn’t anyone with half a brain realize that eating fast food too frequently will be bad for the pocketbook and harmful to the body? Apparently not – and this tome will reveal that fact well. But be forewarned: Schlosser was commissioned to write this by Rolling Stone Magazine. His anti-conservative skirt is showing. The stabs at all things Republican are oft times apparent, other times masked, but almost always there. Eric S. is obviously a very liberal, left-leaning Big Government disciple and one will have to get through this bias in order to be able to derive anything useful from the read. It is unfortunate Schlosser had to resort to .... sensationalism in what was supposed to be a book about a real problem in America (and ever more, throughout the world). Our well-entrenched liberal media already does this sort of thing too well. I’d prefer to read my books with “just the facts” and allow me to draw to my own conclusions.
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