Rating: 
Summary: Fast food junkies beware
Review: I admit that I have eaten my fair share (and then some?) of fast food over the years. However, it was never without at least a slight twinge of guilt. Now I now why.Schlosser's treatment of the rise of the fast food industry from its modest beginnings is interesting enough. But where this book really draws you in is in its discussion of the food itself. From the repulsive conditions of the slaughterhouses to the additives that go into even the "natural flavors," I have read enough to permanently scare me off from fast food joints. And that isn't even considering the wholesale exploitation of all of the links along the fast food chain (no puns intended). My only real problem is that I wish he would have gone into even more specific details about the foods themselves. Nevertheless, I am through with fast food. Period.
Rating: 
Summary: Never say diet
Review: FFN is not "The McJungle" as you might hope. If someone still thinks fast food is good food, I doubt that person reads books. People buy fast food because it is fast, cheap, and tastes (gasp!) good. But is there some evil, subversive, hidden agenda that programs my kid's mind to crave meat products served by a clown? If you don't like the fast food industry, this book will reinforce what you already believe. If you read the book looking for evidence of *why* the fast food industry is bad, you may conclude the industry is most guilty of being successful. Schlosser's most effective points are that marketing to children can go too far and that the modern meatpacking industry needs to slow down production lines. While these are important points, the critical reader shouldn't feel guilty putting down this book and picking up a Big Mac.
Rating: 
Summary: Frightening
Review: Fast Food Nation is, on the surface, a horrifying glimpse into the workings of the fast food industry. However, the book is about much more than that. The fast food meal does not represent happiness and health, as much as these corporations want everyone to believe; it represents boundless corporate greed and a world in which only profit matters. Unfortunately, current economic trends in the world indicate that maybe "Fast Food Planet" would be a better title. The truly sad thing is that we allow all of this to go on. Overall, the book is excellent. Some parts of the reading are a little anti-Republican, which is misleading since both Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of taking corporate money. That is my only criticism.
Rating:
Summary: Whoa-time to rethink your food choices.
Review: After reading this insightful book about our country's food choices, I must say that I have pretty much sworn off fast food. Almost every meal lately has been scrutinized even if prepared by myself. We are a nation of such convenience that we never question where something came from or how it was handled. I personally have gone out and purchased some cookbooks in order to gain some control over what goes into my body. This book is full of wonderful research but I don't recommend it for the faint-hearted.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but please
Review: This book would be taken more seriously by more people if the author wasn't so obviously anti-Republican. He even criticizes architecture as "Nixon-era". This is ridiculous and waters down his very important message about what's wrong with they way we eat and even more importantly, what's wrong with America. I just think the problem is bigger and more expanisve than the Republican party. By the by, I almost always vote Democrat.
Rating:
Summary: "The Jungle" updated for the 2000's
Review: If you really love fast food, you probably shouldn't read this book. After hearing about slaughterhouse conditions, foodborne illnesses in meat, and working conditions in the fast food industry you'll have a hard time working up an appetite for the food again. Although the subject of the books sounds serious-- "The Dark Side of the All American Meal"-- the book is very readable, and carefully researched. I had expected the book to mostly be about the effects of fast food on our bodies, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book goes far beyond that to explain the effects of fast food on our souls and national landscape. The two parts that were most interesting to me were his discussion of franchising and the fast food industry and how it has shaped the California lifestyle, and his discussion of how the changing meat industries have affected small towns across the country. I live in California now, and his discussion of the California big chain store and restaurant culture is dead accurate. I grew up in a small town in Utah, and his analysis of the way that the fast food industry has affected the meat industry is sadly also very true. He describes how it's difficult now for a small farm to make money raising beef, and describes the social changes that hit a small town when the local beef processing plants hires temporary illiterate workers. This is a book that will make you think and give you a chance to change your own behavior in a meaningful way.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic (and scary) stuff
Review: I picked up this book to read about the evils of the fast food industry, something I have deemed "corporate America at its worst" for a long time. What I read was far more stomach turning than I ever expected. From the section on Ray Kroc (a despicable man who stated that if his competitor were drowning, he'd stick a hose in his mouth), through the horrendous treatment of both animals and workers at the corporate slaughterhouses, to the littering of not only the U.S. countryside, but the world, with fast food establishments, you will be both engrossed and grossed out by what is going on beneath the golden arches and beyond. This is a book everyone should read, parents should read twice, and should be required school reading. That alone would be a good start in straightening out corporate America, our polluted food supply, and the health of our general population. If you aren't a vegetarian by the time you finish reading this, I will be amazed. Buy it, read it, share it. Just don't eat while you're reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Despite all the hype, a big disappointment
Review: I originally purchased this book because of the interesting topic and the glowing reviews on amazon. Upon reading this book, I was extremely disappointed by the contents. I expected a higher level of reading - this book can be read by those of an eighth grade education; fifth grade even. It relies on too many anecedotes and information that's already passed around by animal rights activists, urban myths, and health conscious people. What's positive about this book is that it makes you actively conscious of the contents of processed foods - and that's always a plus. If you're going to buy it, wait until it comes out in paperback.
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Summary: Welcome to Dachau
Review: " said the leaflets, `and welcome to McDonald's.'" Among other gut-churning information in this must-read book about the far reaches and ramifications of U.S fast food is the story of the Dachau McDonald's: "the golden arches have become so commonplace in Germany [and the rest of the world] that they seem almost invisible. You don't notice them unless you're looking for them, or feeling hungry. One German McDonald's, however, stands out from the rest. It sits on a nondescript street in a new shopping complex not far from Dachau, the first concentration camp opened by the Nazis... In 1997, protests were staged against the opening of a McDonald's so close to a concentration camp where gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, and political opponents of the Nazis were imprisoned, where Luftwaffe scientists performed medical experiments on inmates and roughly 30,000 people died. The McDonald's Corporation denied that it was trying to profit from the Holocaust and said the restaurant was at least a mile from the camp. After the curator of the Dachau Museum complained that McDonald's was distributing thousands of [these] leaflets among tourists in the camp's parking lot, the company halted the practice." (p. 233, in the Chapter entitled "Global Realization.") The callousness of the Fast Food Industry is further illuminated by tales of farmers and workers regarded as merely interchangeable cogs in the "food-industrial complex." The book itself is easily digestible- the food is not. Here is author Eric Schlosser's description of the pervasiveness of the issues: "Far from being inevitable, America's fast food industry in its present form is the logical outcome of certain political and economic choices. In the potato fields and processing plants of Idaho, in the ranchlands east of Colorado Springs, in the feedlots and slaughterhouses of the High Plains, you can see the effects of fast food on the nation's rural life, its environment, its workers, and its health. The fast food chains now stand atop a huge food-industrial complex that has gained control of American agriculture. During the 1980's, large multinationals - such as Cargill, ConAgra, and IBP - were allowed to dominate one commodity market after another. Farmers and cattle ranchers are losing their independence, essentially becoming hired hands for the agribusiness giants or being forced off the land. Family farms are now being replaced by gigantic corporate farms with absentee owners. Rural communities are losing their middle class and becoming socially stratified, divided between a small, wealthy elite and large numbers of the working poor. Small towns that seemingly belong in a Norman Rockwell painting are being turned into rural ghettos. The hardy, independent farmers whom Thomas Jefferson considered the bedrock of American democracy are a truly vanishing breed. The United States now has more prison inmates than full-time farmers. The fast food chains' vast purchasing power and their demand for a uniform product have encouraged fundamental changes in how cattle are raised, slaughtered, and processed into ground beef. These changes have made meatpacking - once a highly skilled, highly paid occupation - into the most dangerous job in the United States, performed by armies of poor, transient immigrants whose injuries often go unrecorded and uncompensated. And the same meat industry practices that endanger these workers have facilitated the introduction of deadly pathogens, such as E. coli 0157:H7 into America's hamburger meat, a food aggressively marketed to children." (p. 8-9) One of the most succinct and effective clauses this reader has ever read ends the following almost-indecipherable-to-the-non-scientist paragraph in the Chapter "What's in the Meat": "The newly recognized foodborne pathogens tend to be carried and shed by apparently healthy animals. Food tainted by these organisms has most likely come in contact with an infected animal's stomach contents or manure, during slaughter or subsequent processing. A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that 7.5 percent of the ground beef samples taken at processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7 percent were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, 30 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and 53.3 percent were contaminated with Clostridium perfringens. All of these pathogens can make people sick: food poisoning caused by Listeria generally requires hospitalization and proves fatal in about one out of every five cases. In the USDA study 78.6 percent of the ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material. The medical literature on the causes of food poisoning is full of euphemisms and dry scientific terms; coliform levels, aerobic plate counts, sorbitol, MacConkey agar, and so on. Behind them lies a simple explanation for why eating a hamburger can now make you seriously ill: There is s**t in the meat." (p. 197) [I had to ask Vanna to remove a consonant and a vowel from the common visceral word actually found in the text so as to enable this review to be accepted for posting here.] Then the author explains that Fast Food burger is actually safer than that found in many supermarkets and school lunch programs - because the Fast Food chains now require stricter standards of the packers whose methods they inspired - and schools and supermarkets get the leftovers. Not because the Fast Food folks truly care about consumers, but because of the fear of lawsuits from heirs of deceased consumers. Think of the haunting picture of 6 year old Alex Donley, victim of the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, facing the "What's in the Meat?' chapter the next time you cruise through a Drive-through.
Rating:
Summary: A Delicious Read!!
Review: Many adjectives can describe this book. Some I would use are educational, informative, insightful, and riveting. The book details the origins and growth of the fast food industry, and the socioeconomic impact. You will be taken completely through the industry as a whole, including all of the peripheral industries involved with fast food. I would bet you never thought much about how that burger or how those fries came to be. Your eyes will be opened to things you probably never considered. The author does a terrific job explaining the true cost of fast food to society as a whole, the human cost most of all. No matter where you live; from the mountains or plains or suburbs or urban centers of America, this book is highly relevant and worthwhile. Fast food not only touches all of our lives, but has impacted our lives more than we know. If you ever read one book related to the food you eat, make this the one.
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