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Summary: You want fries with that?
Review: This book will rock your world. It's one of those works of art that make you see things differently. And you'll probably add a year or two to your life from the fast food you won't be eating as a result.
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Summary: This amazing book will open your eyes!
Review: Wow, what an incredibly thorough look at how just a few men controlling an incredible percentage of the GLOBAL agricultural and fast food indutry are destroying our children, our planet, causing unprecedented increases in global obesity rates and destroying culture after culture as they take over each and every market niche on the planet. The images this book gives of these corporations and men murdering their own workers, mostly teenagers and immigrant workers who are fired if they even use the word unionization, through their greed and complete disregard for anything but their own wallets, as well as the images of these men poisoning and killing children and adult consumers by keeping vital health safety regulation out of their industry while blatently lying about and falsifying food safety information is terrifying. From brainwashing the world's children through advertising aimed at their still forming brains into believing that Ronald McDonald "knows what's best for children" to manipulating Congress and the American people into believing that they have the public's health as a concern, this book is a must for anyone interested in the effects of McGlobalization on our health and future. For every $1 they make in profit by doubling our obesity rates every few decades, we spend $2 of tax payer money on health care for the obese in this country. Sadly, we see that to the rest of the world, America is nothing but a big fast food drive through window staffed by the ignorant, greedy and morbidly obese. But the greed won't stop there - the rest of the world should be on alert!
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Summary: A Wake Up Call For Society
Review: It isn't often that I finish a book and wish that there were more of it to read. Such was the case with Fast Food Nation. I thought there was enough material to make a book that was easily triple the length of this expose. In fact, each of the chapters could become the basis for a great book. However, Schlosser wisely knows that overwhelming the reader will not do justice to his position. Instead, he does a great job of showing the interconnectivity of the chapter topics. Each topic is supported by poignant first hand stories and a mountain of documentation. The supporting materials are just enough to deliver and validate the message without desensitizing the reader.This is a book that makes a reader angry, sad, and feeling a little used. Above all, the reader cannot remain apathetic about the role of fast food in American (and increasingly the world's) life after finishing Fast Food Nation. This book may not produce any lasting societal change. But by educating and stirring debate, it will definitely change the perceptions of those who read it.
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Summary: Interesting.
Review: I found the book, Fast Food Nation, to be well written and informative. The parts about meat processing were quite shocking, but then I guess I never thought that a slaughterhouse would be a pleasant place, so no huge surprises there. As to the E. coli contamination....I'm afraid I'm a little blase (accent missing) about that too, since there seems to be a new scare in the news about such things on a weekly basis. I always cook my meat thouroughly and hope for the best. Also people around me who eat at BK aren't dying in droves. I worked at McDonalds for a little while right after high school and didn't like it much, so I could relate to the stories about employee conformity. I'm not sure that extreme nonconformity is such a good thing though (I mean -if you're a woman you don't go into the men's room, right?). Same thing with the rigid workplace expectations; a little discipline and hard work aren't the worst things a person could face. I found the Subway story interesting. Its founder sounds like a real charleton. I do recommend the book, even though it didn't make me as emotional as it did some other reviewers. So many books nowadays are "life-changing" if you believe the summaries. Also, reading down this list, what's curious to me is that certain reviews I find to be quite insightful (having read the book) did poorly in the votes, seemingly because they do not effuse enough unbridled praise. All in all, I enjoyed the book and think it's worth the read. Oh - and yes, I'm going to cut down on the fast food. Indeed.
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Summary: Finally a book that reveals what some of us already knew....
Review: I actually have not yet read this book (I'm awaiting my copy to be shipped), but I've heard many wonderful things about. I myself am somewhat partial to the fast food industry, as I have worked for In-N-Out Burger for quite some time. It is my hopes to find at least something in this book that redeems restaurants such as mine. If you were to visit the In-N-Out meat plants you would find some of the cleanest and safest wherehouses in the country, where meat is only considered good enough to serve if it is ABOVE the highest USDA standard. In fact, some people may be interested to know that McDonald's buys our rejected meat. I just hope that American's aren't turned off to ALL fast food by this book. Yes, In-N-Out only has 153 restaurants, most of which are in California (although we have several in Nevada and Arizona), but over the last 53 years we've been expanding, and this small family owned (not franchised) restaurant chain is the (safe) future of fast food.
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Summary: Very informative book
Review: This book contains information that everybody should know, about the consequences of the change in our eating habits as a society.
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Summary: Unsettling, but compelling
Review: I don't know how many times while I was reading this book that I came accross something so astounding, so angering or so unsettling that I felt the need to read it out loud to my nearest friend. This is one of those books that is so good, so packed with facts and so compelling, that you feel the need to tell everyone you know to read it. If you do pick it up, be prepared to never look at fast food, and food in general, the same way again: if you can still eat at ... after reading it, you certainly won't be able to not think about the crap you're putting into your mouth (and that's no euphemism!) That said, the book is about more than what's in the food. It's about the the entire chain the industry effects, from those who grow the food to those who serve it to those who eat it. Highly recommended!
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Summary: You Will Not Believe What You Read
Review: I started reading this book and found the beginning to be rather dull and boring. It seemed as if it was a rehash of most of the information already published about the fast food industry. As the book progressed, the author moved to different areas that fast food is affecting and how it is doing it. At this point the book became much more interesting and contained information that left my mind reeling. And, I think he touched very well on the corporate attitude that is making humans expendable at the cost of increased stock prices and bigger dividends. If you read this book be prepared to have a strong stomach...to handle what you will learn about the meat industry, the food we eat, the fast food industry and how workers in this country are treated.
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Summary: No Place Left to Hide From The Worst of America
Review: Most of the information in this excellent book is not shocking to the converted--that is, those of us who would not be caught dead in a fast food restaurant for purely aesthetic and dietary reasons, who oppose corporate farming, who oppose the labor practices and treatment of animals in American slaughterhouses, and who oppose chain retail enterprises like Starbucks, Wal-Mart, McDonaldsBurgerKingTacoBell, and chain bookstores in principle as imposing an ugly, cheap, depressing sameness on the face of every business district in America and destroying the lives and livelihoods of innumerable local business people in the process. What was surprising to me, and particularly sad, was the revelation that our Fast Food Nation is so quickly becoming a Fast Food World. Not only can you not escape the American strip mall aesthetic by leaving town and going to the countryside here (indeed, it is even worse now in the countryside, where entire business districts of what were once unique and attractive small towns are now utterly dominated by their miles-long strip of fast food "restaurants," awful big box chain stores, and the boarded-up deteriorating facades of once-healthy mom and pop businesses and restaurants), you can't escape it by going overseas. Learning that something like 5,000 new fast food restaurants open up every year abroad made me almost physically ill. Not content to destroy family farms and local enterprises here, these chains are now changing the face of agriculture, labor relations, nutrition, architecture, advertising to children, and the more intangible and most precious aspects of community and culture, such as the tradition of the unhurried, savored family meal, in Europe, Asian, South America, and Australia as well. If you value the diversity of world cultures, and like to travel to experience them, you will be especially depressed by the information in this timely and critically important book. But, all is not lost, really. One thing the author points out is that these businesses only exist because we patronize them. This wonderful book has gotten so much good press and word of mouth that there is at least some reason to hope that those who patronize them will take their business elsewhere (at least some of the time) in the future.
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Summary: A good eye opener!
Review: I rarely eat at fast food restaurants, nor do I eat processed foods, but was intrigued to read this book. Quite an eye opener for anyone! It's horrifying how the meatpacking industry is run, and how government has closed its eyes to the situation. A well documented book and absorbing to read!
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