Fast Food Nation��The Dark Side Of The All-American Meal - Review

FAST FOOD NATION--THE DARK SIDE OF THE ALL-AMERICAN MEAL

By Eric Schlosser

The statistics speak for themselves: last year, Americans shelled out more than $110 billion on fast food--more than they spent on higher education, computers, or new cars. McDonald's operates about twenty-eight thousand restaurants worldwide and opens two thousand more every year. Fast food chains collectively spend about $3 billion annually on television advertising, most of it directed at children. Meatpacking is the most dangerous job in the US, even with many of the injuries going unreported.

Finally, a well-researched and trenchant expose of the fast food industry is causing a stir in American media circles. While several worthwhile books have been written in recent years about the broader social implications of a meat-centered diet (Erik Marcus' Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating, Gail Eisnitz's Slaughterhouse, and Howard Lyman's Mad Cowboy, to name a few), none has been greeted more warmly by the mainstream press than Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. An award-winning, non-vegetarian journalist for the Atlantic Monthly, Schlosser cannot be accused of harboring any ulterior motives or hidden agendas--he admits that he ate much of the food he writes about while researching the book.

All the accolades are quite well-deserved. The material is thoroughly researched, much of it stemming from the numerous firsthand accounts and interviews that Schlosser conducted while traveling around the country, from the flavor factories of New Jersey to the slaughterhouses of Nebraska. Equally impressive is the author's writing style, which is always compelling as he mixes personal stories with well-documented and interesting information.

Schlosser doesn't pull any punches, explaining in gory detail exactly what lies behind the success of Happy Meals and other fast food creations. He devotes much of his attention to McDonald's, the company whose pioneering food processing techniques gave rise to a modern industry. Today McDonald's is the country's largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes, and it's the second biggest purchaser of chicken--which you might expect. What you may not know is that it's also the largest owner of retail property in the world and that it operates more playgrounds than any other private entity in the United States. Even more telling for its impact on young people, Ronald McDonald was found to be one of the most recognizable fictional characters among a group of American schoolchildren, second only to Santa Claus.

What I appreciate most about Fast Food Nation is the author's effort to cover a broad range of social issues and show how they're all connected. For example, he ties the industry's incredibly rapid growth to the development of the nation's highway system. He also reveals how the industry infiltrates schools and forms strong partnerships with companies like Disney and other media conglomerates, all in a clever and very successful effort to get children to clamor for its products.

Schlosser also dedicates a significant portion of the book to an issue that tends not to get much attention: labor. He covers the plight of the unskilled restaurant workers, as well as the fate of those suffering under horrific conditions in the slaughterhouses, all the while explaining how a mammoth and powerful industry is keeping improved government oversight at bay. Finally, he explains how the industry lobbies to keep down the minimum wage.

The one issue clearly missing is the plight of the nine billion factory-farmed animals killed each year, largely for the fast food industry. While this is an odd omission, even for a non-vegetarian author, the book is still extremely worthwhile and sure to open anybody's eyes, even those already knowledgeable about the subject. Fast Food Nation is an excellent read, and I highly recommend it.

Fast Food Nation (ISBN 0-395-97789-4) is published by Houghton Mifflin Company. The 356-page book retails for $25 and can be found in bookstores.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Vegetarian Resource Group
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group